 Hello, I'm Jay Jay Joaquin and welcome to Philosophy and What Matters, where we discuss things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Our topic for this episode is epistemology or the philosophy of knowledge. Now some of us know how to ride a bike. Others know how to play chess. Many of us know basic mathematical truths and almost everyone knows that Paris is in France. We also know that this pandemic was going to end soon. In fact, we know a lot of things, but what does it mean to say that we know such and such? That is, what is the nature of knowledge itself and why does it matter to ask such a question? Now philosophers have been dabbling with this question ever since and among them is our guest, the certified epistemologist Stephen Hetherington, Professor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales, the editor-in-chief of the Austerlations Journal of Philosophy, and the general editor of a recently published four volume work, The Philosophy of Knowledge, A History. So hello Professor Hetherington, welcome to Philosophy and What Matters. Hi, Jay Jay and everyone else who's involved looking on there, thanks for having me. Before getting into our main topic, let's first discuss your philosophical background. What led you to study philosophy? I don't look, it's a bit random really, but I can tell you I started at university as in what we call here an arts law student and I combined BA and law degree and I just assumed that I was going to be a barrister. I'm not sure in the Philippines if you have the solicitor barrister distinction for lawyers. Yeah, so I assumed it. I just had a vague idea that it would be kind of fun to get up and argue cases. I didn't know how much money they could make. That's the only, well you know. But within my first year, so I took like other people, so the arts degree I was just doing for interest. It's a hard thing to get into and I just thought it was, the arts was for fun. I really had no idea what philosophy was, like a lot of people when they start. Looking back, sure I was good at English and I liked quite what you might call philosophical bits of writing, but really I'm mainly concerned about running around in the playground and playing cricket and all that stuff. I didn't really see myself as an intellectual as such, just a good student. So within my first year at uni, yeah, I was finding law quite boring and philosophy was great. And here's the thing, which I'm sure hopefully a number of you can speak to at times. I was very, very lucky in the department, the philosophy department at Sydney University at the time. And I had, look, my very, very first class in philosophy was a small evening class just because of timetabling things with David Armstrong. And so I'm there as a 17 year old just in this small room and there's, as it turns out, the great man sitting there. And he's just thinking in front of me and I don't think I'd ever, I'd never been around a philosopher and it was just unlike anything else. It was abstract, it was precise. I was also doing math, pure math as well. And I just aesthetically really responded to it. And then later in the year I had David Stove who also quite a prominent. And I mean, this is actually important because it means that you get, you know, really, really smart people thinking in front of you. And I really like the aesthetics of it. And so I use that word carefully because it isn't just people say I want to uncover the deep truths. But I can't say I thought that at 17. I just responded to the, I don't know, the really the aesthetics, the elegance of the thinking and the precision and sharpness and all that. And then from so I, but later and then later in that year already I was starting to think about philosophy versus law and then later that first year. So here's a moral for all students. My main first year essay, we had six weeks or four weeks to write it. I took all the extension. I spent six weeks reading everything in Barkley, everything I could find because he was just so fantastic. And I just I at the time thought he was right and it was just exciting. So I started to just get this conviction. I really wanted to stay with philosophy if I could. So it was just intellectual. It was just that sense of like, this is real. I don't know. It was just responding because he wrote so well. It was so precise. And for those of you, I know a number of you would be interested in philosophy of religion. And I'm, you know, that was when I came across Barkley on that it was unlike any other argument discussion of God I'd come across and that was different too. So it was all just different. It was precise. It was sharp. It was really smart. So I just started, I kept going from there and I was just lucky to be able to keep sort of hanging in there and go from there. Okay. So aside from David Armstrong and David Stove, who else influenced your philosophical education? Well, I had great teachers. I was able, I went, I had a scholarship from Sydney University and went to Oxford. I was a graduate student or as I prefer to, and I put my papers in each footnote, Professor Sir Peter Strawson. But he was great. You know, and so I got very lucky. I had Strawson and John McDowell and Chris Peacock and Simon Blackburn. I'm not sure of any more direct influences on my thinking, but it was just that general sense of, you know, you're sitting at the feet of just, you know, just that sense of real intellect. And then I went on to Pittsburgh and it was the same kind of thing. And just, you know, very, very clever people. I was, I was offered a position at Princeton too, and I turned it down even though, you know, I had David Lewis sent me personal thing asking me to come and we could work on stuff. And I really, that was fantastic. I loved it because I really liked this stuff, but I still just made, you know, a different choice. And by the way, that's slightly relevant looking back to the, you mentioned the four volume that I've just overseen because it has been kind of a long journey and away from me because I started at Pitt. What really influenced me at that beginning was that sense of precision and you could, his problems are still with us. And they're still being discussed as live issues. And I really just, you know, as a young kid, I was really, and I just thought that was exciting. It was like law. I was just kind of learning stuff. And it was a bit mechanical and all that. It wasn't that. It's degrading. But I mentioned it because one of the reasons that I chose Pittsburgh over Princeton as the time I just thought it had stronger history requirements. And even though I did not think of myself as a history type, I've come more and more over the years to appreciate how philosophers, particularly professional philosophers can get often too caught up in just the here and now. Especially, you know, when you're bright and you get caught up in exciting stuff around you, and it's, of course, you should, you should get caught up in it. It's other thing of philosophy is the intellectual challenge, you know, and problems that are still with us often. But I didn't necessarily think about the history, but now I'm telling more and more to think that we've, you know, you've really got to, even when you're doing the present, you've got to, you are enriched by having a sense of the history. Yeah. So that's why part of it was motivated to take on that, what turned into that four volume book, four volume set, because I more and more have come to see that, you know, there is a lot of, it isn't, it's just a general sense of the depth and richness and the fact that philosophy, this is, you know, Western philosophy that I'm mainly dealing with. The Western philosophy, so has been with us for so long, it comes and goes, different issues come to the front, go back, you get new bits coming in. There are persisting issues. Yeah, it's, I think it deepens, deepens the whole. And so that's for me, yeah, that's how it's kind of gone over that time, you know, over those three, I was very lucky there for to study at three different good places with different influences, different people, you know, at Pittsburgh, I wouldn't single one person out. I would say I was, my second reader from a dissertation was Wilfred Sellers. Yeah, so it was just before, just before he died, you know, one of his last people there. And, yeah, so it was, it was, yeah, so there was a kind of a sense again that you just, you somehow absorb that sense of depth, with the thoughtfulness of just cleverness, but not cleverness for the sake of it, cleverness to genuinely try to work something out. And so it is actually to me, it is quite important, I think in philosophy, it's full of clever people, but I'm not sure everyone's always focused. I don't know if everyone is always focused on the issues for their own sake, and some of those sellers was, and John McDowell was another important teacher for me. He's the one I discussed, I talked with him saying, well, but Pittsburgh, Princeton, Pittsburgh, Princeton, which you go. And so anyway, and then he ended up following Pittsburgh. Anyway, this is all, I know, I don't, I don't always, you know, seems a lot sad about myself there, but it is, but it was really, really lucky is how I think of it, you know, it's really lucky to get to Oxford that scholarship and then to keep going. I just, and I had just really good teachers around really smart other students. And yeah, it's just a lot of luck. There's a lot of luck in these things, I think anyway. Okay, so you mentioned about aesthetic. So what is that word? How do you describe aesthetics, meaning and philosophy? Well, see, I don't have a, I don't have a, so I'm using it in a way I'm giving you, at that point, I'm sort of trying to convey to you how, when I look back on myself as a 17 and 18 year old. And this is just kind of for the record is I have, I've never, I haven't, I don't do formal aesthetics, but I actually have it as a kind of project down the line. I want to come back to it properly. I did grow up in an arts, with an arts kind of family. My father was trained in art became a was well anyway, he, he was quite what he did was quite famous in Australia and when he died, he was on the front pages and all that stuff. The point being it was he was trained was from art and all that. So I grew up with lots of art around me. And so I was, you know, on the walls and discussing. So I did get sensitized now. So I don't have a, I don't think it's a coincidence. So I look at the thing and I look at logic. So when I can first you there, I'm David Stowe and just the elegance of the X's and the Y's and be able to go straight to the heart of a sentence in a fake word. You know, if the logic is delivering what it wants says it can do, you go into the heart of a, it's like the semantics and I said when you talk about logical form that again seem really, really elegant because you're cutting through a lot of potentially irrelevant stuff. So like when I went on with David Stowe, I did a lot of stuff. I read a lot of Khan out, for example, and, you know, the logical foundations of probability and stuff like that and Donald Williams on probability and induction. And again, it's not that I'm a mathematical I did study some math but I'm not. And then again at Pittsburgh, I did extra kind of advanced logic. And again, it's just aesthetic. I just like the elegance of the forms I guess. But again at some point I started to veer away from that a little because I, you, to me at least it was it's not an Indian itself. It's kind of like so for example in particular is editor I like when we encourage people to write as much as possible directly simply. So it really can be understood. And to me that's again part of the aesthetic of doing philosophy well. So to me it matters I don't like to see like philosophical ideas lost in a whole lot of needless verbiage want them. David Lewis why was he so great well many reasons but you know one of the things is he was he didn't waste words it was, you know he always thought every sentence was clear he didn't. And there is a kind of, there is an elegance to the not just the pattern of the thinking, but the way it's presented. And I guess I think to me the one of the virtues when analytic philosophy particularly has done well, of course it isn't always done well but when it's done well. That's one of the. It's, it's, it's, it's, I think that is the capacity, it's openness to that sort of aesthetic allows the intellectual aspects to be developed more clearly to stand there. And I think it's more open to the gaze of people who want to think about whether these things are true or false, because you know otherwise it's like you can just sort of, it's like a magician's trick if you put too many needless words it's like me waving my hand here. You can, you can sort of, you know you distract and all that and then it's. Yeah, and so I really I think I had that feeling early on. I do remember like in my second year as a student as an undergraduate when I wrote an essay on lock lock for David Armstrong. And you know I'm seven, oh wait a minute at that point 18 to 19. Okay, so you just starting but he, he said to me after that essay he said something like Stephen, I do hope that you're not going to become one of those philosophers who puts all their, you know best thoughts in footnotes. And one obviously one looks back and he's a guy who didn't write he's one of his virtues he put everything as simple as he could. And two I always remember because it's true you know you can get caught up in hang on I've got this thing but I've got all these other side thoughts and they're also interesting. Put him down there and I'll just expect the reader to sort of go in there as well. Okay, well I'm just starting there but you know it's kept in mind and I can't say I've always, you know, done what he would have approved of there. But, but there's a general point there that you just try to lay things out you try to make it clear, because you're trying to be honest with readers. This is what I think as clearly as I can put it. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Okay, but and you should be able to see that otherwise you put it all the complicated people spend half a time trying to work out what they're really trying to say. Yeah, before they even get to evaluating it. So I do the but so that. Yeah, I so I don't have a worked out theory of what it was that I was responding to beyond what I've just been saying I think as a as a 1718 year old there. But it really was again very lucky because you know I just hit Barkley is such a good writer. And I really did enjoy his writing. And yeah, it's, it's not pretentious. I guess that's another word that comes in there I don't like pretentious writing for yeah and philosophy, you know is. Yeah, I mean, look anything can do it but Yeah, there are philosophers who succumb to that temptation I think we've all got failings as philosophers. And one should try to be aware of one's strengths and weaknesses but I guess personally I just that's a particular thing I really don't like. When people like trying to show off in philosophy I guess my view is it is certainly what we're all bright. So just take that as a given and just now try to. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so why did you specialize in epistemology or the philosophy of knowledge? Oh, look, it could have gone the other way but when I when I was choosing my dissertation I almost did motor metaphysics I was doing stuff on possible worlds and sent essence and accident and all that. With Richard Thomas and at the time and Pittsburgh, but so it was a close thing but I'll tell you it's a simple thing I've always had I got in my second year at Sydney. I know you want to ask me a little about Gettier, which is always which is a long standing thing of mine. The most exciting course I took as an undergraduate was in my second year was Bill Lichen who was visiting. I think it was his first time he was a youngish recently tenured guy from Ohio State. Okay, he went on to become a very well known philosopher, but he had that kind of at the time you know again generalizing here. He had the kind of best of the American style in that he was really energetic and it was very much a talking kind of thing. And he Gettier and all that stuff was very much in the air. This is late 70s. Yeah, it was the most exciting course I did so it was like I went out I suddenly got inspired I went off and started writing my own stuff I had this idea about self justifying self justifying sort of principles epistemic principles. Anyway, and then he sent you know I started writing this thing and trying to respond and I started engaging the whole thing. So which you know for a student I was looking back it was pretty. Yeah, it was tapping into something there. Yeah, so I think from there it was like I just, you know he planted a seed I was really looking forward each week to coming coming along the next week which is the ideal isn't it. You know you want it's pretty rare for students but I did experience that yeah normally I just really liked start liked it but I wasn't looking forward in that way. But I was for that course. So that's really where it started and yeah and it was so it's just really fun. So like I guess jumping head in a way there I'll just say this. When I was ending my philosophy and my undergraduate and people saw you want to go away. And the obvious answer is always because you know I really like these deep questions. Well, I didn't honestly say that to people of course I like them but it wasn't I'm being deep. It's their fun. And I just enjoyed it so in a way it was just look what do you I mean, you know I knew I might not get a good chance. I wouldn't get a job. I was trying. I thought well I'll try. That's a landline there. Let me just pick that. Don't worry about it. You're going to hear my answer. So I'll talk over that. But so it really was just a case that I really just enjoyed it. And I don't know if it's the same when I met you my father he was a cartoonist and a puppeteer. And I probably just absorb that whole sort of idea that you can I don't know I picked it up. It wasn't like he and I were that close really but I did pick up the sense of you know I had a father who was being paid well like to do puppets on TV on TV. You know I did it for years and draw cartoons and all that stuff. So maybe it got through to me. Maybe I absorbed that idea of just you do this you try to have fun. So I do really honestly partner across for philosophy for young students. I honestly encourage you if you the for me the best motivation is that it's enjoyable. Personally the best motivation is that it's just fun. Okay. So let's go to your expertise epistemology. So you mentioned about the get your problem. It's the one of the well the fun problems in philosophy. But before we get into that let's talk about epistemology first. So what is epistemology all about. And what yeah what makes it a philosophically. Yeah. Yeah. Well so look for game for those of you new to it particularly it's some you know the epistemology of the epistem part comes from the Greek word epistemology which is usually translated as knowledge. And it's some so in that what is epistemology book there on your screen I call it knowledge ology. It's usually and usually I don't think it'll catch on. I just do it as a throw away. But the usual thing is theory of knowledge. So why is it for us. Because long ago so we're talking at least say in the in the West we're talking with some of the ancient Greek philosophy most obviously in a couple of Plato's dialogues more than two but at least two. You get a kind of first attempt to say well look we throw this term knowledge around we talk about knowledge and it seems like it matters. And it certainly seemed like it mattered there if you're trying to think for example what what a rule is what makes the best ruler of a city. Well they shouldn't just well ideally they know various things. Right you don't just want them up there saying stuff for the sake of saying it you want them to genuinely be giving voice to knowledge and not just trivial knowledge. The knowledge of things that matter. Okay, so this things that matter, and there's knowledge. Okay, what's knowledge. And that's where epistemology starts so the term is coming over I did once know with the term when the first thought of the term epistemology I'm not sure I think 1800s I can't remember. Anyway, so, but that's how it's translated always to start with theory of knowledge. When you say theory it really means theories and or theorizing. It's not like at this point there's like one theory and you just have to learn it and apply it. So the idea is that for epistemology philosophers still take it as a live question to more or less. What knowledge actually is. So again, it can seem so obvious but it's like saying well what's a person, you know, we interact with people all the time, you know what, what could be simpler, but they're really I really is actually quite difficult as a philosopher when you set. You say well what was it philosophy. Okay, so as a philosopher you set yourself certain kind of standards and certain sorts of presumptions about what would count as an answer to your question. So for example, if you say something like what's knowledge and then you say well let me you got a good dictionary there. Let me just look it up. Yeah, just the other day for interest I did actually because I just have a kind of a short of small ox OED there I just had at their line and I looked up knowledge and you know the answers it's all over the place. You know, it's a five or six things are listed there for an epistemologist it's like, okay, yes, some people have thought that is the core of what really underneath it all is what it is to know something. Some people thought that is some people thought the other in the dictionary fair enough the dictionary says in effect well people use the term knowledge in all these different ways. Right, philosophers for example have often set themselves a task of this sort of task. Is there an underlying universally applicable core sense of what it is to know something. Universalizing any kind of person, for example, maybe even any kind of being, you know, animals, higher beings, whatever. All, you know, all countries all cultural backgrounds, whatever is there anything we can say that will somehow unite us in the sense show that all of us share this so that when I know something here in Sydney. If you know something there in Manila. There's still, there's a kind of description which both of us are just satisfying. And for the epistemologist it's, let's see if we can describe that in that way it's kind of understanding something that unites us all as human beings in that way. So these are an underlying nature what's what's the most basic. What are the most basic descriptions accurate descriptions that we can give that would say generate all the various other things that we say about knowing underlying picture for it. So, I think for epistemologists what they're looking for is a general universalizable abstract theory or description or definition of what knowledge really is. But philosophers have classified in general types of knowledge, you know, you have your knowing how in your dad. Is this difference, does this difference matter and what's the difference all about. Excellent question. So, so when I say knowing great. So when one's introduced say when I was introduced to epistemology people just said we're discussing knowledge and what they meant was knowing that knowing a truth knowing that I am sitting here knowing that you are sitting there. Right what follows that is a sentence an indicative sense. I am sitting here. So that reports a truth or a fact. So when when philosophers are traditionally talked about knowing that's, you know, that's how they kind of start try to simplify the task. Let's try to understand that. So knowing truths, what's called propositional knowledge is the object of the knowing is a proposition maybe a true proposition, a fact, a state of affairs, how the world is how reality is all those different ways of putting. But particularly in a lot, you know, well actually particularly recently but harkening back for example to good some stuff of Gilbert Riles in particular middle of last century but you know going back also beyond that. People have thought well look but we shouldn't again we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the word knowing is is used in other ways. And they might or might not all collapse back into that knowing effect. So the one that's got the most attention in recent years is knowing how. So here's the basic sort of initial way of trying to say well it might be different. I know that I'm, I know that I am sitting here. That is me somehow in a relationship to a truth, a fact that fact is just there it's whatever it is. And somehow somehow my mind or me what if somehow I'm getting to record represent reflect just respond to that fact. I think about knowing how that's like that's what put floss was a member that is knowing how to do something. Now, so if I say I know how to turn on a computer. That's, that's not knowing a fact. It's knowing how to perform an action. Now, so prima facie those are just different. But then of course so what floss was a lot of flosses have given some time to I'm one of them is to try to see if you can. EG for example understand one of them in terms of the other. So there are those who are called intellectuals about this stuff who have said look when you when I know how to turn on a computer. That is because that is a matter of my having in mind various truths. And then somehow I have a way of putting. And that is knowing that right so I know that blah blah blah. And then I somehow can apply that knowing that to the idea and I make a movement. And so the intellectuals will say something like in knowing to in knowing how to turn the computer on. So there's the action. And it's what Ryle called an intelligent action in the sense that it is applying on the intellectuals picture. It's applying the knowing that that I have in my mind, which is a bunch of truths about what's involved in computers and so on. Okay. Ryle thought they were different types. He actually thought they were fundamentally different kinds of knowledge. And so that's a that's a live issue in epistemology. I've tried to argue for a hard line view the other direction that actually all knowing that is ultimately knowing how. You know, this is a bigger argument than that, but you know, for what it's worth. Yeah, I, I, I've had a go at trying to argue that knowing even knowing a truth is a matter of you having various abilities and skills. And somehow they come together. And that's all it is. And so even the kind of if you say well I've got a representation in my mind of that fact that aspect of the world. For me it's more something like well you might or might not as it turns out it might just be that somehow here I am as I move, I happen to reliably to be able to make these movements now I might or might not consciously have anything in my mind that represents the world that way. But I still have that ability and it still counts as knowing how something like that. Yeah, so knowing that. Okay, so fundamentally there are two main positions here, it's either you could reduce knowing that knowing how, which is your position, or reduce knowing how to doing that. Well, you could. Are you sorry you can change that they're separate. Yeah, that's another and so that you know it was always too simple to just say that we just should be trying to understand knowing that because now we have two projects. But let's focus on the processional knowledge because as you have said the literature in epistemology focuses on this particular topic. And one theory about knowing that the nature of knowing that is the so called JDB here are justified to be here or account. So what does this account tell us about knowledge. Okay, sure. So that's that's kind of for many that's kind of been the default theory up to 1963 particularly, and that theory, it's a very tempting picture of what it is to know a truth, or to know something about the world. And it's this, you have a belief or an acceptance something like that so there's something about you subjectively, which somehow has the various content. That's the be that content is true. That's the tea. So the content accurate is accurate. Right, that's T T for true. And it's, but it's not enough on that picture to have a belief that happens to be true. You've got to have good. Let's say for my rational support for it and the term that is usually uses justification. It's just pragmatically or morally justified or something like that, you're rationally justified in having that belief. So, so, you know, put those three together, you, you're representing the world, let's say a particular way, the world that you are right the world is that way. And you're kind of a rational creature in having that belief. So that's on the JTB that's knowledge. Justified true picture of how things are. Sounds pretty good. Okay, so you have the subjective aspect part the belief part. You have the objective aspect part the two part. So it's a true representation of what's going on. But there's also that justification part. So what is the justification part doing here. Okay, sure. Well, that's in theory that's objective to it's just it's objective to but it can take different forms. And look, that's a major that there are people whose whole careers are based in epistemology based around trying to understand it. But here's to here's I'll give you two simple or two classic possibilities. One is and the simplest is to say, you've got good evidence. So good evidence supporting belief and ideally that's why you have the belief. So, excuse me, you have that belief because you have a lot of evidence supporting it now that's meant to be objective. It could be subjective in that, like the evidence is a bunch of other beliefs. But if they're not randomly, let's say they haven't occurred you randomly but there is and now we can get to the second part. Second idea, there's part of you like responding say in an orderly reliable to use the key term here. Reliable way to the world. They come together. And here's the thing I mentioned probability and induction earlier. So, for example, you say, well, here's my evidence he's a bunch of views I have which are my evidence. Here's a belief I've got from them. In theory, if you look at the content of those beliefs and the content of that of that evidence and you look at the content of that belief. There's a kind of let's say there's a good logical relationship between them. So you could you'd be thinking very logically and carefully but saying going from from those that evidence to that belief. So again, that's not meant that's meant to be objective but that's the hardest part of the picture to understand. Because people often say, oh, I've got my evidence, you know, who's who you did deny it. It's how I see things. Yeah, fine. But, you know, you, you can use evidence stupidly you can use evidence. You know, you just don't necessarily, you might have a bunch of evidence which points to P proposition P, but you infer proposition not P. You've like, you've missed the whole point of your evidence. So that's what I mean when I say like rational justification. So the idea is it's meant to be this kind of close, properly, properly supportive, maybe logical, maybe something more broad relationship between the evidence say, and the belief that you base on it, something like that. So again, it's meant to be this kind of picture here where you've got a belief it's right and you've got clearly supportive evidence that you appreciate as such maybe, and you use properly. So it's a nice little package there. Okay, and obviously you want to rule out lucky guesses right or lucky beliefs as well. Well, I mean, yeah, sure. Maybe this is a much bigger picture here because. All right, let me, which, you know, I'll just gesture it. So let's say the standard view is, that's right. I do think it's more complicated in that but yeah, yeah, sure. So to get the basic to get ball rolling one of the standard worries will be that it is. Well, people thought, isn't it possible even to have good belief, good evidence and still only luckily get to the truth. Okay, well, I was sort of trying to kind of trying to slide past that to start with to say, well, here's your evidence and you respond appropriately. Okay. To get to your belief. Yeah, you don't want it to just be purely luck. But let's maybe keep it like that. So you don't want it to be just luck. That's true. That's true. You want to, ideally, you want to be a good, a good kind of close rational connection so that the belief, the true belief you've got. He's, let's say it's something like it's the, it's, for a moment, let's say it's, it's a kind of the right response or it's a rationally right response to that evidence something like that. Does that deal with what you're thinking right there. Right, right. I'm just speaking about justification in that way. Okay, so it is relevant. Yeah, because, for example, look, most justification we have is not conclusive. Right. You know, and that's just the fact about how we think we very rarely, you know, that's why people talk about God's a God's eye perspective. Or so we're able to truly a God's perspective, you know, perspective, we don't have it. You know, let's say if we ever have it, it's incredibly rare. And let's, you know, let's, I'm happy to say we never have it. But, okay. So which means that there's always some slippage, which means you're always trying to work with the best evidence well. Let's just say, you know, reacting with. In practice, we've all got practical constraints on us. And you don't have unlimited time and unlimited brain power and unlimited perfect perceptual capacities and all that. So you're usually dealing with hopefully pretty good evidence on the basis of which you've hoped that most of the time at least you're going to be right. But, you know, you're also my view, you know, I'm a fallibleist about this stuff and I'm happy to accept that. You know, you won't always be right. But I don't think that means that it's irrational, or that you're just guessing. Okay. You know, when I, you can, and we make this distinction all the time, you know, we look with students, you know, say, you'll want good reasoning in essays. You know, I would say to students in essays, I say, I really, here's a question. I really don't mind. And I mean it and I, they can see how I teach. I really don't mind what conclusion you reach it, but I want to see the reasoning. I want to see you develop an argument. And that's what I will, I honestly will say, I don't necessarily telling you what I think about a view that you just go for it and trust me. But I want to see the argument and that's the point about using evidence carefully and thoughtfully. And as I said before, I use that term that's been very influential. Thanks to Alvin Goldman, reliably. A reliable thinker in epistemologists is someone who's, let's say, good at getting to the truths. It might not be perfect, but you won't be. But you're, you're good enough, let's say for the moment, you're good enough at getting truths. Okay. So before getting into your main position, which is fallibilism, as you have mentioned, there's another thing that we need to discuss. In the 1960s to the present day, many epistemologists are concerned about to get your problem, which is supposed to be a counter-argument to the JTV account of knowledge. Now you have devoted a whole book, as you can see here, on this regular subject. So what is the, get your problem all about? What are your thoughts on this? Oh, wow. Okay. In a few minutes. I'll say that because everyone always thinks, you know, hey, I've got it, but it's true. Okay. So the get it, let me just say for people who are new to it, the get your problem. It's all, it's all down to one nineties. Very, very, very, very, very, very short. 1963 essay by Alvin. And, you know, so we just had you, I just took you through the basic idea of the JTV definition of knowledge. It was meant to be a definition knows in knowledge equals, you know, defined as a justified true belief. And get a, and get a little paper in which he argued that one direction in that definition fails. So definition says it's a two-way arrow and it's like saying, whenever you, so you can reason each way, his knowledge that if something's knowledge that means on JTV, that means you can infer perfectly that it's a justified true belief. But you can come back the other way too, because it's a definition. It goes each way. That means when, if you were looking at something and say it's a belief, I can see that it's true and it's, you know, it's well justified. So therefore Clyde J to be it's not done. Gettio came up with two stories, just imagine stories in which he argued that he described someone who supposedly had a belief and he showed how it was true in these stories. And he sketched a line in which you could say that these beliefs really were justified. Not perfectly, but no problem. That's fallibility, but they were justified. But, and then he, you know, he had a few words about this and left it to epistemologists and they most almost all agreed that these beliefs were not knowledge. I'll give you a very quick, I mean, that's a schematic thing. I'll give you not one of his because they're more complicated, but there's a really nice one that I came from Roderick Chisholm few three years later, which I just sort of like to use. And you can go maybe go and think about this kind of case. It's, so you just imagine you're standing outside a field. It's called the sheep in the field case. You're standing outside the field, you look in, you see this good sunlight, no problem. You look in, looks like a sheep. You see this thing, it looks like a sheep. We can add details. It smells like a sheep. Anyway, you know, but anyway, it looks like a sheep, no problem. And so you just think to yourself, oh, there's a sheep in that field. And there is. But it's not that thing. That is a dog disguised as a sheep. And when I said sounds smells like let it be a fresh kind of sheep fleece put over it. So it still smells and maybe there was a recording of a sheep. Thanks to it. Anyway, there is a sheep over a little hill. So it's hidden in the field. So there's a sheep in the field. So your belief is right. You are justified because you're looking in normal circumstances at a thing in the front of you, which looks just perfectly like a sheep. So you infer there's a sheep in the field. But the usual line is, but you don't know. And people often say you don't know. There's a sheep in the field. They like to emphasize it. I prefer not to. But anyway. So that, but that's the question. So that's a Gettier question. So that would be ideal be so the term people come to talk with Gettier cases and the idea is you can think of these cases. You can make them up. And so the idea is that that's a situation. And so the idea is to think about it again. Tie it back to JTB effects works. You're talking about someone forming a belief. There's a sheep in that field, which is true. It's made true by the thing you can't see. But you actually are justified for the belief on the basis of the stuff. You can't the thing you can see, but it goes the line. But surely we wouldn't call that knowledge. Now you think it is and it's, but this isn't about your perspective. This is just us looking on evaluating. And so the idea as epistemologists, we surely would look on with all that data and say you don't actually know, even though you do satisfy JTB. Therefore. As Gettier inferred JTB force. And what that meant was for epistemologists from 63 on and it's been an ongoing sort of battle. What is knowledge? More fully. I can remember we started the discussion, you know, earlier by saying, look, if epistemologists are trying to discover what knowledge, even propositional knowledge was just what it is. If we thought that JTB could be what it was. And then Gettier seemed to say, well, that's not quite right. People thought that it would be easy to amend the definition, but it hasn't proved to be so. There've been definition after definition. There's been different theory after theory. Lots of interesting ideas over the years as to what else we should be looking for. Genuinely to be getting to the heart of what it is to know just what is it that we take for granted in situations. But for example, isn't there in the Gettier case has been failed in the Gettier case. But he's not being failed when we really do have knowledge. That was the challenge. Tell us what's the difference between normal good cases where we get knowledge and like a Gettier case where we don't. It's very clear, but it's been a really big challenge. And I just looked, there was a 1983 book on it, which is a bit of an overview by Robert Schoep. And then I don't think between that book and mine, which is 2016, paperback 2018. Anyway, but I'm just, I'm sort of Jackie, but it's, but honestly, it's, I don't think there's people have been tons of papers after papers after papers, but people, here's the thing, people, it's becoming more and more the case that students and younger philosophers just take for granted sort of an assumptions about Gettier cases. Anyway, I got, I've got just got more and more frustrated over the years about a lot of that. And I come in with the book where I try to look, I, it's a, I'm looking back on 50 years pretty much there of stuff and I'm saying there's been these underlying reasons why no one's, it hasn't, no one solved it. I have a go at a bit of a solution myself, but with some different presumptions. So it's the idea that even when you talked about, like I suppose we said, let's eliminate luck. It's just lucky you're right. Well, that's not so simple to do. I know it makes, I know, like, you know, all of you, I understand. We say, oh, that's just luckily true. Of course I understand that sounds right, but it's not so easy to make sense of that. So that's why that book, it's, it's, it's a lot of it's, you know, it's why I go into in detail in the book here. Yeah, so yeah, it's been a long history since the Gettier problem was published in 1963. And a lot of people were adding conditions for the JTB. So you have Oldman and all those people. Now, what are your thoughts here in the Gettier problem? So how do you solve it? Well, I don't, I don't think any, any, I mean, I know this sounds bold and brash, like I'm still at brash 17, 18 year old, but it's well, actually it's sort of true. I still have that useful. It's true. I don't think any of those approaches have sort of been trying to have been right. I try to identify a few problems in the, in the book, and they do take a bit of detail to go into, but I mean, I'll just say one quick, simple line is that quick idea is, if you're for any of you interested to chase it up, I don't think that people have really stayed true in trying to solve it. They haven't stayed true to the underlying spirit of fallibilism. The cases were set up, Gettier explicitly said that he is taking it for granted that justification, the kind that can be player role in our ordinary knowing can be fallible. And fallibility here means that even when you got the justification, of course you justified, there's always a possibility of being wrong. It's like, you know, you live your life, you're hoping to get knowledge, you're hoping to know facts around you, but you live with the sense of human fallibility that even when you have knowledge, you know, there's always a possibility you're wrong. You're hoping not wrong. You try to be as rational as you can be. Of course, but a fallible, it's like me, will always try to make sense as an epistemologist. I try to show how you can coherently build into that optimistic picture, in effect of what's the word, like a perennial sense that you could be wrong. See, many people think that sounds so weird. I know, but I could be wrong. Well, okay, so that's a challenge to make sense of that. But I don't think in, I actually do, I'm really not sure that for a lot of people, when they've responded to Gettier cases, that they, let me put it this way, when I give you that sheep in the field case, and for all of you who are hearing it, maybe for the first time, let's say, and you say, yeah, that doesn't sound like knowledge. Well, I can't prove this for you right now, but I'm just saying for you to go and think about it, I would say it's a challenge. How do you know that if you said, you don't think that's knowledge? What quality control have you applied to yourself there, such that you know that you're applying a fallible standard? Isn't it possible? And I have like a chapter on this particular thing about experimental philosophy and intuitions and all that. There's a chapter on that in the book. And it's on this idea. Isn't it possible that you are, without realizing it, you're reaching for what's so tempting for many of us to be applying like an infallible standard, as in, well, if I don't, if I could be wrong, and then I don't really know. Look, I could be wrong, so I don't really know. No, a fallible will say, forget the angst. A fallible has to be able to understand the idea that, well, I could be wrong, but I do know. And so don't reach too easily for the, oh, I could be wrong. So I don't really know. See, that's an infallible. So part of the thing I argue for there, which is one of the outlines of argument is, at one point, that if you, the Getty cases are meant to be testing a fallible picture of knowing, right? JTB, but where the J can allow justification to be good, but fallible. That's the classic picture. Okay, but you shouldn't react to cases by covertly, unwittingly, somehow really retreating into some little, some infallible picture you've got. So I just throw that as a challenge for any of you, you know, coming to this, if you want to go away and look Chase this stuff up, you know, just try to see how you can know that you're really staying as a fallible. It's so tempting to just fall back into the, what really is just an infallible response, which is the old, oh, oh, if I could be wrong, then I don't really know. Notice how the term really gets in there so often. And it's such a, and there's just no quality to me. There's no quality control on this, these kind of so-called intuitive responses. I just, I've been in a way, I argue at one point, look, if it's, if you're really going to call it intuitive, well, look, look how intuitive infallible it is. It's like you have to learn to just relax around possible mistakes and just live with them. That's part of living as a fallibleist. You do your best, but you don't get scared by every possibility of mistake. Oh, so it's a kind of intellectual humility as well. Yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's right. That's a good way to, good, good phrase to bring in. There it is. Yeah, it's a, yeah. So there's a bigger picture here. It's not just a technical kind of, I mean, technicality is a fun, but there is a bigger, there is a bigger sense in this that there is humility, that you really, see, it goes each way. You're humble, but you're also, you do think we have knowledge. So it's like you don't give way and just say, oh, I'm humble and therefore I have no knowledge. I have nothing. The history of science, for example, scientific knowledge is a whole topic in itself. But, you know, like, you're simplifying, you're sure, presumably you're going to look on and say, look, I mean, Karl Popper was big on this, you've got to say that the history of science is a matter of fallible progress. You know, we've often thought we knew things which had turned out we didn't. Well, that's just because it turned out to be false. Okay, no problem. That's just out of failing the truth condition. But we keep going. And it's always fallible. It's slowly, hopefully you accumulate enough truths. And it seems fair enough to call that knowledge. We don't always know whether we know. There are times we think we know something and we don't. But there are other times we think we know something and maybe we do we do just never perfectly. Just never infallibly. And that's that's how science works. And I think it's how most of us work. Okay, speaking of the history of knowledge and history of philosophy, last year in 2019, you and your collaborators publish a four volume work, monumental work, the philosophy of knowledge, a history. So it's a historical tour of how Western thought philosophers thought about the question about, yeah, how about the question about knowledge? Well, what inspired you to do this project? Yeah, look, I'm very glad I did it. And it was actually an approach from the publisher. It was from Bloomsbury. Colleen Colter at Bloomsbury. I'm giving her a mention here because she's great. And she's extremely supportive and very encouraging editor. And that's important. So it was like it was intended. She proposed it to me. It was a follow up. She didn't propose it as a full volume book. It became so big that she then said it was originally busy. Just, you know, one volume, but it was going to be so big. It was meant to be a follow up. Have you seen as a, there's a similar book on skepticism from edited by Diego Machuca and Baron Reed. And this and Colleen, in the end, they came up, came out more closely and in time, closer together in time. I don't remember theirs, but because they were theirs was pretty delayed. Whereas mine was pretty much on time. So it was meant to be because there's a skepticism, you know, there's a lot tons of great history stuff in it. It's a contemporary stuff. So in a way, and she and Colleen proposed to me because I'd worked with her on another book. And she said, would I be interested in this? And I thought, I gotta tell you, at first I sort of thought, this sounds so big. I kind of sort of in a way kind of let it slide through and then, you know, it could have gone away, but then she came back to it and said, well, you know, we weren't talking. Have you given more thought to, and I thought, look, you really, I really should and I could do it. I'm, you know, I'm a fairly well organized person. Though, you know, there was a lot of, it was a lot of work, but it's back to what I said about the history thing. I don't think I could have done this and I wouldn't have been motivated to do it so early in my career. But as I say, I've come to have more and more respect for this whole sense of the sweep of things. I also see, for example, here's a quick little point. I've spent all those years thinking about the Gettier problem, which is contemporary epistemology. You know, paradigm, contemporary epistemology, there's nothing more paradigmatic. And I do find it frustrating when people just simply think, here's an account and what's, and then they make up cases and they give intuitive responses. I don't do that. I don't argue by saying, well, here's my intuitive response. I just, I try to fashion theories and just see how they can work together with other theories. I just don't like that whole way of doing it. And one reason is I, looking honest, I think it's kind of superficial and it's just a quick, I don't know what it really proves other than, gee, some of us right now talk a particular way, just welcome experimental philosophy on this because quickly, I'd always suspected that the Gettier stuff was not as straightforward as, you know, people thought, they all look at each other and nod and say, oh, do we think it's this? Yeah, yeah, we all agree. Well, I always thought it wasn't so simple. So the experimental philosophy stuff, for those of you who knew it, it was the idea of like, it's been going around for nearly 20 years and the idea initially Gettier case is featured. And it was, let's ask people on the street. What do they think? And not, it wasn't so simple. People out in the street, many non-trivial number at scene, percentage were willing to say, well, there is knowledge here. Okay, so here's my point. It's a long-winded answer, but my point was I, for starting to find it somewhat frustrating, the contemporary stuff, because I don't think it's, I don't know if that's the only way to make progress in thinking about these issues. And so I wanted to have, again, let's have in front of us a lot of, you know, theories and ideas from across the centuries. And, you know, what we're going through right now, contemporary, who knows, maybe in a hundred years, the stuff that we do right now will just not be so well regarded. Who knows? How can we know? Seriously, I do, you know, you've got, again, humility. We should have humility as well about, you know, contemporary does not entail, entail better in every respect. You know, I've recently been going back, I edited this year, I've got a co-edited a book with Nick Smith, the Plato Nick Smith, and it's called, What the Ancients Offered a Contemporary Epistemology. So we've gone back there again, it's ancient Greek, some ancient Greek philosophy and trying to look at it again, blend contemporary epistemologists with ancient, ancient, you know, people that do ancient epistemology, bring the two together. Again, it's in the same sort of project, let's try to learn from each other. And so that's what motivated, that's what, why I got excited about the project. And, yeah, when Colleen said, you know, I think maybe we should divide this into four volumes and then I'll go to you. And that's what I brought in, you know, and I brought in the other, the editors for the first three volumes, you know, because, you know, I could have had a go at it and I'm sympathetic and I am, you know, reasonably well educated in the history of things, but I'm not a specialist in ancient Greek and let alone medieval, which is medieval has been neglected. My upbringing, you know, in philosophy, no one did it, or Peter King at Pittsburgh was the only person doing it in my education. It's only slowly becoming, and I've been trying to encourage that recently. I've been doing a lot more reading in it myself recently, metaphysics as well. And yeah, there's just lots of good stuff there. And so what inspired me basically was, because I was asked to do it. And then I thought, let me bring in and collaborate with these others. And in effect, it's like me also, as someone who's known mainly for the contemporary, I wanted to show, look, I'm open to what you guys do, and let's come together on this stuff and let's have a kind of big package so people can see as a whole that epistemology is, because we always say, oh, I began with the ancient, from West and the West, came in ancient Greeks and here we are. Yeah, no, well, yes, but, you know, but there's been lots and lots of thinking. We all sort of say that, but I wanted to lay it out so people can go to it and really see a lot more stuff. Yeah. And you mentioned that this philosophy of knowledge, a history, it's a living history. So it's an interaction and an ongoing interaction. Yeah. Yeah. And if people like me, particularly contemporary ones, reach back and make that kind of link, it brings so that for example, people who do say medieval, falsely stuff, they're not just off just by themselves and that's that. You know, I think it's good if people like me who are, you know, focused mainly on the contemporary for our own actual writing can look and build the bridges and all that stuff. And, you know, overall that enriches it. And at the end of the day, I walk away and I'm not literally doing the media, publishing the medieval, but I've helped bring it together for others to come and they can look at the book and they can hopefully read it all together and get something out of that. So yeah, you know, it's in a way, it's, you know, we're here, we've got a certain time, we do what we can and that's, you know, and you leave the, do that for hope it helps others. Yeah. And I know that sounds past, but it's true. That is actually how I see it. Okay. So yeah. Yeah. What do you think it's the future of epistemology and how would this generation of philosophers contribute to it? Um, yeah. Well, I don't know who can say I, um, you know, it's been epistemology, you know, areas of philosophy come and go. I've been at it long enough to know that some different areas have their time and epistemology has been, but it's particularly busy. There's been lots of really good young philosophers particularly come into it. You know, in the last 10, 20 years, et cetera. And, uh, that can only be good. Well, sorry. It was one caveat. The only way I ever have, well, in about any area of philosophy, but I see it sometimes it's a danger in epistemology. So I put it out there. There is a danger sometimes of people, especially certain dominant ideas get in place. People just start thinking they just have to follow along with that. So when I started to say it can only be good. Did you get a lot of, you know, good energetic younger philosophers coming into epistemology? Yeah. That absolutely welcome. My only thing I can say is I sometimes I've, you know, because I've been around longer and I sometimes say to some of them, look, okay, but, you know, epistemology, some of them I think aren't reaching back far enough. And I think, okay, but maybe I wouldn't have either at that point, but, but it's like, okay, again, just be aware it's been going a long time. And so stay open for new ideas. So I guess I said it earlier that, you know, I really do. I said five years ago when I had, I had a sabbatical at NYU and I was saying to one prominent philosopher there. And I said, look, isn't it possible? Just possible. But none of the people that we think right now is, I was being, you know, the best philosophers. Isn't it possible that none of them will be cared about in a hundred, 200 years? Now his response was, oh, no, if I find that, I can't take that. Well, I'm not stinking it of any, but you've got to stay open to new ideas. We don't know where we are in the sweep of the history of this thing. So I personally am optimistic. But, you know, we might all still be within Plato's cave. We hope not. And that's why you have to keep pushing and trying for new ideas. But yeah, so look, I'm always an optimist about it. It's part of, as I say, as I said, when I was an undergraduate, it really was a motivation for me. And when I thought, look, I'm hearing people like Armstrong and others talk about it. And part of what I perceive in philosophy is, it's not all being solved. And I really did have that sense of, look, I can get it. Maybe I can try to solve something. Maybe I can, you know, accomplish that. Who knows if I have or haven't or ever will, whatever. But you give it a go and it's a motivation. And so, you know, we're all trying to, you know, do our little bit to try to play a part within the bigger picture of philosophy. And so I'm optimistic in the sense that so long as people are still coming in with that sort of, with sort of motivation to try to work things out. To me, it's not just a job. It's not just another job. I guess I always think philosophy should be special. You know, I could have just gone and finished my law degree if I just, no insult to anyone who's doing these things. But for me, at least that would have just been another, that would have just been a job. But for me, it didn't have that special feel to study of it. I did some little subjects over three years, but it just didn't have that feel, but philosophy did. And so I, while ever I sense that, you know, particularly younger people still having that motivation to try to get in there and work things out and have the other new ideas, then I stay optimistic. Yeah. Let's talk about the career in academic philosophy. So you've been an academic philosopher for most of your life. You've experienced the ups and the downs of this career. So what advice would you give to the starting academics or those who want to start academic careers in philosophy? Well, look, I just said that I think philosophy is special. So that's my own view. So my own view would be think about why you want to be a philosopher. I was very clear that, look, if I don't make a, you know, beget a job of philosophy, it's been, look, it's for those of you, you know, it's very difficult, but it's been difficult for decades. So you've got to know your value. You've got, because academic career, there'll be tons of rejections. There's a lot of frustration. You know, trying to publishing in philosophy in some ways is more difficult than most areas. I remember a history dean I had back in one of my promotion steps, he said to me, you know, gee whiz, I submit to journals that only accept, say, 25%. I'm thinking, wow, that'd be, that'd be pretty good to get. You know, the top philosophy journals are way harder than that. And it's, and it's a fact. The American Philosophical Association did a study this year ago. And I don't remember what they came up with. They were trying to work out why is it so, why is our publishing rate so low? So I say this, that you can only go into it if you've got to be prepared. You've got to have a thickish skin. You've got to be prepared because publishing is important. It always has been, but it's professional. It's even more so. And, you know, you've got to do it. You've got to want to do it. And you've got to want to do it because you really like, my view is you shouldn't just do it because it's a career. And oh, publishing is what they expect. My view is you do it because you want to think through things. Publishing is the, hopefully the progression of that. And associated with that is the career. But, you know, as I said, everyone in philosophy is bright. And my experience is that everyone in philosophy could do other things. You know, it's, so to me it's not, it's a special kind of job. As I said, my father made a career doing, you know, it's from political cartooning and then puppets. Gosh, it's how, how lucky is that? It's very rare. So my point is I saw that up close. You do it because, you know, it's something, because I saw that someone doing something he really just wanted to do it. And he just happened to be able to make a career. Now I view philosophy a bit the same way. I know that sounds easy, but I did even early on. You know, all the way I did think I might not get a job. But I'm doing it right now because I really like doing it. And I'll give it my best shot. And as I say, then once you go into it, it's, it's very, well, JJ, as you say, ups and downs, that's true. You can have periods where you really struggle to publish, where your stuff isn't right. You're not, you get rejections. I've had tons of rejections over the years, especially early on. You just, you just, it's very frustrating. But you've got to live with it. And you've got to be prepared always to be realistic and to learn from it. And you just keep going. If you've got to keep, if you really like doing philosophy and that you shouldn't be a philosophy academic unless you just really like philosophy for its own sake. I think because I said, you can always do something else, which, you know, it's, it's just true. But for you, is it, is the career worth it? Well, I've, yeah, I look overall, yeah, I like, I still like philosophy. I'm, I'm, and I'm still got things I want to do in philosophy because I want to write them, things I want to write. For me, the motivation originally, look, I think the social justification of what we do is the teaching. But to be honest, that's not personally purely what privately, what actually motivate. It's not like I said, I want, I mean, I've been pretty good teacher and I'm, you know, I give it energy and effort, but it's not what actually motivated to become a philosophy because I just, as I said before, I wanted to think about stuff and write. So I've written a lot and that's not because anyone asked me to and just wanted to do it. If I go too long without writing, I get really awkward. I don't, I feel awkward. So it has been worth it for me because overall, but there's frustration. Sure. But overall, yes, I do think philosophy, an academic philosophy career in some ways is very, very privileged. You know, when I look back on it, I've been, I've been paid for many, many years to do philosophy and there's frustrating things. You know, when you're part of an organization, there's a lot of stuff you don't necessarily want to do. But that's the price. Again, I learned early in life, even my father doing stuff, which he had was so privileged. He made a career out of doing absolutely what he wanted to do. But I know there were times it was even there where things were boring. He didn't want to do it. So I learned that lesson in my earlier life. No one was more privileged than him in a sense. And yet even then there were things. So I, that's true. I still think it's, if you can make a career, if you can be paid in this world with so many people suffering and so many people having so many denied so many opportunities and everything. You know, you got to remember there's nothing, most of us, there's nothing that special about most of us. And if you can make, if you can be paid to do that, to work out your own thoughts on something. So when I look back like choosing not to stay with law and be a barrister, I would, I would have, it's like, oh, this week I'm arguing for that. This week I'm arguing for that. This week I'm being told to argue for that. No, I can argue for whatever I want to. It's, there's an integrity to it that you can live out potentially. So I look back and think that's been valuable and privileged. So it's, I've never thought of it as really just in a way as our job. It's, it's, and I don't think, oh, it's a vocation. I could only have done that. I could have done lots of things, not just intellectually, but emotionally. I could have done lots of things. And if I'd gone back and finished a law degree, I probably would have done environmental law and worked for environmental stuff back then. But just lots of things. And we all got options, I hope. But if you do it, you should, I guess my view is philosophy, you do it hopefully because you really think it's, it's really interesting. And you're really, really, my family, it was really trying to want to work things out. And in my view, I look back and I think, you know, I can take some pride in some of the things I've written. I do, I do think I've, I think personally, I have been right about some things and I've worked out some things, but that's what I think today. Okay. So on that note, thanks again, Professor Hetherington for sharing your time with us. Oh, thank you. Okay. So join me again for another episode of philosophy and what matters where we talk about things that matter from a philosophical point of view. Cheers.