forum 1, week of Jan 8, Dretske

I agree that there would be very little one could claim to actually know, IF we have to consider all possible alternatives. However, one fundamental problem is that empirical evidence may or may not be enough to give us true knowledge, depending on the notion of evidence used. Yes, there is no consensus yet on what the heavily-used concept of evidence is! Besides, what are these standards of empirical evidence that you have in mind? Are they related at all to the definition of "evidence" given by Richard Royall and Steven Goodman? (e.g., see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3189634 or http://www.botany.wisc.edu/courses/botany_940/06EvidEvol/powerpoints/Evidence.pdf)