Sensitivity Unmotivated

Sensitivity account of knowledge states that if one knows that p (via method M), then were p false, one would not believe that p via M. This account has been highly controversial. However, even its critics tend to agree that the account enjoys an important advantage of solving the Gettier problem—that is, it explains why Gettierized beliefs are not knowledge. In this paper, I argue that this purported advantage of sensitivity is merely illusory. The account cannot, in principle, solve the Gettier problem. Moreover, another formulation of sensitivity—which is fully in line with Nozick’s original account—is not unscathed either.