Knowing, Checking, and Other Epistemic Standings

The project is a follow up project to the FWF stand alone project The Skeptical Perspective, 2016- 2020. In this project, Guido Melchior authored a monograph Knowing and Checking: An Epistemological Investigation, Routledge 2019 (KC), which accomplishes three major tasks: (1) It breaks new ground by developing the first thorough epistemic theory of checking. (2) It provides a novel explanation of enduring epistemological problems, such as the skeptical problem, via a theory of checking instead of, as is the usual strategy, by a theory of knowledge. (3) It settles a lively debate in epistemology by arguing that sensitivity is necessary for checking but not for knowing, thereby finding a new home for the much-discussed modal sensitivity principle. This follow up project will further develop the novel approach elaborated in KC along various dimensions, it will further establish this approach as a self-contained theory, extend it to cover other epistemic phenomena such as discriminating and testing, and develop the methodological approach of KC into a full-fleshed meta-epistemological account. The main research goals of this project are: (1) To compare the central views of KC with rival accounts and to defend them against existing and future objections; (2) To find further applications of the sensitivity principle, including theories of discriminating and testing; (3) To develop in more detail the methodological account of knowledge-last epistemology applied in KC. Accordingly, this research project accomplishes three major tasks: (1) It further establishes and defends the sensitivity account of checking as a self-contained theory; (2) It provides original sensitivity-based theories of discriminating and of testing; (3) It develops a novel meta-epistemological account, labelled knowledge-last epistemology.