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Perhaps you havent yet come to believe any of the indicated truths. Or perhaps you believe some of those truths, but none of those beliefs is based on your evidence for itand so, none of the beliefs is justified. In light of these (and other) possibilities, DJR is implausible. On the other hand, PJR says that your simply having some known evidence suffices for your having justification to believe various truths supported by that evidence. Unlike DJR, PJR is quite plausible. Given PJRs plausibility and DJRs implausibility, charity demands that we interpret the italicized sentence as PJR. So, we can restate the CRA as follows: If justified true belief (JTB) suffices for evidence, then every truth Ss knowledge justifies for her is part of Ss evidence. But its possible that truths Ss knowledge justifies for her are not (yet) part of her evidence. So, JTB doesnt suffice for evidence. Further, for every other good cognitive status short of knowledge, theres a parallel argument to the conclusion that the status in question doesnt suffice for evidence. So, all evidence is knowledge. Couple that last claim with the thesis that all knowledge is evidence (which I grant), and E=K follows. This argument fails, and for a reason weve already noted. Weve noted that you might not believe every true proposition that your knowledge makes justified for you. (To illustrate: Sara knows that zebras dont wear anything in the wild; this bit of knowledge justifies Sara in believing Zebras dont wear armor in the wild; but it may well be that Sara hasnt [yet] formed a belief in the true armor propositionthough shes probably disposed to believe it [cf. Audi 1994].) So, given the CRAs first premiseviz., that JTBs sufficiency for evidence entails that every truth justified by your knowledge is part of your evidence, JTBs sufficiency for evidence entails that a true proposition you dont believe may nevertheless be part of your evidence. Notice, however, that JTBs sufficiency for evidence is clearly compatible with (say) the view that only justified true beliefs constitute evidenceand so, that evidence requires belief. So, pace CRAs first premise, JTBs sufficiency for evidence is clearly compatible with the view that evidence requires belief. Thus, the CRAs first premise is false. Upshot: E=K receives whatever support it may have from other arguments that have been offered for it.
801 McClung Tower Department of Philosophy University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37996 USA ecoffma1@utk.edu
References Audi, R. Dispositional beliefs and dispositions to believe. Nous 28: 419-434. Williamson, T. Knowledge and its Limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.