Wallbridge Kevin
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh, 3 Charles st, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD UK.
Philosophia (Ramat Gan). 2017;45(2):835-841. doi: 10.1007/s11406-016-9782-z. Epub 2016 Nov 14.
In a recent paper, Melchior pursues a novel argumentative strategy against the sensitivity condition. His claim is that sensitivity suffers from a 'heterogeneity problem:' although some higher-order beliefs are knowable, other, very similar, higher-order beliefs are insensitive and so not knowable. Similarly, the conclusions of some bootstrapping arguments are insensitive, but others are not (and since one motivation for endorsing the sensitivity condition was to provide an explanation of what goes wrong in bootstrapping arguments, this motivation is undermined). In reply, I show that sensitivity does not treat different higher-order beliefs differently in the way that Melchior states and that while genuine bootstrapping arguments have insensitive conclusions, the cases that Melchior describes as sensitive 'bootstrapping' arguments don't deserve the name, since they are a perfectly good way of getting to know their conclusions. In sum, sensitivity doesn't have a heterogeneity problem.
在最近的一篇论文中,梅尔基奥尔针对敏感性条件提出了一种新颖的论证策略。他声称,敏感性存在一个“异质性问题”:尽管一些高阶信念是可知的,但其他非常相似的高阶信念却不敏感,因此是不可知的。同样,一些引导式论证的结论不敏感,但其他结论并非如此(而且由于支持敏感性条件的一个动机是解释引导式论证中出问题的地方,所以这个动机被削弱了)。作为回应,我表明敏感性并非像梅尔基奥尔所说的那样以不同方式对待不同的高阶信念,并且虽然真正的引导式论证有不敏感的结论,但梅尔基奥尔描述为敏感的“引导式”论证的那些情况并不名副其实,因为它们是了解其结论的一种很好的方式。总之,敏感性不存在异质性问题。