Epistemic gradualism sees knowledge-that as a gradable concept,of which the quality comes in degrees.Accordingly,Hetherington argues that the closure principle employed by sceptics should be refined and replaced by a graded formulation of closure.He then proposes that the reformulated sceptical argument can be blocked by rejecting the reformulated closure principle.This paper first reveals that Hetherington begs the question as he fails to demonstrate why knowledge that'I am not a brain-in-a-vat'is not a requisite for minimal everyday knowledge.After that,different versions of graded closure principle are examined in terms of how well they support the sceptical conclusion.In response to the strongest form of graded sceptical argu-ment,gradualism can furnish us with two anti-sceptical objections:(1)we have multiple methods to come to know that'I am not a BIV',apart from competent deduction;(2)drawing on particularism,it can be concluded that there exist some philosophically interesting standards for minimal knowledge guaranteeing our possession of everyday knowledge.This gradualist anti-sceptical proposal enjoys support from prototype theory in cognitive linguistics.
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维普
