On Relativizing the Sensitivity Condition to Belief-Formation Methods

Abstract

According to the sensitivity account of knowledge, S knows that p only if S's belief in p is sensitive in the sense that S would not believe that p if p were false. It is widely accepted that the sensitivity condition should be relativized to belief-formation methods to avoid putative counterexamples. A remaining issue for the account is how belief-formation methods should be individuated. In this paper, I argue that while a coarse-grained individuation is still susceptible to counterexamples, a fine-grained individuation makes the target belief trivially insensitive. Therefore, there is no principled way of individuating belief-formation methods that helps the sensitivity account to accommodate different cases.