The Beetle in the Box
An individual S comes into room and sees a small, sealed box on the table. She looks at the outside of the box from all angles but cannot see into it. There is nothing unusual about its weight. Nor does it make a special sound when shaken. Relative to what she is able to observe, there might be nothing at all inside, or there might be a coin wrapped in cloth so as to make no noise, or perhaps a marble or a key. S, however, believes that there is a beetle in the box, and she is correct. There is in fact a beetle inside, but she does not know this to be the case.1
People know many things without having observed their truth firsthand. So, the reason that S here lacks knowledge isn’t just that she has not been able to determine by inspection that there is a beetle inside. The problem is that in addition, as far as we can tell, she has no other information about how a beetle might have come to be inside the box.
Let H be the full history of this box and this beetle and how the beetle came to be inside in the box. If we were to stipulate that like Sally of the previous chapter, S has completely accurate and comprehensive beliefs about H, it would be plausible to say that she knows it contains a beetle even though she cannot see inside.
Suppose, on the other hand, that there is no rich history. The world is such that the beetle has always been in the box. This is just the way the world is. There is this box, and it has a beetle inside it.
Is this really possible? Ordinary boxes and ordinary beetles come into existence via specific histories. It is thus hard to conceive, that is, fully and completely conceive, how it could be that this box and beetle do not likewise have such histories. Whatever material the box is made of, must not it have come from somewhere? If the material is wood, the wood came from a specific tree that had a parent tree which itself had a parent tree, and at some point wood from the offspring tree was made into the box. Similarly with the beetle. If it is like other beetles, it came from parent beetles, which themselves had their own histories. Moreover, there is a history about how beetles in general came into existence.
Let’s agree to stretch the limits of intelligibility and simply stipulate that there is no or at least very little meaningful history to be told about this beetle and this box. They didn’t come into existence in the way that other boxes and beetles do. Since the beginning of time, there has been this box with a beetle inside. The history of the box and beetle is thus unconnected with the histories of how other things in the universe, including other beetles and other boxes, came into existence.
Suppose, finally, S believes all this to be the case. What then? Although she has a true belief that there is a beetle in the box, it still seems that she does not know this. And yet, what are the important truths she lacks? The view of knowledge I have been developing implies that if S here doesn’t have knowledge, there are important truths she is lacking. Well, what are they?
Even in the case of this unusual box, there are ways of testing whether there is a beetle inside. An fMRI scan of the box would display a beetle-shaped image. A device that is able to detect and analyze DNA through the box would register beetle DNA. If one pried open the box, one would see a beetle. If such tests have been conducted but S is unaware of them, this can be used to explain why she lacks knowledge.
But suppose we now push the story a step further and stipulate that no such test has ever been conducted and none ever will be. Imagine if you wish that the box is sacred, tests on it are prohibited, and this prohibition is rigidly enforced. The religious mandate is that one should believe that the box has a beetle in it without having to resort to tests. To ensure this, the box is protected by sophisticated security systems that prevent observational access as well as any tests.
Even in a world where no tests are performed, there are counterfactual truths about what would happen were such tests to be conducted. Suppose, however, that S believes these truths. After all, if she believes that there is a beetle in the box and has enough background information, she can infer them. She believes that if an fMRI scan were taken of the box, it would display a beetle-shaped image; she likewise believes if a DNA-analyzing device were used on the box, it would register beetle DNA; she believes that if she were allowed to pry the box open, she would see a beetle; and so on for other counterfactual truths of this sort.
In sum, S believes that there is a beetle in the box; her belief is true; she is aware of all the various counterfactual truths about what would happen were the box to be tested; and yet it still seems that she does not know that there is a beetle inside. The intuition here is that for all she knows, there could be a coin or a marble or nothing at all inside. If she had believed that there is a coin instead of a beetle inside, she would have inferred that were the appropriate coin detection tests to be employed on the box, they would confirm the presence of the coin. These inferences would have been false, since there isn’t in fact a coin in the box. By contrast, all the beliefs she has inferred from her belief that there is a beetle in the box are true.
In thinking about this story, there are two points to keep in mind. The first is the familiar one that intuitions about knowledge are to be treated with caution. They vary from person to person and occasion to occasion, and moreover the stories that are used to elicit them can be told so as to push and pull them in one direction or another. They are not clean data to which theories of knowledge must be adequate, especially not when they are about situations as bizarre as this one. So, one response to the story is “bizarre world, bizarre knowledge.” If S has all the important information there is to be had, she has knowledge.
Be this as it may, when the imagined circumstances are so far removed from those we are used to encountering, humility is in order. It’s presumptuous to think there is only one acceptable stance to take toward such a case. So, in this ecumenical spirit, let’s accede to the intuition that S here lacks knowledge. What then?
Then a second point comes into play, namely, it is important to distinguish the theory that knowledge is a matter of having adequate information from the standard way of testing whether someone has adequate information. For the theory is well positioned to explain why S does not know that there is a beetle in the box; she does not have enough information. What is peculiar about the case is that ordinarily when S has a true belief P but doesn’t know, there are important available truths she lacks. In this case, however, she has all the important information there is to be had about P. There are no significant truths about the situation of which she is unaware. It is the world that is lacking, not S. The world is informationally impoverished with respect to the proposition that there is a beetle in the box. Indeed, so impoverished that the proposition is unknowable, whether by S or anyone else.
The story thus supports the basic insight of the theory (S doesn’t know that there is a beetle in the box because she does not have adequate information) but also illustrates that the standard test for adequate information (there is no important truth she lacks) has restricted applicability. The test cannot be used when the imagined world is so informationally deprived with respect to P that P is not capable of being known. In a situation of this sort, knowledge is blocked.2