forum 5: week of 6 Feb. Hawthorne and lotteries

It seems as if Hawthorne addresses the tension between intuitions and the probabilistic reasoning towards the future. The lack of linkage between an 'ordinary proposition' and a lottery proposition explains the impossibility of knowledge of the future. Hawthorne's use of the divisions of epistemic space in his reasoning seems unsatisfying for some reason as an conclusive argument for refuting knowledge of the future or knowledge through deductive reasoning. Overall I agree with Hawthorne in rejecting parity reasoning, however it seems incomplete. It seems as if Hawthorne neglects to mention in the lottery propositions that speakers are actually aware they do not know their lottery propositions.

I concur on your point about Hawthorne's rejection of parity reasoning being incomplete! What's more is his mentioning duplicate reasoning IN PASSING - not going into details about duplicate reasoning (because it is "not our main topic here")! Why I dislike him only mentioning duplicate reasoning and not going into the details is because I agree with duplicate reasoning - this is the position I would take. Also, I just want to disagree with DeRose's comment on probabilistic thoughts being forced upon us. Anyone else disagree with DeRose's comment (top of page 26 in the chapter we are reading)?

Dorothy, why do you think Hawthorne's use of the divisions of epistemic space in his reasoning is unsatisfying as an conclusive argument for refuting knowledge of the future or knowledge through deductive reasoning? It seems like you are on to something, and I just want to see if you can spell it out in more detail. After all, this forum is one place where we can share our ideas with one another.