Online Papers on Fitch's Knowability Paradox

NEWS: As of 1 August 2007, I will be relocated to the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Department of Philosophy.  I expect to lose the ability to update this particular website address with my departure from Ohio State University; but I plan to maintain and update this webpage on UAH's server (under a new web address), as soon as I figure out the procedure for doing so there.  

(These papers are preprints or penultimate drafts -- sometimes just drafts. Consult the actual publications for official versions.)

Do you know of other relevant papers freely available online? Please email the information to "jones DOT 1736 AT osu DOT edu". Thanks in advance!

Johan van Benthem, What One May Come to Know [PDF], Analysis

That all truths are knowable can, and sometimes does, fail, due to the ways in which we learn new information.

Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno, Fitch's Paradox of Knowability, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2004)

Survey of proposals to resolve the knowability paradox.

Berit Brogaard, On Keeping Blue Swans and Unknowable Facts at Bay: A Case Study on Fitch’s Paradox [PDF]

Fitch-like paradoxes are not only a threat for semantic anti-realism. They also threaten other forms of anti-realism, and in particular strong modal fictionalism. This paper develops a paradox for strong modal fictionalism.

Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno, Knowability and the Closure Principle [PDF], American Philosophical Quarterly 43:3 (2006)

This is a study of an alleged incompatibility (proposed by Sven Rosenkranz) between normal modal logic and factive conceptions of knowability.

Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno, Knowability, Possibility, and Paradox [PDF], New Waves in Epistemology, eds. V. Hendricks and D. Pritchard

Quantified expressions play a special role in modal contexts. On the account of this special role articulated by Stanley and Szabo, we propose a solution to the knowability paradoxes.

Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno, Clues to the paradox of knowability: reply to Dummett and Tennant[PDF], Analysis 62:2 (2002)

The paper develops some new paradoxes of knowability that, unlike Fitch's original paradox, are not blocked by the restricted brands of semantic anti-realism advocated by Dummett and Tennant.

John Burgess, Can Truth Out? [DOC], New Essays on Fitch's paradox, ed. Joe Salerno

A discussion of the temporal analogue of Fitch's paradox of knowability, ending with an application to the original paradox.

Roy Cook, Knights Knaves and Unknowable Truths [PDF], Analysis 66 (2006)

Constructive considerations in favor of the claim that there could be an unknown truth.

Cesare Cozzo, Epistemic Truth and Excluded Middle [PDF]

Can an epistemic conception of truth and the endorsement of excluded middle cohabitate in a plausible philosophical position?  The short answer: Yes.

Alexandre Costa-Leite, Combining Possibility and Knowledge: A Two-Dimensional Approach to Fitch's paradox [PDF]

An attempt to construct a knowability modality (that combines possibility and knowledge). Provides a semantic interpretation and axiom system. The system -- LK -- is shown to be sound and complete with respect to its class of modal-epistemic product models.

Alexandre Costa-Leite, Fusions of Modal Logics and Fitch's Paradox [PDF], Croatian Journal of Philosophy 6:17 (2006).

The correct modal logic in which to state Fitch's paradox is composed by a fusion of modal frames and a fusion of modal languages and logics.

Alexandre Costa-Leite, Walter Carnielli, and Marcelo Coniglio, Paraconsistency and Knowability [PDF], forthcoming 2006.

Develops a paraconsistent version of normal modal logic -- called Ci -- that (i) is non-explosive when there are contradictory modal formulas and (ii) permits the recovery of all classical modal reasoning. Shows that this logic avoids the knowability paradox.

Nancy Davies, Fitch's Proof: Intuitionistic Logic as a Motivation for Paraconsistent solutions to the proof [DOC]

A discussion of paraconsistent solutions to the knowability paradox.

Igor Douven, Review of Jonathan Kvanvig's The Knowability Paradox [PDF], Ars Disputandi: The Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 8 July 2006.

What it says.

Trent Dougherty, Against Williamson on Intuitionism and Anti-Realism [PDF]

Criticism of Williamson's solution to the knowability paradox, on the basis that intuitionistic logic is inappropriate for empirical discourse.

Michael Fara, The Paradox of Believability [PDF]

Fitch's paradox of knowability does not depend essentially on the factivity of knowledge. A structurally similar paradox can be generated for the non-factive attitude of belief. The key to solving this paradox consists in recognizing a semantic distinction between "S could believe p" and "It could be that S believes p".

Branden Fitelson, The Logical Generality of Williamson's "Fitch-Like" Modal Triviality [PDF]

Stephen Hetherington, A Dissolution of the Knowability Paradox [PDF]

The knowability paradox dissolves once we realize that knowledge is fallible (as opposed to infallible).

Carrie Jenkins, Anti-Realism and Epistemic Accessibility [PDF], Philosophical Studies

Argues that Fitch's 'paradox' of knowability need not be regarded as a (particular) problem for mind-dependence anti-realism, once that doctrine is properly formalized.

Carrie Jenkins, The Mystery of the Disappearing Diamond [PDF], New Essays on Fitch's paradox, eds. Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno

Addresses the question of why we find Fitch's proof surprising.

Carrie Jenkins, Review of Jonathan Kvanvig's The Knowability Paradox [pdf]

Book review.

Cristoph Kelp and Duncan Pritchard, Anti-Realism Factivity and Fitch [PDF], New Essays on Fitch's paradox, eds. Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno

Proposes a solution to the knowability paradox that weakens the factivity principle for knowledge.

Jonathan Kvanvig, The Knowability Paradox and the Prospects for Anti-Realism

The knowability paradox trades on ignoring the indexical character of quantifiers.

Jonathan Kvanvig, Restriction Strategies for Knowability: Lessons in False Hope [PDF]

Restriction-strategies for solving the knowability paradox are non-starters.

Jonathan Kvanvig, The Incarnation and the Knowability Paradox [PDF]

Traditional doctrine about the incarnation of Jesus -- that he was an individual who exemplified two natures, one human and one divine -- has a special stake in the knowability paradox; and this is a severe disadvantage for the view.

Jonathan Kvanvig, Tennant on Knowability

Jonathan Kvanvig, Unknowable Truths and the Doctrine of Omniscience

Sten Lindstrom, Situations Truth and Knowability -- A Situation-Theoretic Analysis of a Paradox by Fitch [PDF], Action, Language, and Cognition, eds. Ejerhed and Lindstrom (1993)

Fitch's paradox may be avoided by keeping track of the situation in which a certain state of knowledge obtains as well as the situation which that state is about. Also compares this proposal to similar ones by Edgington and Rabinowicz/Segerberg.

Guido Löhrer, Possible Proofs and Methods in Metaphysics [PDF], in Reality and Possibility--Metaphysics and Logic, eds. Rott and Horák (2003): 205-236.

From an intuitionist point of view, our world consists of everything that we have done.  Focusing on epistemology, this amounts to the assertion that our world consists of everything that we have proved.  Roughly speaking, proof turns method into metaphysics.  On the one hand, this position will have the problem of omniscience (Fitch's argument).  On the other , actual limitations of our knowledge would make the world appear limited in a way that the world and knowledge would have to develop pari passu.  In order to avoid both consequences, modalizing of the conception of proof seems required.  It is the author's purpose to investigate whether this correction leads to a consistent picture.

Peter Pagin, Knowledge of Proofs [PDF]

If anti-realists accept the existence of proofs that are in principle unknowable, then any reasons for rejecting classical logic in favor of intuitionistic logic will also be reasons against intuitionism.

Wlodek Rabinowicz and Krister Segerberg, Actual Truth Possible Knowledge [PDF]

Crticism of Edgington's proposed solution to the knowability paradox, and proposal for a refinement of Edgington's solution.

Greg Restall, Not Every Truth Can Be Known (at least, not all at once) [PDF]

Weakens the knowability principle to read: for every truth p there is a collection of truths such that (i) each of them is knowable and (ii) their conjunction is equivalent to p. This weakened thesis avoids the knowability paradox.

Helge Ruckert, A Solution to Fitch's Paradox of Knowability [PDF]

Solves the knowability paradox by distinguishing between subjunctive and indicative subjunctive conditionals and using Wehmeier's modal logic with subjunctive marker.

Joe Salerno, Who Discovered Fith's Paradox and Why Won't It Go Away? [PDF], Pacific Division APA (2006)

The paper argues that a natural restriction on the principle, all truths are knowable, fails to prevent versions of Fitch's paradox. Along the way I share some archived material that discloses the identity of the anonymous referee who conveyed the paradox to Fitch in 1945.

Joe Salerno, Knowability Noir: 1945-1963 [PDF]

This paper reveals the identity of the anonymous referee who conveyed the paradox to Fitch in 1945. It also discusses how the knowability paradox fits into Fitch's longer paper.

Joe Salerno, Introduction to New Essays on the Knowability Paradox [PDF]

What it says. Also check out Salerno's blog Knowability -- devoted to issues in the philosophy of modal epistemic logic. And you can read Archival Documentation about the origins of the paradox.

Neil Tennant, Revamping the Restriction Strategy [PDF], New Essays on the Knowability Paradox, ed. Joe Salerno

Revision of Tennant's (1997) restriction strategy for solving the knowability paradox and for avoiding an analogous paradox that appeals to the KK-thesis.

Neil Tennant, Victor Vanquished [PDF], preprint for Analysis 62:2 (2002)

Criticism of Michael Dummett's restriction strategy for solving the knowability paradox.

Neil Tennant, Is Every Truth Knowable? Reply to Williamson [PDF], Ratio XIV:3 (2001)

Rebuttal of Williamson's criticism of Tennant's (1997) restriction strategy for solving the knowability paradox.

Neil Tennant, Is Every Truth Knowable? Reply to Hand and Kvanvig [PDF], Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79:1 (2001)

Rebuttal of Hand and Kvanvig's criticism of Tennant's (1997) restriction strategy for solving the knowability paradox.

Neil Tennant, Anti-Realist Aporias [PDF], Mind 109:436 (2000)

A variety of inconsistent triads of claims, each of which involves one claim acceptable to realists, one acceptable to anti-realists, and one neutral between realists and anti-realists.

Heinrich Wansing, Diamonds are a philosopher's best friends - The knowability paradox and modal epistemic relevance logic [PDF]

Constructs a paraconsistent constructive relevant modal epistemic logic with strong negation that allows one to avoid the knowability paradox.

Timothy Williamson, Tennant's Troubles [PDF], New Essays on the Knowability Paradox, ed. Joe Salerno

Criticism of Neil Tennant's proposed solution to the knowability paradox.

Elia Zardini, Truth Demonstration and Knowledge: A Solution to the Paradox of Knowability [PDF]

There is a way to capture the anti-realist connection between truth and our ability to recognize truth that does not fall prey to the knowability paradox.

Elia Zardini, If Every (True) Proposition is Knowable, Then Every Believed (Decidable) Proposition is True [PDF]

The intuitionist solution to the knowability paradox is incomplete.

Brought to you by Nicholaos Jones

Back