Epistemic Operators

Abstract

I present a translation of the article "Epistemic Operators" by Fred Dretske. In this fecund and famous article from 1970, Dretske sets out to refute the skeptical argument that rests on the principle of epistemic closure. The refutation strategy is straightforward: we must not accept such a principle. Dretkse elaborates a theory of sentential operators to try to show that epistemic operators (e.g. "I know that") do not penetrate all the logical consequences of the propositions on which they operate. The key concept of the article is that of a relevant alternative, which implies a conception of knowledge that is sensitive to context. In the iconic example of zebras in the zoo, the possibility that they are mules cleverly disguised as zebras is not a relevant alternative. Epistemic operators do not penetrate irrelevant alternatives, so the fact that we cannot rule them out (which Dretske grants) cannot be used to defeat our knowledge of propositions that logically imply them. The contributions of this article are enormous for contemporary epistemology, becoming decisive for the development of the theory of relevant alternatives and contextualism. However, until now, there was no authorized translation into Spanish.