Does Knowledge Entail Belief?

Abstract

In contemporary epistemology, it is a widely shared assumption that knowledge entails belief: as a matter of conceptual necessity, if one knows that P, then one believes that P. This is known as the epistemic entailment thesis. In this thesis, I evaluate the epistemic entailment thesis by drawing on evidence from a variety of disciplines, including primatology, biology, psychology, and philosophy. I also report the results from a new behavioural experiment on Korean speakers. The results provide the first evidence that knowledge does not entail belief in Korean. In light of all the evidence reviewed here, I conclude that the epistemic entailment thesis is false.