Defeating Luzzi's dilemma: on knowledge from falsehood, Gettierized belief, and defeasibility

Abstract Branden Fitelson (2010) proposes a strengthened version of knowledge from falsehood, according to which one may not have known that p had one not falsely believed that q. However, Federico Luzzi (2019) challenges Fitelson’s proposal. He believes that Fitelson’s account is unsuccessful because it depends on the unjustified assumption about the impossibility of knowledge from Gettierized belief. For Luzzi, Fitelson faces a dilemma: he must either accept knowledge from Gettierization and abandon his own theory about inferential knowledge from robustly false belief, or accept that knowledge from Gettierization is different from his account and deny knowledge from falsehood. He can’t have both. The goal of this paper is to dissolve that dilemma. The essay proceeds as follows. I explain Fitelson’s account and Luzzi’s objection against it. In the final section, I argue that a defeasibility theory of knowledge can help Fitelson defend himself against Luzzi’s objection and, therefore, dissolve the dilemma.