Description: Epistemic Luck is the first book to offer a rigorous philosophical examination of the concept of luck and its relationship to knowledge. In particular, Duncan Pritchard shows how a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between knowledge and luck can enable us to see our way past some of the most intractable disputes in the contemporary theory of knowledge. Anyone working on epistemology will need to come to terms with his original and incisive contribution to the field.
Review Quotes: 'This book is a tour de force.'
--Kevin Meeker, Mind
--Ram Neta, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"In this beautifully written book, Duncan Pritchard provides a distinctive defense of a neo-Moorean safety response to skepticism. At the heart of the book is a sensitive and subtle discussion of the intuition that knowledge excludes luck. He distinguishes two central kinds of luck which are epistemologically relevant and uses them to provide an insightful critique of contemporary virtue epistemology. He defends his own preferred safety-based view by arguing that it best accommodates the idea that knowledge excludes what he calls 'veritic luck'. However, he acknowledges that knowledge is ineliminably infected with a further kind of luck, 'reflective luck', which provides a perpetual source of skeptical doubt. Pritchard's admirably clear prose will provide students with an overview of debates at the heart of contemporary epistemology while also making substantial contribution to those debates."
--Jessica Brown, University of Bristol
"Epistemic Luck is a rich, engaging, and ground-breaking work. It is a fine example of the kind of original and exciting work being done at the frontier of epistemology today."
Jason Baehr, Metaphilosophy