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Counterfactuals and Tracking – A Reply to Smith

Abstract In his ‘Gundersen on Counterfactuals and Tracking’ (Sats – Nordic Journal of Philosophy: 2005), Joshua Smith presents some very interesting points of criticism relating to my ‘Outline of a New Semantic for Counterfactuals’ (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85: 2004). In the following I'll do three things. I will briefly summarise the central theses from that paper and sketch the arguments that I take to support these theses. Then I will discuss Smith's objections; identify some points of agreement – but also some points of disagreements – and try to shed some more light on certain central views of mine that might otherwise give rise to objections akin to those offered by Smith. Finally I will pursue a bit further a line of enquiry taken up by Smith. The central question here is to which extent, and why, tracking (and safety) theories of knowledge are vulnerable to Gettier cases.