Contrafactives and facts for knowledge

Abstract Holton (2017) draws on the observation that no natural language has a contrafactive to argue that the object of knowledge is a fact. I fill in Holton’s argument sketch by asking how the truth and falsity presuppositions of, respectively, know and a contrafactive could arise. I defuse previous objections to his argument sketch, but, in the final section, suggest that Holton’s argument fails because presupposition triggering requires less than his argument assumes.

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Publication Details

Journal
Linguistics and Philosophy
Published
2026-07-24
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-026-09465-z
Primary Topic
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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Contrafactives and facts for knowledge

Simon Wimmer
Linguistics and Philosophy
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
article

Contrafactives and facts for knowledge

Simon Wimmer
article en

Abstract

Abstract Holton (2017) draws on the observation that no natural language has a contrafactive to argue that the object of knowledge is a fact. I fill in Holton’s argument sketch by asking how the truth and falsity presuppositions of, respectively, know and a contrafactive could arise. I defuse previous objections to his argument sketch, but, in the final section, suggest that Holton’s argument fails because presupposition triggering requires less than his argument assumes.

Linguistics and Philosophy
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (DE)
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
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