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Replies to Commentators 101 In this sense, Level 2 presupposes Level 1. For example, consider the claim that it is possible for us to perceive what we do without thereby knowing something about the world around us. This is supposed to represent an obstacle to the acquisition of knowledge of the external world by means of the senses but it is only a significant obstacle to our knowing anything about the world around us on the assumption that perceiving is, for us, a means of knowing about the world around us. In general, if M has not been singled out at Level 1 as a means by which we know things there would be little point in our trying to demonstrate that there are no insuperable obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge by M. A different way of developing (a) is to argue that it is Level 2 rather than Level 1 that is superfluous. As Dohrn puts it: If how-possible questions are not devoted to removing salient obstacles but to exhibiting means to acquire a certain knowledge, the function of level 2 becomes dubious. Should we have an interest in obstacles as such or merely with regard to completing the exploration of means? In the latter case, why is this obstacle incomplete unless obstacles are tackled? (p. 29) In my view, how-possible questions are obstacle-dependent and do therefore call for the removal of salient obstacles. Still, Dohrn asks a reasonable question. Consider a position that might be called extreme minimalism. 111 The extreme minimalist argues that explaining how knowledge of kind K is possible is simply a matter of identifying means M by which it is possible. On this account, tackling obstacles to the acquisition of K by M is, like the project of identifying enabling conditions for acquiring K by M, an optional extra. We can, if we like, engage with specific obstacles as and when they arise but a need for obstacle-removal is not built in to the very idea of answering an epistemological how-possible question. In these terms, Dohrn’s question is: what is wrong with extreme minimalism? 111 Timothy Williamson endorsed this approach in written comments on a draft of chapter 1 of The Possibility of Knowledge.
Quassim Cassam 102 What is wrong with it is that if epistemological how-possible questions are obstacle-generated then Level 2 cannot be an optional extra. That is, if the question we are trying to answer is ‘How is X possible given the various factors that make it look impossible?’ a philosophically satisfying and relevant answer cannot ignore the factors that make X look impossible. Even if there are no genuine obstacles to the acquisition of K by M, showing that this is so still counts as an exercise in obstacle-removal. Perhaps, in that case, what the extreme minimalist is questioning is the thesis of obstacledependence itself. However, this thesis is correct. Consider the difference between the following challenges: (5) How do you know that P? (6) How is it possible for you to know that P? The first of these questions can be asked pointedly, with the implication that perhaps you don’t know. It can also asked out of what Austin calls ‘respectful curiosity’ (1979: 78). If I assert that P and someone asks me how I know that P this might simply be a request for information, with no implication that I don’t know that P. (II) is different from (I) precisely because it does imply an obstacle. 112 As McDowell points out, a good first step in responding to (II) would be to ask the questioner ‘Why exactly does it look to you, and why should it look to me, as if P is not possible?’. 113 It would be bizarre for the person who asked (II) to respond by saying ‘Well, I never suggested that it looks to me as if P is not possible’. In asking (II) rather than (I) one is implying that it looks as if P is not possible and that is why we need to take an interest in the factors that make P look impossible. The discussion so far suggests that Levels 1 and 2 are interdependent. The obstacles that are the focus of Level 2 are obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge by Level 1 means of knowing, and the removal of these obstacles vindicates the supposition that the supposed means really are means of knowing. Does this mean that, as Sauter puts it, Levels 1 and 2 get ‘fused’ (p. 6) in the story that I tell? Yes, if this is 112 William Dray made this point many years ago. See Dray (1957). 113 See McDowell (1998: 58).
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ABSTRACTA Linguagem, Mente e Ação
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Editorial We proudly present the fo
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Precis 3 is an obstacle-dissipating
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Precis 5 priori knowledge, the key
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Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE IV, pp. 7-
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Denis Bühler 9 A similar ambiguity
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Denis Bühler 11 successful reasoni
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Denis Bühler 13 More generally, ap
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Denis Bühler 15 And he succeeds in
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Denis Bühler 17 His answer goes as
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Denis Bühler 19 thus threaten both
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Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE IV, pp. 21
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Daniel Dohrn 23 which can be remove
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Daniel Dohrn 25 there is to be expe
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Daniel Dohrn 27 3. Problems of the
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Daniel Dohrn 29 Firstly, a means is
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Daniel Dohrn 31 knowledge, but in h
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4. Transcendental Arguments Strike
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Daniel Dohrn 35 not always necessar
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Daniel Dohrn 37 In Cassam´s opinio
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Daniel Dohrn 39 For this reason it
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5) The categories apply to the obje
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Daniel Dohrn 43 trivial but they ca
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Abstracta SPECIAL ISSUE IV, pp. 45
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David Lüthi 47 the very existence
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David Lüthi 49 removal on level 2
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