knowing and coming to know

Knowing and Coming to KnowAuthor(s): George S. PappasSource: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the AnalyticTradition, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Apr., 1981), pp. 275-279Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4319455 .

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GEORGE S. PAPPAS

KNOWING AND COMING TO KNOW

(Received 10 June, 1980)

It is clear that knowing something, e.g., that q, and coming to know that q, or acquiring knowledge that q, are related. For if a subject S comes to know that q at some time, then he knows that q at that time or shortly thereafter. Is there any further relationship between these two notions?

We obviously cannot say that the converse of the above holds. That is, it is a mistake to suppose that,

(1) A subject S comes to know that q at time t.

is entailed by,

(2) Subject S knows that q at time t.

After all, S might have come to know that q at some other time. But should we not say that (2) entails something akin to (1), namely,

(3) At some time t', subject S came to know that q.

where t' is either simultaneous with or earlier than t? I think not, provided that 'God' is a permissible substituend for 'S' in (2) and (3). If God is om- niscient, as tradition has it, and is also eternal, then anything God knows He knows from eternity. Hence, for any proposition q which God knows at some time, it is false that God came to know that q either at that time or at some earlier time.

God aside, one might say that surely (2) entails (3) if 'S' is restricted to names and descriptions of persons as substitutends. The argument here would presumably be that so restricted, (2) would fail to entail (3) only if some person were to know that q from etemity. But no person is God-like in this fashion.

Whether this argument is correct depends on how we interpret the term 'come to know'. Let us assume that we should interpret this term so that it is restricted to 'fresh' knowledge acquisition. Thus, it is restricted to cases

Philosophical Studies 39 (1981) 275-279. 0031-8116/81/ 0393-0275$00.50 Copyright ? 1981 by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.



276 GEORGE S. PAPPAS

in which S is not re-acquiring knowledge that q after having once learned that q and then forgotten it. In cases of fresh knowledge acquisition of q at a time t, the person did not know that q at any time prior to t. We can understand the above argument to claim that with this construal of the term 'come to know', statement (2) entails (3).

Even so understood, though, a case can be made against the inference from (2) to (3) by means of an adaptation of Russell's well-known five minute hypothesis. This hypothesis for present purposes may be taken to be the claim that the entire universe came into being just five minutes prior to time t. We imagine that things came into existence at t-5, and that at that moment they were pretty much as they are at t, just as Russell said. Each person came into existence complete with a stock of beliefs, desires, preference and bits of knowledge, and the like, not to mention physical characteristics and traits of persons and other objects. The relevance of this adapted five minute hypothesis (= h) to the distinction between knowing and coming to know is that if h is logically consistent, as I think it is, then for any case in which S's knowing that q is a state of affairs which came into existence five minutes prior to t, along with S, then there is no time at which S came to know that q. For, in order for S to freshly acquire knowledge at some time, he (S) must have existed prior to that time. However, given h, S did not exist prior to t-5; nothing did, perhaps excepting God. Moreover, S did not acquire knowledge that q at t-5; he came into existence complete with a batch of knowledge, including knowledge that q, at that time. Assu- ming that during the five minute interval up to t, S did not lose his knowledge that q, then his having that knowledge at t does not entail that at some time either prior to or simultaneous with t S came to have that knowledge. Thus, given the consistency of h, and the reasonable assumption that if S and his knowledge came into existence all in one piece, as it were, then S did not acquire that knowledge, we then have a possible situation in which (2) is true and (3) is not, even given the restrictions mentioned earlier.

This situation in which we have a case where (2) is true and (3) is false must be distinguished from another related one. Consider the claim that,

(4) At some time t' (where t' is earlier than t),S did not know that q.

The foregoing adaptation of the five minute hypothesis does not provide an example in which (2) is true and (4) is false. For, given that example, there is



KNOWING AND COMING TO KNOW 277

a time at which S does not know that q and this time is earlier than t; S does not know that q at any time prior to t-5. Hence, the argument against the inference from (2) to (3) should not be recknoned as an argument against the inference from (2) to (4). When restricted to persons as knowers, the inference from (2) to (4) seems reasonable.

It might be questioned whether h is self-consistent; and one might doubt whether a person's acquiring knowledge at a time logically demands that the person have existed before that time. If either of these points were correct, the foregoing argument would fail. The first point has been defended by Mal- colm on the ground that if apparent memories of different people are in agreement, and these apparent memories concem the past, then these apparent memories are correct generally and the past is 'real' contrary to h. (See Malcolm, 'Memory and the past', in his: Knowledge and Certainty, 1963.) However, what this argument shows, if correct, is that h is false, and this is not at issue. The logical inconsistency of h is not established by the fact that the past is 'real'. (See J. Comman, 'Malcolm's mistaken memory', Analysis 25, 1965) The second point noted above, however, seems to be a more promising objection to the argument based on the five minute hypothesis.

Consider a case of a woman who, realizing that she is a prospective grandmother, signs over a piece of property to the expected child. Then we may say that at that time, the time of the signing, the child acquires the property, even though that child does not exist prior to the time of the signing. So, the child acquires something at a time, but the child does not exist at any time prior to the moment of the signing.

To avoid being entangled in serious questions concerning the nature of persons, (it is quite plausible to hold, e.g., that a seven month old fetus is a person), we may suppose that the prospective grandmother signs over the property at a time when her daughter's pregnancy has just begun. In that case it is reasonable to think that the child does not exist at the moment of signing, and so does not exist at any time before the signing.

This example has some counter-intuitive consequences. Perhaps the most important are that, if correct, it licenses claims such as,

(5) Person S acquires property at t and S does not exist at t. and,

(6) Person S owns property at t and S does not exist at t.



278 GEORGE S. PAPPAS

And, it might even be said that since (5) and (6) fail to accord with our ordinary notions of acquisition and ownership, respectively, of property, the example itself is incoherent. However, departure from the ordinary everyday notions of property acquisition and ownership is not enough to convict the example of any serious offence. For it is clear that in legal contexts, claims such as (5) and (6) are perfectly acceptable. We should not expect legal notions to coincide exactly or even very closely with more familiar everyday counterpart notions, and the failure of such coincidence signals no defect in the legal context.

A better reply to the example of the grandmother would be to concede its main point but to deny its relevance to the argument based on the five minute hypothesis. Acquiring knowledge is importantly different from acquiring property. Roughly, when a person freshly acquires knowledge some change in the person is effected; the person takes on a state he earlier lacked. But this is not generally so with property acquisition. Moreover, for a person to take on a new state at a time, the person must exist at that time and must have existed at some earlier time.

Notice that this point about knowledge acquisition does not require that the person be actively pursuing and gaining some new piece of knowledge. The person might be quite passive in the matter of knowledge acquisition and the above point would still hold. However one gains knowledge, or comes to know, some change in the person is thereby wrought. This is all that is needed in the present context. Change of this sort in a person, however brought about, entails that the person existed before the change. Hence, we can conclude that the grandmother objection fails to undermine the case against the inference of (3) from (2).

The foregoing remarks may be taken to show that there is a difference between a claim such as

(7) S comes to know that q (freshly acquires knoledge that q) at time t.

and,

(8) It comes about at t that S knows that q at t.

In the context of persons as knowers, (2) may be said to entail (8) even though it does not entail (7). It is this fact which lies behind the contention that (2) does not entail (3); i.e., that implication fails when (3) is understood as (7).



KNOWING AND COMING TO KNOW 279

This conclusion has a direct bearing on some current analyses of factual knowledge. If (2) does not entail (3), then causal analyses of knowledge, and most reliability analyses of knowledge as well, are mistaken. The reason is simple: causal and reliability analyses of knowledge generally are construc- ted in such a fashion that (3) is entailed by the analysis. But we have seen that (2) does not entail (3). So, since causal and reliability analyses of knowledge purport to be analyses of schema, (2), we can conclude that such analyses fail. Indeed, we may be more general: we may say that any analysis of factual knowledge which entails (3) is mistaken. Knowledge is not to be analyzed in terms of coming to know.

One could reply that causal and reliability accounts are not, or are not intended to be, analyses of knowledge strictly speaking. That is, they are not to be construed as statements of logically necessary and (ointly) sufficient truth conditions for the schema (2). Instead, one might say, some much weaker notion of analyses is intended or, perhaps, that the really operative notion is not that of analysis but is, rather, that of explanation. (See, e.g., A. Goldman, 'What is justified belief?', in G. Pappas (ed.), Justification and Knowledge, Dordrecht, 1979) The argument advanced in this paper has no force against accounts such as these. The argument shows only that any account of factual knowledge which purports to be a logical or conceptual analysis of that concept and which entails (3) is incorrect.

Ohio State University



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