The contingent unknowability of facts and its relation with informal, epistemological contexts
Resumo
This paper focuses on elements that are involved in a specific type of judgment,
namely, those involving facts that, in virtue of contingent reasons, are out of our epistemic
reach. Its goal is to propose a philosophical explanation about why we, in informal contexts,
take some facts as contingently unknowable. In order to accomplish that goal, we develop a
theory that defines contingently unknowable facts in a very specific way. We establish three
clauses that are jointly necessary and sufficient — so we argue — for taking an arbitrary
fact as contingently unknowable. In a variety of contexts, this strategy has the potential of
reducing efforts in an epistemological analysis of this particular type of unknowability