Against Omniscience: The Case from Essential Indexicals

Abstract

Or so the argument goes.' Since an omniscient being would be a being that knows all that is known, since only I know what I know in knowing (1), and since I am not omniscient, there is no omniscient being. In what follows I want to present and ponder this and similar arguments against omniscience, each of which turns on the issue of knowledge expressed by means of indexicals: 'I,' 'here,' 'now,' and the like. Consider also the following argument, for example: No one knows at any time other than now-no one has known at any time in the past and no one will know at any time in the future-what I know in knowing that: