第三种认知运气

The Third Type of Epistemic Luck

反运气知识论的核心主张是不相容论题,即真理认知运气与知识不相容。既有文献区分了两种真理认知运气:介入性运气和环境性运气。前者指有某些运气的成份介入到主体的信念和目标事实之间,使得主体的信念碰巧为真;后者指主体处在一个不友好的认知环境中,而其信念碰巧为真。本文提出还有第三种真理认知运气:解读性运气,即主体碰巧对其拥有的证据采取了正确的解读,从而使其信念依运气为真。没有充分的理由能证明这种运气也与知识不相容。相反,否认二者的相容性将导致一系列不可接受的结果。因此,解读性运气的存在证伪了不相容论题。

The core thesis of anti-luck epistemology is the incompatibility thesis, i.e., knowledge is incompatible with veritic epistemic luck. Anti-luck epistemologists conventionally distinguish two types of veritic luck, viz, intervening luck and environmental luck. The former occurs when something occasionally intervenes between the subject’s belief and the target fact, which renders the subject’s belief luckily true. The latter can be found in cases where the subject’s belief is luckily true when he is in an unfriendly epistemic environment. This paper purports to show that there is another long-neglected type of veritic luck—interpretative luck. It occurs when the truth of one’s belief is due to her accidentally choosing the correct interpretation of evidence. No proper reason can support the incompatibility between interpretative luck and knowledge. Instead, the price for insisting this incompatibility would be unacceptably high. The existence of interpretative luck thus falsifies the incompatibility thesis of anti-luck epistemology.