Knowledge from Blindspots

No False Lemmas (NFL) says: necessarily, S’s belief that p is knowledge only if it is not inferred from any falsehood. Its proponents argue that alleged counterexamples to NFL are really cases of knowledge despite falsehood, wherein the false premise is inessential to the inference; perhaps some nearby truth does the justificatory heavy lifting. This chapter argues that there can be cases of inferential knowledge from a blindspot premise. Given that in such cases the relevant falsehood is essential to the inference, one cannot employ the knowledge despite falsehood strategy to defend NFL. The chapter concludes by discussing how cases of knowledge from blindspots exemplify one way in which we can gain inferential knowledge defectively or non-ideally.