{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02079002079002079, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004158004158004158, 'mean_word_length': 4.59593023255814, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Précis of “The Possibility of Knowledge” (Clarendon Press, 2007)

My book is about how-possible questions in epistemology, questions of the form “How is knowledge of kind K possible?”. I explain how such questions arise and propose a way of answering them. I suggest that epistemological how-possible questions are obstacle-dependent and that a satisfactory response to such questions must therefore be, at least in part, an obstacle-removing response. We ask how knowledge of kind K is possible when we are inclined to think that knowledge of this kind is possible but encounter apparent obstacles to its existence or acquisition. So the question is: how is knowledge of kind K possible given the factors that make it look impossible? Sometimes the obstacle is the lack of any means of acquiring knowledge of kind K. If we think we have this kind of knowledge then we presumably think that we have means of acquiring it. 1 We might be concerned, however, that the means we usually employ to acquire it are inadequate and that no better means are available to us. The first stage of a satisfying response to an epistemological how-possible question should therefore consist in the identification of viable means of acquiring the apparently problematic knowledge. 2 This is Level 1 of what I call a multi-levels response to the how-possible question, the level of means. Level 2 is the obstacle-removing level, the level at which we try to show that there are no insuperable obstacles to our coming to know by the suggested means. What counts as an obstacle is largely a matter what philosophers have actually found problematic about this kind of knowledge. Suppose that the obstacle takes the form of an epistemological requirement R that supposedly cannot be met. In that case, we must either show that R can be met or that it is not a genuine requirement. I call the former an obstacle-overcoming response while the latter