The concept of being in a position to know is an increasingly popular member of the epistemologist’s toolkit. Some have used it as a basis for an account of propositional justification. Others, following Timothy Williamson, have used it as a vehicle for articulating interesting luminosity and anti-luminosity theses. It is tempting to think that while knowledge itself does not obey any closure principles, being in a position to know does. For example, if one knows both p and ‘If p then q’, but one dies or gets distracted before being able to perform a modus ponens on these items of knowledge and for that reason one does not know q, one is still plausibly in a position to know q. It is also tempting to suppose that, while one does not know all logical truths, one is nevertheless in a position to know every logical truth. Putting these temptations together, we get the view that being in a position to know has a normal modal logic. A recent literature has begun to investigate whether it is a good idea to give in to these twin temptations—in particular the first one. That literature assumes very naturally that one is in a position to know everything one knows and that one is not in a position to know things that one cannot know. It has succeeded in showing that, given the modest closure condition that knowledge is closed under conjunction elimination (or ‘distributes over conjunction’), being a position to know cannot satisfy the so-called K axiom (closure of being in a position to know under modus ponens) of normal modal logics. In this paper, we explore the question of the normality of the logic of being in a position to know in a more far-reaching and systematic way. Assuming that being in a position to know entails the possibility of knowing and that knowing entails being in a position to know, we can demonstrate radical failures of normality without assuming any closure principles at all for knowledge. (However, as we will indicate, we get further problems if we assume that knowledge is closed under conjunction introduction.) Moreover, the failure of normality cannot be laid at the door of the K axiom for knowledge, since the standard principle NEC of necessitation also fails for being in a position to know. After laying out and explaining our results, we briefly survey the coherent options that remain.

有能力知道的概念是认识论工具包中越来越受欢迎的成员。有些人用它作为命题论证的基础。其他人，跟随蒂莫西威廉姆森，将其用作阐明有趣的光度和反光度论文的工具。人们很容易认为，虽然知识本身不遵循任何封闭原则，但处于知道的位置却如此。例如，如果一个人既知道 p 又知道“If p then q”，但是一个人在能够对这些知识项执行 modus ponens 之前就死了或分心了，因此一个人不知道 q，一个人似乎仍然在知道 q 的位置。也很容易假设，虽然一个人不知道所有的逻辑真理，但仍然能够知道每一个逻辑真理。把这些诱惑放在一起，我们得到的观点是，处于知道的位置具有正常的模态逻辑。最近的一篇文献开始研究屈服于这些双重诱惑——尤其是第一个诱惑——是否是一个好主意。文学很自然地假设一个人能够知道自己知道的一切，而不能知道自己无法知道的事情。它成功地表明，考虑到知识在合取消除（或“分布在合取上”）下封闭的适度封闭条件，知道的位置不能满足所谓的 K 公理（处于知道位置的封闭）在正常模态逻辑的模式下）。在本文中，我们以更深远和更系统的方式探讨了能够知道的逻辑的正常性问题。假设处于知道的位置意味着知道的可能性，并且知道意味着处于知道的位置，我们可以证明正常性的根本失败，而无需为知识假设任何封闭原则。（然而，正如我们将指出的，如果我们假设知识在合取引入下是封闭的，我们会遇到更多问题。）此外，正规性的失败不能放在知识的 K 公理的门口，因为必然性的标准原则 NEC也无法知道。在列出并解释我们的结果后，我们简要调查了剩下的连贯选项。假设处于知道的位置意味着知道的可能性，并且知道意味着处于知道的位置，我们可以证明正常性的根本失败，而无需为知识假设任何封闭原则。（然而，正如我们将指出的，如果我们假设知识在合取引入下是封闭的，我们会遇到更多问题。）此外，正规性的失败不能放在知识的 K 公理的门口，因为必然性的标准原则 NEC也无法知道。在列出并解释我们的结果后，我们简要调查了剩下的连贯选项。假设处于知道的位置意味着知道的可能性，并且知道意味着处于知道的位置，我们可以证明正常性的根本失败，而无需为知识假设任何封闭原则。（然而，正如我们将指出的，如果我们假设知识在合取引入下是封闭的，我们会遇到更多问题。）此外，正规性的失败不能放在知识的 K 公理的门口，因为必然性的标准原则 NEC也无法知道。在列出并解释我们的结果后，我们简要调查了剩下的连贯选项。如果我们假设知识在合取引入下是封闭的，我们会得到进一步的问题。）此外，正规性的失败不能放在知识的 K 公理的门口，因为必然性的标准原则 NEC 也不能知道。在列出并解释我们的结果后，我们简要调查了剩下的连贯选项。如果我们假设知识在合取引入下是封闭的，我们会得到进一步的问题。）此外，正规性的失败不能放在知识的 K 公理的门口，因为必然性的标准原则 NEC 也不能知道。在列出并解释我们的结果后，我们简要调查了剩下的连贯选项。