An Acquaintance-Based Solution to Smith's Epistemological Challenge?

Sarah McGrath (Princeton University )

ACQUAINTANCE NETWORK ONLINE SEMINAR

"An Acquaintance-Based Solution to Smith’s Epistemological Challenge?" Sarah McGrath (Princeton)

Friday, October 30 11:00 am - 1:00 pm (Princeton) / 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm (Brussels)

The Acquaintance Network is an international philosophy research group devoted to the study of acquaintance: the relation of conscious awareness that we bear to the things we experience most directly. The network brings together researchers working on the metaphysics, epistemology, value, and history of acquaintance, with the aim of supporting current research and promoting future work on the topic. 

Abstract

One version of J.L. Mackie’s argument from queerness concerns the queer “because.” We take ourselves to know claims of the form: this act “is wrong because it is a piece of deliberate cruelty.” Mackie asked: “just what in the world is signified by this ‘because’? And how do we know the relation that it signifies?” Michael Smith sharpened the second question into a dilemma for the non-naturalist: such knowledge is either a posteriori or a priori. The former option is obviously wrong, and the latter is unavailable to the non-naturalist. But Smith’s dilemma presupposes that, if non-naturalism is true, our knowledge of the queer “because” must be inferential. I argue that there are non-inferential routes available to the non-naturalist.

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