Abstract

Three core commitments run through Kornblith's work in epistemology. First, epistemologists should investigate knowledge itself rather than the concept of knowledge. Second, knowledge is a natural kind. Third, knowledge is reliably produced true belief. These commitments are related in several ways, and they are intended to provide mutual support for each other. In this chapter we argue that, when we subject them to detailed scrutiny, they have some quite surprising results. Kornblith should be open to a promiscuous pluralism about knowledge that, among other things, threatens his first core commitment and opens the door to non-factive and relativistic conceptions of knowledge. Moreover, it is not clear that Kornblith can preserve his reliabilist picture of knowledge, and he may be forced to accept a form of relativism that goes beyond what he himself seems willing to accept.