Philosophical Issues, 21, The Epistemology of Perception, 2011

ON A FORM OF SKEPTICAL ARGUMENT FROM POSSIBILITY1

Rogers Albritton Deceased. Long at Harvard and UCLA

I. I have been intermittently obsessed for years with a certain form of skeptical argument from possibility, as I will say. The idea of it is ancient and familiar. Its that anythings possible, as we say, so you never know, as we also say. Anythings possible, so you never know. More expansively: you can always or practically always be wrong; but if you know, you cant be wrong; so, you never or practically never know. Thats it, really, wrapped up in old newspaper and string. You may wonder what this package could contain that wasnt rightly thrown out long ago. J.L. Austin dealt with it in 1946, for example, in a section of Other Minds headed If I know I cant be wrong, and one might suppose that he had gotten rid of it forever. But you will gather that I dont think he did, brilliant as that essay was and is. Three preliminary points: (1) That if you know, you cant be wrong might mean only that you cant both know and be wrong. From this generally agreed necessity that what you know be true, no necessity follows, of course, that what you know be a necessary truth or anything of the kind. Nor does the argument from possibility turn on any such modal fallacy or confusion. The principle of itthat if you know, you cant be wrongis, rather, this: that if, clearly, you may be wrong that p, you dont know that p. If you have been looking into the question whether p or not, and its looking as if p, but some possibility remains that not-p, then you dont yet know that p. Or if it isnt that youve been looking into the question, but youve heard that p, or you seem to remember that p, or youve always taken it for granted that pnever mind how you got it into your head that pand you have to admit that you may be wrong (you arent certain), then you dont know that p. You cant say, or think, Well, of course Im not certain that p, but all the same,

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I know that p. Or: Well, youre right, of course, I may be wrong, but I dont only think that p, I know it. No such paradox can be the truth of the matter. Thats the principle of the argument, which then proceeds to urge in one way and another that you are seldom if ever in a position to reject, on sober consideration, that perhaps, just possibly, not-p, even where you would in everyday practical life have said you knew that p without a moments hesitation, or would have thought you must know it if you know anything at all. That you thus may be wrong in thinking just about anything you think (or might be wrong, or could be wrong, where those are weaker versions of the relevant may be) can be argued from the contingent limitations of human faculties and powers, and of the epistemic perspective of any such human individual as yourself, and from the actual history, as we suppose, of human error: not only mistake, but illusion and delusion, including of course individual illusion and delusion: optical illusions, hallucinations, dreams, madness. The usual skeptical repertoire. Or it may be argued from some exemplary thing or things that you, in particular, would have thought you knew: is it impossible, strictly speaking, that Michelangelo only pretended to be painting the Sistine chapel and nobody noticed because. . .and so forth? Can you say that no such thing could possibly go undiscovered or be kept quiet? Well then, its possiblethere isnt no chancethat somebody else painted that ceiling, and so you dont actually know who painted it, do you? Is it impossible that someone should be convinced, at least for a time, that his name is Rogers Albritton when actually its something else? Surely that might happen to someone. Why not to you? Is it impossible that it has happened? Are you quite certain? On what ground? Whats so special about you? Couldnt such a thing be a complete surprise? And so on. And then you are invited to generalize from the exemplary cases. (2) There is no appeal to mere logical possibility in the argument from possibility. The possibilities it alleges, from which it deduces rightly or wrongly that you dont know much, are such possibilities as that someone may be under the bed, or just might be under the bed. They are epistemic possibilities, as we may say, remote, perhaps, or bare or faint, certainly not necessarily live or strongindeed, probably negligible, or typically neglected, at any rate, unless a lot turns on ruling them outbut not merely logical or the like. And not whats currently called metaphysical, either. If that object is a weather balloon then it metaphysically couldnt have been a flying saucer, perhaps; but for all that, it may be a flying saucer, in the relevant sense, unless for example it cant be because flying saucers are grounded on Tuesdays. (Must has the same sort of sense, of course. It must be a flying saucer.) I used to think that epistemic may and cant and must had no future or past tenses, but they have past tenses, at least: Didnt I say it might be here? Here it is. Or: Well, it isnt here, but still, it might have been, you were perfectly right to think it might be. Or: What

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a waste of time, looking here. I told you it couldnt be here. Oh, here it is. All right, I was wrong. That it is here proves that whoever said it might be was right, I think, however groundless his hunch that it might be was, and it also proves that whoever said it couldnt be was wrong, however obvious it seemed that he was right; but it does not prove that whoever said it might not be was wrong, or that whoever said it had to be was right. (3) Fred Dretske and, later, Robert Nozick have urged in print that the set of things you know not only is not closed under logical implication, as Nozick puts it, but also is not closed under logical implication that is evident to you. That you are awake logically implies that you are not dreaming, and that implication is no doubt evident to you. But it doesnt follow that you dont know youre awake unless you also know youre not dreaming. If thats true, as I think it may well be, it looks as if it ought to be a great help in bashing philosophical skepticism. It is, however, no help in combatting the argument from possibility, which does not rely on any principle of epistemic closure. Modal closure can come into convincing you that most things you thought you knew, taken one by one, may be false. (Do you know where you were born? Isnt it possible that your parents lied, for unknown reasons, in telling you you were born there? Well then, its possible that you werent born there after all.) Modal closure, however, unlike epistemic closure, seems undeniable under any kind of implication, whether evident to anyone or not. If given that not-q, not-p, and if perhaps not-q, then at least perhaps not-p, or if just conceivably (epistemic just conceivably) not-q, then just conceivably, at least, not-p. The only role of urging that you dont know youre not dreaming, in an argument from possibility, is to make room for the allegation that you may be. It doesnt of course follow, if you dont know you arent dreaming, that you may be, even from your point of view, much less from our point of view. But if you dont know you arent dreaming, then you are at least deprived of that defense against the suggestion that you may be, and you will be hard put to come up with any other. To all this, epistemic closure and nonclosure are irrelevant.

II. Now for Austin. He says in Other Minds:

When you know you cant be wrong is perfectly good sense. You are prohibited from saying I know it is so, but I may be wrong, just as you are prohibited from saying I promise I will, but I may fail. If you are aware that you may be mistaken, you ought not to say you know, just as, if you are aware you may break your word, you have no business to promise. But of course, being aware that you may be mistaken doesnt mean merely being aware that you are a fallible human being: it means that you have some concrete reason to suppose that you may be

4 Rogers Albritton mistaken in this case. Just as but I may fail does not mean merely but I am a weak human being (in which case it would be no more exciting than adding D.V.): it means that there is some concrete reason for me to suppose that I shall break my word. It is naturally always possible (humanly possible) that I may be mistaken or may break my word, but that by itself is no bar against using the expressions I know and I promise as we do in fact use them. (1946: 170)

Thus Austin. You are prohibited, you ought not, you have no business, he says, as if the trouble with I know it is so, but I may be wrong or I promise I will, but I may fail were a species of naughtiness. But it isnt, as I suppose he might agree. Its a species of what could quite naturally be called contradiction even in the case of I promise I will, but I may fail, which, as he taught us, isnt as propositional as it looks. I promise I will in its promising use (which isnt, of course, its only use) doesnt say anything true or false, as Ill put it for short. I know it is so, on the other hand, has every appearance of doing just that: saying a true or false thing, like Daddy knows best, and not just saying that whatever is in question is so, either. Even It is so, I know, with I know parenthetical, in Urmsons term for such clauses, seems not to say only that it is so. I know it is so, at any rate, makes a strongly propositional impression; and I know it is so, but I may be wrong might, therefore, be a contradiction narrowly so called, for all Austin has told us to the contrary. Of course, propositional appearances can be false, or so we nervously think now, and one might well wonder if I may be wrong is as propositional as it looks, even if I know it is so is. But all the same, it seems fair to say that both I know it is so, but I may be wrong and I promise I will, but I may fail are cut out, absurdly, for a kind of self-contradiction. I cant quite honestly promise that I will keep our rendezvous if I think I may die on the way there, and thats logic, as it were, not morals. I promise to be there, but I may be unable to get there cancels itself, however useful it might rhetorically be for some purpose. And the same goes for I know it is so, but I may be wrong, which cancels itself as smartly as I know it is so, but I dont or I know it is so, but for all I know it isnt. Or so it seems to me. Austin doesnt actually deny anything Ive said thus far, to be sure, and perhaps he wouldnt. Instead he rather breezily writes as if it werent the point, or didnt matter. But why doesnt it, if it doesnt? To be sure, one feels dimly that it cant matter, that contradiction or no contradiction one just does know all sorts of things even though one may be wrong as to practically any of them. Thinking practically anything is risky, and thinking you know it is riskier; life is risk, and nevertheless we know a lot. Dont we? Even if you cant say that while you may be wrong and it may be that France is not in Europe, nevertheless you know that it is: isnt that exactly the position, whether you can say so or not? It is naturally always possible, Austin says with the parenthetical gloss humanly possible, that I may be

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mistaken. Earlier on the same page he is a little more cautious: we seem always, or practically always, liable to be mistaken (my emphasis). How true, one thinks. We are practically always liable to be mistaken, maybe even always. Its our condition. But weve known that for centuries, havent we? And yet we go right on saying we know it, and a lot else. So, we do. After all, the sun does rise and set, since we continue to say so even now that we know (as we suppose) the astronomical facts of the matter. The meaning of what we say conforms itself to what we know. How could it not? So even though you may be wrong, you know, often enough; unless perhaps you may well be wrong, which might be a bit much. But even knowing in the teeth of a strong possibility of mistake may be manageable. Who knows? The meaning of know must be rather relaxed by now. Perhaps its very relaxed, and we know even more than we think! But then, as one thinks it all over in this not altogether cheering way, trying to cozy up to it that knowing neednt after all be knowing, so to speak, one does feel the need of explaining away somehow that I know it is so, but I may be wrong seems no less unutterable with a straight face than if we hadnt long ago given up the quest for certainty, whenever we did that. And there, Austin is not very helpful. If you are aware that you may be mistaken, you ought not to say you know, he says. That is, I suppose, you will be lying if you door would Austin not admit that? In any case, he goes on, after another distracting parallel with I promise: But of course, being aware that you may be mistaken doesnt mean merely being aware that you are a fallible human being: it means that you have some concrete reason to suppose that you may be mistaken in this case. Just as but I may fail does not mean merely but I am a weak human being. . .: it means that there is some concrete reason to suppose that I shall break my word. Is Austin suggesting that the sentence or clause I may be mistaken or I may be wrong means, in some contexts, that there is concrete reason to suppose that I may be? It doesnt, of course. All it means is that one may be mistaken, or may be wrong. But perhaps the point is that one gives people to understand by saying the sentence, and leaving it at that, that one does have some concrete reason to suppose that one may be mistaken or wrong, in the case at hand. If so, that implicature, in Grices term, should be easy to cancel. Like this: I know he is honest. But I may be mistaken. I have no concrete reason, in this case, to suppose that I may be mistaken, much less that I am mistaken. But then, I didnt in that other case, either, though as you will recall I was disastrously mistaken, there. So if I were you, I wouldnt count on it that Im not mistaken again. Obviously, I may be. I wouldnt say, may well be. This chap is extremely convincing. But he may be dishonest, of course. Nevertheless, as I was saying, I know hes honest. Thats the position. But this position doesnt exist. No implicature, if thats what it is, has been cancelled. On the contrary, the speaker has absurdly undermined what would have been a pretension to know, if he had said as much and shut up.

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Or does he know? Perhaps he does, and should have said so at the end, if not at the beginning, more emphatically, in which case he would have cancelled his rambling concession that he might be mistaken. The fact is, I know and I may be mistaken cant be gotten through a logical intersection by adroit steering and some sounding of horns. They inexorably collide. Its no good saying, Well, I dont really know, but still I know, for example. If you dont really know, you dont know, though it doesnt follow that you had no business to say you did. We tolerate, rightly, we even welcome, a lot of loose talk. It saves time, and neednt mislead anybody. We all know what you mean when you say I know hes honest, I can feel it. We may congratulate you on your instinct in the matter of this shady type if he doesnt steal the spoons. But what you mean doesnt alter what what you say means. Saying a thing loosely isnt therefore saying a looser thing. There may be no conveniently short way of saying the looser thing, indeed. You dont only believe the man is honest, or only feel that he is. It is as if you know he is, even if you dont exactly, quite. But we dont have all day for you to explain the position. So you say you know he is honest, trusting us to take it as you mean it, not au pied de la lettre. The spirit giveth life. All right. But the letter of a language isnt altered by just a lot of spirited or relaxed, unbuttoned talk, even year after year, if thats how the talk is taken, as it typically is. In short, the meaning of I know might be quite strict in the matter of whether you know if you may be wrong. That we use the expression as we do in fact use it is no proof to the contrary, and the absurdity of I know it is so, but I may be wrong suggests that in this respect I know is quite strict, even if we are commonly not inconveniently strict in our use of it. It suggests, that is, that (after all) we dont know where we may be wrong, no matter how often and unobjectionably we say we do in a loose way of saying so. Austin would resist this suggestion, it seems; but I dont see that he gives any reason to resist it, or explains how exactly it is to be resisted. It would no doubt be ridiculous to think that the whole use of I know is more or less loose, as if we never meant it quite seriously and it were in effect everywhere elliptical for I know well enough or I know for all practical purposes. That, I suppose, would be an incoherent idea; and the alternative idea that we mean it strictly, often enough, but are everywhere wrong that we know, by the argument from possibility or some other, is fantastic, or we wouldnt be having this conference. But how awful is the awful truth that we are fallible human beings? Are we so fallible that perhaps were gartersnakes and not human beings, if we only knew it? Or perhaps were human beings, all right, but human beings are gartersnakes. Is that in the cards? Austin writes as if it were. (It is naturally always possible (humanly possible) that I may be mistaken.) We are fallible human beings, unless were gartersnakes, as one might say with a little smile, but of course I dont mean to excite you. Did I excite you? I do apologize. I only meant unless were gartersnakes as one might say D.V.

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Something is going wrong there, surely. Is it yesterdays news that we may be gartersnakes? I would have thought not. On the contrary, it seems a demented idea. What if it is, and lots of other such ideas are, and in fact we are not practically always liable to be mistaken? There might in that case be room for us to know a lot, or enough, even if the argument from possibility were valid. Enough I mean, to secure a contrast, in our use of I know, between strictly and not so strictly so saying; and that, in turn, would make a kind of room that might otherwise have seemed unavailable for the annoying suggestion that our use of I know (and you know and she knows and so on) is in very large part not strict. I dont accept that suggestion, myself, any more than (I suppose) Austin would. But I dont see that his remarks have any force against it. And I would expect a thoroughgoing skeptic to be unimpressed by the contrast between concrete reasons to suppose that one may be mistaken in a particular case, as distinguished from other, similar cases, and general reasons to suppose that one may be mistaken in any such case. We are sadly fallible for example. How is that general reflection deficient in concreteness? The point is not that we are fallible human beings in some thin sense in which it verges on incoherence to suppose about a human being that hes infallible. The point is, we make lots of mistakes. We are far from infallible. My skeptic will remind me of the embarrassing day when I discovered, in a class on skepticism, that Albania is not somewhere between Russia and China, and of the other day in, I believe, another class on skepticism when I discovered that I had firmly confused a certain undergraduate before me with a certain absent graduate student. To be sure, I have never taken anyone else for my mother. But has no one? Could no one? Again, that isnt a logical question. Its the question whether as the world goes its impossible in the nature of things or on the contrary possible, though no doubt unlikely, that a sane grownup should be taken in by someone who is not his mother, assume that she is his mother, and be flat wrong. Are people infallible when it comes to their mothers? Of course not. The argument, here, is from natural possibility to epistemic possibility. Imagine a philanthropic lottery in which almost everyone wins, but to keep things exciting, though not very, there are a few losing tickets. I have a ticket, like all the others. I have no concrete reason to suppose that it, in particular, as distinguished from others, may lose. But this lottery is so set up that some tickets do lose. Thats a perfectly concrete fact about the lottery, and is a compelling reason (other things being equal) to suppose that this ticket Ive bought may lose. I dont know that it will, but I dont know that it wont, either. Why dont I know that it wont? Because it might and therefore may, obviously. So I dont know that it will win, rosy as it is like all the others. I may say I do. Its a winner. I just know it! But I dont, if the lottery is a fair lottery and I have no mysterious powers. Why arent what we take for things we know like that, like tickets in a lottery about which we know, if we know anything, that there are losers

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among these indistinguishable tickets? Ive bought this thing, so to speak: namely, that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union, say. Its a winner. Im sure of it. I cant believe it isnt. On the other hand, there was that loser about Albania. There are losers, among the things people think they know, have every reason to think they know, and cant, out of their heads, distinguish from any of the other similar things they think they know. Can I refuse to admit that this one about the relative sizes of Monaco and the Soviet Union may lose, might be wrong: not logically might, but actually might, might conceivably in the ordinary sense, which again isnt merely logical? Is it inconceivable that I am mixed up even on this point, as I was about the location of Albania? I have no special reason to think I am, certainly, or even may be. But do I need one? Isnt there concrete reason all the same to think that I may be? But now, if I do admit that I may be, might be wrong, and Monaco may be, might be, for all that I cant believe it, as big as the Soviet Union or bigger, do I, seriously speaking, know that it isnt? Surely I dont. Isnt it like the lottery? Isnt it even probable that among the things I in particular think I know, some that I cant identifyin my present position, at leastare wrong? Why not this one? I cant believe it, but thats the point: even things people cant believe are wrong are, sometimes, wrong. So even a thing that I cant believe is wrong may be wrong. This one, for example; that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union. So I dont actually know that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union. Thats the argument, again. Does Austin explain it away? I dont see that he does. May be (or might be), in the use the argument makes of it, isnt ambiguous. Its the may be of she may be for all I know or the might be of She might be, I suppose. Who knows? (Could be has the same use: She could be; dont ask me.) The argument doesnt equivocate on any of these expressions. I may be wrong means nothing different in I may be wrong; he denies he did it, and she says he was with her from what it means in I may be wrong, I suppose; Im not infallible. Moreover, the paradox of I know it is so, but I may be wrong does not yield to the method by which Moores paradox, Its raining, but I dont believe it can (apparently) be shown to be merely pragmatic, namely by recasting it in the third person: Its raining, but he doesnt believe it. He knows it is so, but he may be wrong is as bad as I know it is so, but I may be wrong. (He promises he will, but he may fail is, of course, all right. But it isnt a transform of I promise I will, but I may fail.) One thinks: Well, wait a minute. I know it is so, but I may be wrong cant be a contradiction, because surely the clash of it derives from the clash of It is so, with it may not be, which isnt contradiction. That it may not be so doesnt logically imply that it is not so. You cant locate people by eliminating all the places they may not be, as if they could only be where they must be. So its obvious that It is so, but it may not be doesnt contradict itself. If a thing may not be so, it can, nevertheless,

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be so. (That can is logical, of course.) So why cant we know what may not be so, when it nevertheless is so? And therefore know what we may be wrong about, but arent wrong about? I know it is so, but I may be wrong is an absurd thing to say, and its absurdity is in a way incurable; but one doesnt contradict oneself by saying it, so whats the problem? Answer: In the first place, it isnt clear that the absurdity of I know it is so, but I may be wrong does derive from that of It is so, but it may not be, and therefore isnt the absurdity of self-contradiction. It may derive instead from the clash of some other implication of I know that it is so with I may be wrong. What if I know that it is so meant something like I can see that it cant be false and I may be wrong, in the context, implied, as it seems to, that the thing in question may be false? In that case, I know it is so, but I may be wrong would express a contradiction narrowly so calledor pretty narrowly so called, depending on how propositional it cant be and it may be are, in this epistemic use. Their conflict is surely logical, in a sense, in any case. Its logically out that a thing may be false and yet I can see that it cant be false. In the second place, suppose that the trouble with I know it is so, but I may be wrong isnt that it says anything self-contradictory, any more than It is so, but it may not be does. Does that matter? Isnt the point, rather, this: that by I know it is so one unavoidably represents oneself as being in a certain position with regard to the question whether it is so or not, a position, namely, of entitlement to say that it is, to assert flatly that it is. Not: It is so, God willing. Or: It is so, unless Im wrong. But simply: It is so. It is so, if Im not mistaken is all right. I know it is so, if Im not mistaken is not in the same way all right (though it might be put to good transitory use by someone who for the time being felt a little unsureas one canwhether he really knew what he seemed to know, or not). The position of knowing a thing just is one or another position to take it as true, flat, definite, and, to say it, if there is occasion to do so, without any such qualification as unless Im wrong or if Im not mistaken. And of course if one says but I may be wrong or anything of the kind, one unavoidably represents oneself as precisely not in that position. Theres no having it both ways. Either youre in a position to take it that p, or you arent. And if you arent, you dont know that p, strictly speaking, however tolerable and convenient it may be for you to say you do. Thats the problem, and it isnt dissolved by suggesting, as Austin does, that Deo Volente isnt an exciting addition to what would otherwise be flat promises, and that a similar addition to what would otherwise be flat claims to know isnt very exciting either. D.V added onto I promise that I will converts I promise that I will into the lesser promise that I will if I possibly can, in effect, which is unexciting because thats no doubt about as much as I would have been understood to mean anyway, except by a child who hasnt

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caught on yet, or by God, who doesnt go for D.V as a qualification of promises to Him, I bet. But with knowing, the case is different. I know that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union, unless of course it isnt is nonsense, and so are the rest of that tribe of inconsistent representations of ones epistemic position. The addition of but I may be wrong doesnt convert I know it is so into a claim to know rather less than that it is so, as far as I can see. I know it is so, but I may be wrong has no use. If it said anything, it would say that I both am not and may be mistaken that it is so: that is, it would represent me as both in and not in a position to know that the thing is so, which I can hardly be. A possibility we may neglect is a possibility. Not quite being in a certain position is a variety of not being in it. The argument that since anythings possible, you never know, as one might put it, may or may not be formally valid. My guess is that it isnt. But it seems presuppositionally valid at worst. If Im in no position to reject it that I may be wrong, then I dont simply know; in other words, I simply dont. Am I pervasively in no position to reject it that I may be wrong, as the argument from possibility supposes? If so, I see in Austins discussion no means of evading the conclusion that I dont know anything like as much as I think (so to speak). Not that I have adequately discussed that discussion. Indeed, I have skirted its centerpiece: the analogy between I know and I promise, on which Austin expands for pages. I dont deny the analogy. I know its there is, among other things, intrinsically performative. So is Its there, I know. And so is Its there. Even the undecorated declarative sentence is, among other things, performative: it cant be said straight without putting what it says on offer, as it werea lesser performance than of straightsaying I know its there, but a performance of the same genre. Indeed, It is so, but I dont know that it is is itself malformed, if not ill formed. What I dont see is how these analogies with I promise, You have my word, I guarantee it, and so on, defeat the argument from possibility. III. Whats wrong with the argument, then, that couldnt be cleaned up if we had the time? Its the possibilities, I think. In some sense they arent there in sufficient quantity for the arguments skeptical purpose. They cant be, since in fact one knows a lot. I know perfectly well not only that I was born and the like, as G.E. Moore would invite me to notice, but also that I was born in Ohio, not in Albania, and that Monaco isnt a patch on the Soviet Union, and so forth and so forth. We know a lot. We cant in good faith think otherwise, if we keep our heads. And if we dont keep our heads and do

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think otherwise, we do so inconsistently with what we know perfectly well, namely that we know a lot. One can work up a certain enthusiasm for the idea that we dont know anything. Think of the freedom of it! The vista of possibilities! Everything unstuck, as far as the eye of the mind can see! Enormous Monaco, perhaps, with its steppes, its tundras! The moon just possibly so tasty that it beats Roquefort! Every one of us a genius, maybe! But in truth, its not like that in the least, and if it were, so to speak, we could not entertain any possibilities whatever, nice or nasty. Nothing would make them possibilities. Epistemic possibilities are grounded in fact. We who so variously think all sorts of things are necessarily stuck with an equally various stock of what we can only call knowledge, if we call it anything of the kind. An immense stock. Its laughable, for the most part, to call it belief, as if I believed that I am not dead, for example, or have knees. Whats to believe? There is not, I do not face, any possibility that I have no knees. Not that its impossible that I have no knees. What it is, as Wittgensteins On Certainty has I think taught me, is senseless in my present position, that I may or cant have no knees. Ive got it, indeed Im stuck with it, for the present, that I have knees. And that puts it out of question whether I may or cant have none. Do I, perhaps, if thats right, not know, but as it were better than know, that I have knees? As to that, On Certainty oscillates, and I have dark misgivings. But on balance, I count myself as one who knows perfectly well that he has knees. Wittgensteins suggestion that I shouldnt, because the use of I know is too specialized to permit that I know, or dont, that I have knees (and the like) leaves me obstinate (cf . Wittgenstein 1969: ss. 111). But the use of (epistemic) may, cant, must and their kind does, I believe, deprive me of it that I may conceivably have no knees, cant have no knees, must have knees or anything of the kind. And thats the usual position among us, if anyone wants to know, though other, more poignant positions are of course imaginable. Is anything impossible, then, in, in the relevant sense? Yes, of course, though impossibles are interestingly harder to think of than sillies. Its impossible, I take it, that every mailman simply loves his job. Do they all say they do? Well, then, theyre lying. Or the poll was faked, or God knows what; but dont tell me that just maybe there isnt a single mailman alive who doesnt find it enthralling to deliver all that mail. I wasnt born yesterday. The thing is impossible. So do I know that not every mailman loves his job? Well, no, not exactly. Know it? I dont even know any mailmen. But of course it isnt that I dont know but what every mailman does simply love his job, either. Here I know and I dont know do seem adrift. We dont say we know in such cases, or that we dont know either. The linguistic facts are very complicated, in this matter of knowledge and possibility. Theres no help for it.

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IV. Am I making any progress? I wonder. But before I look for more precise pressure points, I want to say one thing that must be said, however baldly. Antiskeptics and skeptics alike should resist as a wicked seduction the ecumenical proposal that although there is a high or deep sense or way of knowing in which only a god or one with a god in him could know the time of day, there is surely another, quite humble little sense or way of knowing enough to come in out of the rain, which isnt threatened by the argument from possibility. In the film of The Great Gatsby, Karen Black, as I recall, says savagely to Bruce Dern, I believe, Youre so dumb you dont even know youre alive! Its hard to believe that were that dumb. Dont we in some low sense know were alive, even though we may be dead, and where we are, even though we may be elsewhere? That seems to me wrong. And the correlative idea that skepticism is irrefutable if it sticks to a terrific sense of know is wrong. There is no such sense, that mysteriously attaches itself to the word know if you say it dramatically enough. I put it to you, sir, that you dont actually know which end is up, now do you? In all honesty, you wouldnt defy the deity on the most elementary point of logic, would you? Would you actually defy the deity, you miserable little philosopher, if the deity advised a certain caution in the matter of the so-called law of noncontradiction? And you have the audacity to say you know this and that about Monaco, which you have never so much as visited, if you arent mistaken! I cant believe my ears! One feels as if the sense of the word know were fracturing, under this sort of pressure into a low sense in which we know enough to get by, none of it certain, naturally, and a high, superlative sense in which God knows if we know anything. But this high sense of know and therefore the low sense too, are entirely illusory. That we dont really know anything, or really know pitifully little, and that little not even securely speakable (I? Whats I? Whats thinking? Whats existing?) registers, in a grotesquely wrong register, that the word know has buckled under what Wittgenstein calls a metaphysical emphasis (1969: s. 482) and gone nonsensical. What would this superlative knowledge be, if we had any? It wouldnt be anything, and it isnt that we dont have any, therefore. A misguided skeptic might say, I dont mean to deny that you know all sorts of things (we all do) in a weak sense. The question isnt whether you know youve got feet as contrasted with some poor soul kept wrapped up in wet sheets and taught that hes a fish from the waist down, or something. Come on! The question is whether you really know, for certain, that youve got feet. I want to say Sure. Of course. Someone else, in bizarre circumstances, might be in some doubt as to whether he had feet or not. He might say, piteously, just his head emerging from the wet sheets, Theyre lying. I know

On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 13

theyre lying. Ive got feet like everyone else. Theyve glued them together or something, dont you think so? God, I wish I knew for certain! But I cant get out of these sheets. Why wont you help me? How can you be so heartless? And so on. Not me. No such uncertainty surrounds the question whether Ive got feet. I know for certain that I do, and I wonder if anyone actually ever hasnt known for certain whether he had feet or not? I suppose so. It must be awful, unless perhaps you hated your feet anyway. And so on. At which the skeptic may protest that Im missing the point again. The question, he says, is not whether you are or arent, with regard to whether you have feet or not, in a standard sort of situation of not knowing for certain whether p or not. Of course you arent. You couldnt be in a better position to know for certain that you have feet. There is no such better position, in this life. If anybody knows absolutely for certain that he has feet, you do. But do you? Does anybody? Dont just say you know you have feet in that boring way, or even that you know it for certain, in an equally boring way. Say it in a nonboring way, if you dare, like Moore! Come on, do you really think you know, with certainty, that you have feet? And dont give me feet as contrasted with a fishtail or hooves, or with papier-mache feet. I want real, material, external feet as contrasted with an undetectable illusion of feet. And dont pretend you dont know what that would be like! I reply: I suppose it would be exactly like having feet. Youre damn right, he says. But never mind the feet, for the moment. What about the knowing? In the skeptics last remarks, the verb know is buckling. Do I know, with certainty, that I have feet? Under this stress, the word can seem to take on a superlative sense, as one might say. But what would it be to know anything in this superlative sense? As God knows it, one thinks. But how does God know it? Have we any idea? He cant be wrong, one thinks. But how not? Why not? Do we understand the vague notion of infallibility that is operating here? Not just that he never is wrong, but that he cant be. Whats that? A human being can be wrong. Yes indeed, and what would it be like if he couldnt? Have we any idea of it? Of course, it would be terrifically surprising if someone who had a bad headache believed that he didnt, and insisted sincerely that he felt perfectly fine, but unlike some other philosophers I dont see that this couldnt possibly happen. If the fellow didnt at some level know that what he was saying was false, hed be crazy, I suppose. But why shouldnt he be crazy? I dont understand what knowing in the superlative sense that one has or doesnt have a headache, even, is supposed to be, unless perhaps just having one or not. And I have a similar problem with the suggestion that I superlatively know what five and five make. Ten, of course. And of course there could be a strange lapse of mind, a little craziness, or a big craziness, even as to some question of elementary arithmetic. So what would I be claiming

14 Rogers Albritton

if I claimed to know that five and five make ten, by God, and defied God himself to say to me Your gears are slipping? I dont know what I would be claiming. Of course I know that five and five make ten, as most grownups do. Thats not superlative knowledge, just very common knowledge, hardly worth mentioning. I know more interesting things than that, believe me. But as to knowing, knowing, that five and five make ten, I dont know what that would be. Would it be knowing (without emphasis) that they really make ten? If so, my problem shifts to that really. What is it for them to make ten really? Really as contrasted with what? Apparently? That five and five apparently make ten would be an absurd thing for any of us to say. A very young child might say it, looking up from her precocious arithmetical labors with a skeptical frown; but not one of us. Five and five make, what? Ten. Period. And theres no room at all for apparently and really in these peculiar matters. Theres always that one exists, of course. How could one be wrong that one existed? Even a maniac can hardly go wrong if he sticks to that little point about himself. Its boring, but there it is: he exists. In some sense he does. He isnt mythological or fictitious, for example, or even dead. But is this an item of superlative knowledge hes got? I know I do, he says maniacally, I can tell. But can he? Is this knowledge at all? Perhaps it is, but if so doesnt it come of knowing the use of the first person pronoun, rather than of any superlative acquaintance with oneself? Even if Im all confused as to who I am and even what I am, I can hardly think Im just an old wives tale. But why not? Because that sentence and others like it have no literal meaning, Id say, and therefore there is no such literal thought to think as Im fictitious, for example. Its a cute sentence, but its not in the language, except for playing with. Its like a label reading This is fictitious or This no longer exists. I know that I exist in the same sort of way I know that this is today, not any other day, or know were here, wherever we are, not elsewhere, Im over here! shouted in a dense fog doesnt express any superlative knowledge, I bet, for all that it cant be contradicted; and neither does I exist, as far as I can see. So I dont know what superlative knowledge, divinely perfect certainty, is, or would be, and therefore cant think clearly either that we havent got any or that weve got some. I think we have no clear idea, even, of what this superlative knowledge would be like, in any case at all. We dont superlatively know anything, not even that we exist, because the idea of this superlative state, in which the fact itself is handed to us on a platter, or ferreted out and grasped with a grasp that makes Madame Sosostris look like a piker, is not a clear idea. Its not an idea at all, one may say. Its pictures, metaphors, analogies. But it isnt only this incurably unclear ambition of superlatively knowing one has a head that is frustrated if, after all, one may not have a head. Its any, even quite ordinary, knowing one has a head. The argument

On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 15

from possibility should stick to this sinister objective, and not go running off after the kite of superlative knowledge like a lightminded dog. Was Descartes thus guilty of barking up the wrong tree? I dont know. I doubt it. To be sure, one neednt go in for the nonidea of superlative knowledge, and its correlative nonidea of the disheveled knowledge weve got, by thinking to distinguish strong and weak senses of the verb know. One might instead think that what crystallizes under the pressure of possibility is the true sense of know, which it has had all along. And theres something in that. But again, one must be careful not to mistake this true sense for a highflying nonsense, which jumps right up into the intense inane with all the other crystalline senses that determine quite wonderful referents: the really flat, the really solid, the really one, the really simple: in short, the really perfect. The character of knowledge strictly so-called does indeed emerge under pressure: He has a twin, I remind you: do you really know it was he in the black raincoat, fleeing the scene? I put it to you that you dont. And thats right, I dont. (Or if I do, it wont do for me to come out with it that I just do and I dont care how, under this inquisition. What I need is a drink.) But under illicit pressure, the idea of real knowledge goes nonsensical, as if knowing really for a fact or knowing really for certain were an unattainable species of knowledge, and we had better face it that we can never, or hardly ever, claim more than to know but not for a fact, or not for certain, like everyone else. There is no such thing as knowing but not for a fact or not for certain. Theres knowing, thats all. Knowing for a fact, for certain, and the like, arent knowing with bells on, greater knowing as contrasted with lesser knowing. There are no greater and lesser knowing. What for a fact does, in I know for a fact that he loathes her is only to underline that you do know, and arent saying so as lightly as someone might. The same goes for beyond doubt and so on. I dont deny that some or all of these locutions have an additional function of indicating the strength of ones position to know, how it would fare under attack. One may expect attack, indeed, and be announcing, in effect, that it is doomed. He would say that. What else would he say? But a position to know is a position to know, strong or not so strong. And Im not admitting that one can know in a weak sense or way if ones position to know is compromised by present possibilities. Present possibilities is a redundancy there, of course. Im not endorsing a category of clear and absent dangers. Thats exactly what I want to reject. V. Now then, finally, can I make out that there is no such pandemic of possible error as the argument from possibility requires? I think I could if I understood possibility better than I do. But I dont, and will only try to

16 Rogers Albritton

persuade you that even if there were all those possibilities, right and left, and therefore we knew hardly anything, no skeptic would know it, or have any reason to believe it, or be able to give us any. We cant have all these possibilities to delight and depress us, even if they were there. The critical points are two: first, that epistemic possibility is not subjective, or even merely intersubjective, but objective. Second, as Ive already said rather cryptically, it is not ideally objective like facts as one metaphysically imagines them without a shred of appearance on. One is tempted to think that even if fallible human beings see no possibility that, say, they no longer have any feet, it is nevertheless possible in the sight of God , so to speak, that our feet have gone the way of all flesh by some exotic route, and we are all hallucinating, or whatnot. But nothing is possible in the sight of God. Possibility in the epistemic sense of the argument from possibility is not in that limiting degree objective. In the sight of God (the God of this way of speaking) we have feet, or we dont (ignoring the vagueness of have feet), and there is no place for it in His sight that we may or may not or must or cant. God sees no such possibilities or impossibilities. To see any, one must be situated , somehow, which God, being God, isnt. His view is the view from nowhere, to borrow Tom Nagels nice phrase. There is no divine perspective on the question of our having feet, or on any other question, in which it might seem (and therefore be) possible that so and so but impossible that so and so. However, possibility in the sense of the argument from possibility is not relative to just my situation, if I am the one considering whether a thing is possible or not. I who thought a thing possible can learn that it isnt and wasnt. It was possible for all I knew, and seemed perfectly possible, but now I know better and see that it isnt possible after all. The missing dog is a Great Dane? Oh well , then, we can forget the crawlspace. (What happened to your darling little whatever it was? Good God, in a punchbowl ? Im so sorry.) Possibility and impossibility of the type in question here are objective even if they vanish at the ideal limit of objectivity, where we like to think the facts are. It doesnt sufficiently register their objectivity to describe this possibility and impossibility as intersubjective, even. Everyone may think it possible (or impossible) that p and be just wrong, as matters eventually turn out but no one could reasonably have guessed in the old, ignorant days. It may turn out that p, for example, which will dispose nicely of the once universal opinion of the reasonable that of course it was out of the question that p. True believers and village skeptics will be cheered by this turn of events, though in fact it will prove nothing of interest; and the elderly reasonable will perhaps think what next!! and hope that whats next will be one in the eye for the unreasonably credulous or incredulous. A thing like that could happen, and therefore may happen. I dont deny it and dont mean to concede only that it logically might. I dont know that any such awful hotfoot has ever been administered to the reasonable. I suspect not. The earth has turned out to

On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 17

be round, I believe, and to revolve around the sun, and everything is pretty funny deep inside things, and so forth. But my guess is that there has been no debacle of the kind I mean. No truly awful discovery that what only a crank, or the like, would have thought possible (on reflection) is a fact (or is even possible) after all; and no truly awful discovery that what only a crank, or the like, would have thought impossible is impossible, after all. I doubt that there is any precedent for such a discovery as, for example, that there was no Peloponnesian war, or that some pigs can fly, or that the queens of England may have been men, or that it is actually impossible that the earth is round because the people in China would fall off if it were. To be sure, when Anaximander asserted, as it seems, that the earth has no support and nevertheless doesnt move from where it is because it is equidistant from its surroundings in three dimensions, quite ordinary people of the time may have snorted, or whatever one did then, and said, in Greek, Impossible! If so, that was hasty of them. They should have reflected. They should have thought that they might be mistaken. Should we think that we too might be mistaken even now, and that just possibly the earth rests on a column of some invisible material, like a ball on a pedestal? No we should not; indeed, we cant (we in this room cant, that is) except in conflict with believing, or (I would say) knowing perfectly well, that it would be idiotic in this day and age to think that the earth may rest on this or that, like a ball on a pedestal. The column of invisible material is good. Scientists Say Earth May Rest on Huge Tortoise strikes the wrong note, somehow. But as we all know, there isnt the slightest possibility that the earth rests on a column of anything, except of course in some sense. I wouldnt bet my allowance that children will never be told in ordinary schools that in a sense the earth rests on as it were a sort of column, and so on. Its like that, in a certain way, because. . .well, after the because I give out, but that doesnt prove anything. Indeed, I suppose one might say even now, in a desperate effort to explain things to a rather weird child, that its as if the earth rests on a column of invisible material sticking up out of the sun, you see, Johnny, because: and so forth. But that doesnt prove anything, either. I mean, these last concessions dont entail that the earth does or may rest on a column of invisible material like a ball on a pedestal. We know now that it isnt at rest, it goes around the sun, and so forth. The example is a bad example of impossibility, in fact, because impossible is too weak a word for the actual status of the idea that the earth rests on an invisible column and therefore doesnt fall. Fall where? Well, never mind. Impossible is the wrong word for this idea. What it is is just absurdly false, at best, or nonsensical (I am trying to speak for us, of course, not sixth century Greeks, or God), not impossible. It doesnt get as far as impossible, so to speak. We havent that distance on it. Its a nonstarter, dead at the starting gate with its legs in the air. Its no more impossible than that we are a troop of baboons. There needs to be a little more prima facie room

18 Rogers Albritton

for it that p in order for it to be quite impossible that p, absolutely impossible that p. Is it possible that they have a cage of live pterodactyls at the Moscow zoo? No, Virginia, it isnt; pterodactyls have been extinct for centuries. Am I sure? Yes Im sure. Pterodactyls were a prehistoric creature, like the dinosaur. Why are you such a sucker for whatever that rotten Popov kid says? Last week it was Godzilla, now its pterodactyls. Wise up, for Gods sake! There, perhaps, is impossibility properly so called. (Not Godzilla, which is worse than impossible, but the pterodactyls.) That we are a troop of baboons, however, though thinkable by someone, no doubt, in imaginable circumstances, is a suggestion that we can only pretend to entertain, and can only pretend to reject as impossible, therefore, though again, someone might, I suppose, be in a position to entertain it and reject it as impossible. Baboons? They cant be baboons. I can hear them talking. All right. Fine. But not fine in our mouths or heads, here and now. It isnt even that we can see that we arent baboons. If anyone thought it possible that we were baboons, he would be mistaken, certainly. But why? Because thats not possible, as we all know? I wouldnt say we knew any such thing. What we know (as some unfortunate men and women might not, though theyve heard of both baboons and human beings) is that we are human beings, not baboons, a fact (if fact is the word for it) from which it does not follow that we cant be baboons or must be human beings. No such modal remarks are in order, as far as I can see, in our present situation. And it seems equally out of order that the earth may or cant be supported by a huge tortoise or a transparent column with holes in it for the moon and so forth. Out of order in our actual situation, that is, which I cant help. I didnt invent it. Nobody did. One can invent others. What one cant invent is a position outside all such epistemic confines, in which the question Is it possible or not? nevertheless has its usual purchase and from which it is evidently possible after all that the earth is supported by a huge tortoise and we are baboons. That position, in which, as one imagines it, no question would have an answer already, and we would be free to think absolutely anything possible (what else could we think?) would on the contrary be one in which the question, whether it is possible or impossible that p, could not have its usual sense, and indeed no question could have its usual sense, since its sense would be in question too, so to speak. In the position from which one would see that anythings possible, if one could see anything, one couldnt see anything, or think anything either. The idea of this position in which nothing is settled yet is illusory, as far as I can see, and so is the idea, which might seem more promising, of the position in which nothing a posteriori is settled yet, or nothing a posteriori except that it looks as if there were physical objects about (and the like), which might seem still more promising. Words and their meanings are as external as trees. If I have to think that perhaps there are no such words, then I have to think that perhaps my very own as it were words have no meanings either, and therefore I am not, as I would have thought, thinking. And that isnt thinking.

On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 19

All the same, I dont say that no truly awful surprise could possibly be in store for us, or for me. I dont mean to be packing it into the idea of a truly awful surprise that no such surprise is possible, that nothing we are in no position to think possible is or even may be true. For all I know, or we know, something or other that it would be absurd, in our situation, to think possible may be true nevertheless and may even get discovered, in the fullness of time. There are, I think, logical limits on what could be discovered , as we understand that word. Could it be discovered by intrepid tourists that the earth has an edge after all, just south of Tijuana, though this awful fact has been kept from us by a vast conspiracy of guff about Latin America and other such inventions? I would say not. Not by intrepid tourists and not in any other way either. But it doesnt follow, even if thats right, that nothing utterly surprising, which had seemed impossible or, so to say, better than impossible in the fashion of our being baboons, will ever be discovered. Some such stunning discovery may be in store for our descendants, or even for some of us, perhaps. Why not? What doesnt follow from that, however, is that we may be baboons, for instance. I concede that something we think impossible, or even cant think possible or impossible, in our cultural situation, and can only think false as everyone in that situation knows, may someday turn out to be true, or may be true even if it never does turn out to be true. (If it logically couldnt, thats another matter, which I set aside here.) What I dont concede is the formula which would permit universal instantiation, namely that for anything p such that we in our blinkered condition can only think it false or (at worst) impossible, it may nevertheless be true, if only we knew it, that p. There would be a kind of contradiction in conceding that and instantiating it to our being baboons, say, since if the instantiation were valid it would prove that it wasnt. That is, it would prove that our being baboons isnt an instance of a thing we can only think false or impossible in the relevant sense. If there is any such thing, then we cant, by hypothesis, think of it that it may be true, and cant consistently quantify over it as one among other things that may after all be true. To put this simple matter (about which I am not altogether clear in my mind) in another way: that something maximally ridiculous may be a fact, which I concede, doesnt entail that if anything is maximally ridiculous, it may be a fact, which of course I dont concede. Why should I? I dont see that I should, or indeed could. That doesnt of course dispose of the question whether anything p is maximally ridiculous or not, in the sense that one is in no position, unless ones position were somehow altered , to think it anything but false or impossible that p. It seems to me evident that one must be in no position to think it possible that p, for some p, if one is in a position to think anything at all, and that our own position is one in which large numbers of things are in this sense beyond doubt. Such positions change over time. But they are not altered by the reflection that they do change over time, or by the reflection,

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which I dont deny, that even our own, to say nothing of my own in particular, is no doubt in for a number of shocks as time goes on and may be in for some shock of unprecedented magnitude. Theres no misuse of may be in that thought, and the thought is a commonplace, I suppose, or it should be. One might pleasantly work it into a sermon on the text You never know. But it is too general, and of the wrong logical form, to enforce the absurd ideas that we may be baboons, or may be in Tokyo, or may all be naked or (better) have no bodies, or may all have slipped into thinking crazily that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union although actually its bigger and that five and seven make twelve although of course they make eight. I see no case at all for the view that any of those things is possible, or even impossible. All of them are just, silly. Impossibles are harder to think of than sillies, again. I keep thinking of sillies, instead. Lets see. What is another impossible? I suppose its impossible, as one might say to a worrisomely serious child, that Hitler has taken refuge in another solar system. I believe thats impossible. He couldnt have gotten there even by now, if Im not mistaken, and thats not the only trouble with the idea, Im sure. Do I know that its absolutely impossible? I wouldnt say I knew it, exactly. Im not expert about these things. Well, then, isnt it possible? No, Im sure it isnt, not even remotely; there werent even any rocket ships in those days. Do I know that? Well yes, I remember those days well enough to know that. And what if there were rocket ships but they kept it quiet and it hasnt come out? Isnt that possible? No, Im sure it isnt, again for reasons of which I have no mastery; so, again, I dont exactly know it isnt possible. But that is no reason whatever, given my massive ignorance of the history of science and technology, for me to think it possible that any such rocket ship had been built and hidden and so forth; and really, Im quite sure that it isnt even remotely possible. Possible is epistemic throughout here, but, again, not speaker relative. Whether Hitler may or cant be holed up in another solar system doesnt depend on the little I know, thank heaven; but I know enough to be sure that he cant be. Ive been around. Another solar system? Come on! Perhaps it logically might be possible that that is where he went, if he had gone anywhere. But if so, it doesnt follow that thats where he may be, or even for all I know may be. I believe not. I hope not because if, soberly, I must think that for all I know Im mistaken and it is just possible that Hitler is enjoying the sunshine in another solar system, then Im afraid I must also think that I dont exactly know that he isnt. Im afraid it wont work out that while I dont exactly know that I know he isnt, nevertheless I may and probably do know he isnt. There my sympathies are with Prichard. But then, I wonder if I do know that Hitler isnt alive in another solar system. Do I? The question is hard to get hold of. Perhaps I shouldnt touch it. But what if in sober truth I dont know any such thing. How would I know any such thing? Perhaps I dont. Does it follow that he may be living in another solar system, or that I should take

On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 21

the suggestion that he may be with any, even philosophical, seriousness? No, it doesnt, as far as I can see. I have no intention of even verbally behaving as if he may be, except out of courtesy or the like. I dont believe he may be. I see no possibility that he is. I assume that there is none, because he couldnt possibly have gotten there (that couldnt possibly have is not epistemic). If I werent a gentleman Id bet a lot (though not my immortal soul, if I had one) that no means existed then by which any such voyage could have been undertaken except in ignorance or delusion. I have no doubt that Hitler cant be alive on Mars, even, or the moon, much less on some planet of another solar system! He cant conceivably; its a preposterous idea. Do I know he cant? No, strictly speaking I dont, though I assume that many are well enough informed to know exactly that: that he cant be, for such and such reasons. Dozens of reasons, I imagine. And now, can a philosophical skeptic give me reason to hedge this assumption at all, to say, for example, not Of course Hitler isnt alive on Mars, you idiot! How can I get it into your thick head that people lie in print, and even on television! but something more measured, like He cant be, if Im not mistaken. I think that a skeptic has no such reason in his repertoire, including the point, correct as I think it is, that strictly speaking I dont know that Hitler cant be alive on Mars and therefore (given the special character of the question whether he is or isnt) dont in strict truth know (in the ordinary sense) that he isnt. I dont need to know that, it seems to me, either by knowing that he cant be or by knowing anything else either (except a hawk from a handsaw, to put it politely) in order to treat the lament that we may never know but what Hitler got away to Mars as crazed, if I ever run into it. I dont mean that it would be no cause for lament if we might never know, or could never know, but what we had no feet. Even I know that people have feet, and that I do, and would think it lamentable if I didnt. What would I know, I wonder, if I didnt know that? Not much, probably. And again, I would be sorry (though I could live with it) not to know that Monaco is smaller than the Soviet Union because I can never remember what sort of place Monaco is: a city, a country, a continent, what? I keep forgetting. Is Monaco another name for Africa perhaps? Ive lost it about Monaco again. Well, too bad. But I had marbles to spare, I suppose. I should be thankful. These cases are not the same as not knowing, if I dontnot knowing, exactlythat Hitler isnt alive on Mars. Im not conceding that I dont know much. Im claiming that I may be in a position to dismiss out of hand the suggestion that perhaps p, for some p, even though I personally dont precisely know that not-p, if you insist on precision. Its a question of truth, you say, not precision? All right: I dont know that not-p, if you insist on truth. And I dont see that I must, in order to hold out against the idiotic idea that maybe, just possibly, p.

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That there would be nothing to do about it if just possibly not-p, since if just possibly not-p, then just possibly anything I might do about it would be instantly fatal, is true. If there might be an enormous diamond under this floor for the finding, there might equally be a booby trap set to kill us all. If this building may be about to collapse, any move we make may be just what will bring it down; or alternatively the ground outside may catastrophically give way if we rush out of the building: the building perfectly sound, perhaps, but the ground isnt. Who knows? And thats right: who knows? Not I, at any rate. But the question is not whether it would be rational to take steps in view of some such possibility, absent even a funny feeling that might serve to select it from among all the others; the question is whether this sort of thing is a possibility or not, has to be acknowledged as possible, even if only just, or not. I say not. Some such things, and not others, are no doubt possible, if only one knew it. But which ones? Not which ones are not merely possible but actual? Just which ones are so much as possible? We dont know, thats all. By hypothesis we dont. And neither do skeptics. Philosophical skepticism is a pretension to know. Deprive it of that inconsistency and it hasnt a leg to stand on, as far as I can see. Of course I may be wrong; and thats not philosophical skepticism. To sum up, what I am, calling a skeptical argument from possibility can skirt various errors, I believe, without disappearing en route. It neednt and shouldnt confine itself to arguing that there is no knowledge in some high, remarkable sense. There is no such sense, and the argument can seem to threaten knowledge ordinarily and soberly so called. Moreover, the argument need not confound logical possibility or the like with possibility in an ordinary epistemic sense or use of the word. It can seem to give us good reason to admit that possibly not-p over an unnerving range of things p. The principle of the argument, moreover, is sound, not a sophism: if the position is, really, that possibly (even just possibly) not-p, then no one in that position does know that p. It may be that not-pwe are fallible human beingsbut all the same we know that p, of course is a sort of contradiction. No modal fallacy is involved in thinking so, and the (sort of) contradiction it is is not cured by calling it pragmatic. There is no doubt some contrast between semantics and pragmatics, but it doesnt help here. That we all know that p although just possibly not-p cannot be Griced into the company of I have two fingers on my left hand, but I didnt say just two fingers, did I? and I have five, so I have two, so I win. Nor can it be Austined into irrelevance by distinguishing senses or forces or strengths of just possibly, if thats what Austin was up to. Just possibly and its kind are as univocal, in their relevant use, as know is. Their performative aspect, like that of I know, is no help. Nor is it any help that the possibility in question isnt a live possibility, if its determinately a possibility at all. If I may be wrong, and thats the position, then I dont actually know, and this emphasis need not be the one Wittgenstein calls metaphysical, which, as he says, the word

On a Form of Skeptical Argument from Possibility 23

know doesnt tolerate. I mean it only as it would be meant in everyday talk, as a way of stressing that the question whether I actually know or not is to be taken strictly. The concept of knowledge is strict anyway, in the respect at issue, though (according to me) not analyzable in any interesting sense. Finally, the closure or nonclosure of the imaginary set of things I know under evident logical implication (evident to me, that is) is irrelevant to the argument from possibility, since possibility is closed under every kind of implication. If I dont know that the man I take to be Zeno Vendler, there, isnt an impostor, that matters only insofar as it suggests that he may be one, in which case he may not be Zeno Vendler. Whats wrong with the argument from possibility, unless Im wrong, is the allegations of possibility with which it begins, not the rest of it. These allegations seem irrefutable. In fact, I hope, they are typically indefensible over an immense range of what we say, or would saymuch too great a range to satisfy a philosophical skeptic, whether cracker-barrel or cosmopolitan. The idea that skepticism is irrefutable is supine, unless the skepticism at issue has been allowed to drift or balloon into irrefutable nonsense. Keep know and may humble and intelligible, and it should seem, I think, that while anythings possible, and you never know, not just any damn thing is possible, and you may therefore know a lot (most of it uninteresting, to be sure). But thats interesting, perhaps, if not unexpected. I think it may be obvious, moreover, that neither you nor I could have understood a word of this paper if we didnt know a lot. And, as Ive let on, it often seems to me, dimly, self-evident that everything cant be epistemically possible any more than everything could be financially possible. Or if that isnt self-evident, I bet its demonstrable, at worst. Needless to say, I havent demonstrated it, or anything else. It would be pleasant to think at least that I had thoroughly canvassed the grounds on which a skeptic might reasonably hope to show us that we are enmeshed in possibilities of error much more numerous than we can gracefully acknowledge. But I know I havent. Its all very well, perhaps, to mock such creatures of philosophy as the illusion that we may be flamingos fast asleep in our cage, for all we know. But is it a mere amusement that I may not have left my car where I know I left it (know in scare quotes), or that although the marquee reads The Hustler and The Color of Money, as we expected, we may nevertheless be in for The Apu Trilogy? I have stuck nervously to sillies and impossibles, but these arent (necessarily) sillies or impossibles. Arent they and their kind very commonly possibles, in the usual course of events, and contrary to what we say we know: where we left our cars, whats on at the Fox Venice, and the like? Is it irrelevant that I wouldnt bet a grand on any of those things I know (know in scare quotes again)? Or that my perfect confidence that I saw Sheila on the very daywe even said hellowould probably erode under routine crossexamination? I think it is irrelevant, but I do not yet see clearly why it is. The ordinary use of I know in these everyday regions goes quite smoothly, but

24 Rogers Albritton

not all that smoothly. Dont I know perfectly well that I may not have left my car where I know I left it, so to speak, and isnt it in that last phrase, where I know I left it, that I know must be put into scare quotes to clean up the question? No. I dont believe it, because, you see, I think I know perfectly well, as I often do, still, where I left my car. Im not that far gone. But I dont know for sure what to do about these cases. Isnt that a blessing? I might keep talking just a little longer, if I did. Thank you. Note
1. Rogers Albritton died in 2002 leaving behind a large volume of papers. Most of the papers are handwritten notes and fragments on diverse subjects that he was thinking and teaching about. This piece on a certain form of skeptical argument from possibility was one of a few finished items. The typescript is untitled and undated, but pencilled notes on some copies indicate that it was delivered as a talk at a conference at UC Irvine in Spring, 1987. As Albritton himself mentions, he worked for years on skepticism and skeptical arguments. Some have reported that ideas in this talk were presented in seminars at UCLA as early as 1974. Albritton began to sort through his papers in the years before his death, but did not live to review the bulk of them. He was an inveterate reviser, rethinker and restarter, so it is hard to know what he would have done with this piece had he lived. The paper has circulated and stimulated some discussion, so it seems fitting to publish it here. The typescript is reproduced without change, except for a few obvious errors of spelling and punctuation, the format of the notes and the presentation of the quote from Austin at the beginning of section II. I thank Carol Voeller for assistance in preparing this type script for publication. Andrew Hsu (UCLA)

References
Austin, J. L. (1946), Other Minds, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volumes, v. 20: 148187. Wittgenstein, L. (1969), On Certainty, ed. by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. v. Wright. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.