Is Externalism Compatible with the KK-thesis?

Abstract: In this paper I discuss the compatibility of externalism about epistemic justification with the well-known KK-thesis in epistemic logic. A weaker form of the KK-thesis (if one knows, one is also in a position to know that one knows) is first defended against Williamson's anti-luminosity arguments. Given some base assumptions about the nature of human beings and states of knowing, it is argued that some varieties of externalism are compatible with the KK-thesis if one relativizes this to non-ideal human agents and maintains only a weaker form of the KK-thesis. Causal and reliabilist theories of knowledge are deemed compatible with the KK-thesis, but Williamson's theory of knowledge and his variety of externalism is deemed not to be compatible with the KK-thesis. It is concluded that internalists and externalists are forced into similar assumptions about the nature of knowledge in order for the KK-thesis to hold and that since externalism permits a broader conception of knowledge including a wider variety of species, it can be deemed preferable to internalism.