SENSITIVITY AND CLOSURE

Abstract

Abstract John Hawthorne has two forceful arguments in favour of: Single-Premise Closure (SPC) Necessarily, if S knows p , competently deduces q from p , and thereby comes to believe q , while retaining knowledge of p throughout, then S knows q . Each of Hawthorne's arguments rests on an intuitively appealing principle which Hawthorne calls the Equivalence Principle . I show, however, that the opponents of SPC with whom he's engaging - namely Fred Dretske and Robert Nozick - have independent reason to reject this principle, and resultantly conclude that Hawthorne's arguments in favour of SPC are not knock-down.