Mythology of the Factive

Turri, J. (2011). Mythology of the factive. Logos & Episteme, 2(1), 143–152.

It’s a cornerstone of epistemology that knowledge requires truth — that is, that knowledge is factive. Allan Hazlett boldly challenges orthodoxy by arguing that the ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive. On this basis Hazlett further argues that epistemologists shouldn’t concern themselves with the ordinary concept of knowledge, or knowledge ascriptions and related linguistic phenomena. I argue that either Hazlett is wrong about the ordinary concept of knowledge, or he’s right in a way that leaves epistemologists to carry on exactly as they have, paying attention to much the same things they always did.