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Simon Sauter 93 question by determining whether the apparent obstacle is real or not. As long as we are only interested in determining how knowledge is possible, it is not important how we eliminate the obstacle; all that matters is that we eliminate it. If, on the other hand, we want to learn something about the nature of the kind of knowledge in question, it may well be worth to give the matter a second glance. Consider the following two examples of obstacle-elimination strategies: (a) James, who lives in London, tells his friend Sarah that he is going on a trip to Paris. Being aware that James is afraid both of flying and of taking a ship, Sarah asks James how he will travel. James answers that he will take the train. Sarah asks him, “How is it possible to travel to Paris by train? You can't cross the Channel by train!” James reminds her that there is a tunnel beneath the Channel and tells her that he will take the Eurostar to Paris. (b) George, who is in Europe for the first time in his life, has spent a couple of days in London and now wants to continue his travel with a short trip to Edinburgh. As he is afraid of flying, he asks the travel agent what alternatives there are to get to Edinburgh. The travel agent tells him that the easiest way would be to take the train. But believing that Edinburgh is the capital of Ireland, George asks: “How is it possible to travel to Edinburgh by train? You can't cross the sea between England and Ireland by train!” The travel agent informs him that Edinburgh is not the capital of Ireland but the capital of Scotland and that therefore train travel between London and Edinburgh is perfectly possible. George and Sarah ask their how-possible questions for the same reason: both believe that between London and a certain place there lies the sea and that you can’t cross the sea by train. But James and the travel agent give very different obstacle-eliminating responses. Whereas James gives an obstacle-overcoming response, explaining that it is possible to cross the Channel by train through the Channel Tunnel, the travel agent
Comments on Possibility of Knowledge gives an obstacle-dissipating response, explaining that George won’t have to cross the sea, as Edinburgh is not the capital of Ireland but the capital of Scotland. Whereas Sarah learns that James can do something which she considered to be impossible, George learns that Edinburgh is not what he believed it to be and that therefore he doesn’t have to do what he expected in order to get to Edinburgh. George is, so to say, wrong about the “nature” of Edinburgh. So an obstacle-overcoming response claims that the person asking the howpossible question was mistaken about what is possible, whereas an obstacle-dissipating response claims that the person was mistaken about the “nature” of the thing in question. Thus, George is mistaken about where he is going (Scotland not Ireland) and therefore about what he has to accomplish to get there. Similarly, a person who wonders how the baseball player could catch the ball 20 feet off the ground is mistaken in believing that he had no aid available. And someone who asks how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible is, according to Kant, mistaken in believing that knowledge must be taken either from experience or from conceptual analysis. Sarah, on the other hand, is not mistaken in believing that James has to cross the Channel but in believing that there is no way to do this by train. The same applies to epistemological how-possible questions. When someone, let’s call him David, asks how a certain kind of knowledge is possible, he does so because he believes that there is an obstacle that prevents us from acquiring that kind of knowledge. In cases where an obstacle-overcoming response is given, David learns that we can do more than he thought we could, whereas in cases where an obstacledissipating response is given, he learns that we don’t have to do what he expected in order to acquire the kind of knowledge in question. So in the first case he learns that our cognitive access to the world is less limited than he believed it was. In the second case he learns that the kind of knowledge in question is not what he thought it was, i.e. that he was wrong about the nature of knowledge. So when we give an obstacle-overcoming response to David’s question, we tell him that he is right about the requirements for the acquisition of knowledge, but we correct him in explaining to him how these requirements can be met. When we give him an obstacle-dissipating response, we tell him that he is wrong about the nature of knowledge and ask him to revise his concept of knowledge. In this sense epistemological theories which give an obstacle-overcoming 94
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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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Page 50 and 51: David Lüthi 47 the very existence
Page 52 and 53: David Lüthi 49 removal on level 2
Page 54 and 55: David Lüthi 51 awkward even from w
Page 56 and 57: David Lüthi 53 general schema; and
Page 58 and 59: David Lüthi 55 We’ve seen that h
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Page 86 and 87: References Comments on Possibility
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Page 90 and 91: Simon Sauter 87 2. Consider the ope
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Page 94 and 95: Simon Sauter 91 or that there is so
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Page 100 and 101: (HPaa) How is it possible to rule o
Page 102 and 103: Simon Sauter 99 References Cassam,
Page 104 and 105: Replies to Commentators 101 In this
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Page 110 and 111: Replies to Commentators 107 which I
Page 112 and 113: Replies to Commentators 109 are bot
Page 114 and 115: Replies to Commentators 111 by exte
Page 116: Replies to Commentators 113 Stroud,
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