Justified True Belief Flashcards
What does entailment mean?
Logical relation where if you believe one thing you must believe something else
If you believe arsenal lost the game then it must entail you believe arsenal played the game
What is the tripartite definition of knowledge (9)
Outlines that a statement must be justified, true and believed to constitute knowledge
Justification, truth and necessity are individually necessary but jointly sufficient
They are not enough individually to constitutive knowledge and the absence of one prevents a proposition from counting as knowledge
Justification is a necessary condition because in its absence, all you have is opinion. You can have true opinions but these cannot constitute knowledge as knowledge cannot be formed by the process of guessing. There must be some form of evidence be it deductive logic or inductive science to justify a proposition
Truth is a necessary condition as if a proposition does not accord with how things actually are it is merely a falsehood. Things that are not true cannot be knowledge no matter how much justification and belief. I.e. 2+2= 5 can never be knowledge. This is an external criterion as our internal belief must accord with the way things actually are
Belief is a necessary condition as it seem contradictory to claim knowledge that something exists without actually believing it.
I.e. It would be paradoxical to claim god exists without believing it
This is an internal criterion
What is Acquaintance knowledge?
‘Knowing of’ something through experience
We may not be able to verbally articulate this well
What is ability knowledge
Practical knowledge or “knowing how” to perform an action but does not entail being able to verbally articulate that knowledge
What is propositional knowledge?
“Knowing that” knowledge
I.e. That Socrates was a man
This knowledge is only knowledge if the criteria is met - if a proposition is justified , true and believed
What does Gettier argue?
One sentence
Justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge
What is Gettier’s clock example?
What does it show ?
If a person looks at a clock that says 12 0 clock they have justification to believe that it is 12 0 clock
This clock was actually broken but the person looked at the clock at just the right time that the time the clock was telling was actually true
Therefore this person had a justified true belief that it is 12 o clock - this still isn’t knowledge as it is based on luck
Therefore JTB is not sufficient to constitute knowledge as you can have a case of JTB based on luck like this one based on a false belief
What are the 4 responses to Gettier ?
Infallibilism
No false lemmas
Reliabilism
Virtue epistemology
What is the infallibilism response to Gettier ?
Introduced the notion of infallibilism to JTB to be sufficient in constituting knowledge
This would rule out Gettier style examples that involve fallible beliefs -
The clock had the potential to break or be mistaken. The flawed clock would be ruled out
Problem with infallibilism?
This sets a counter intuitive high bar for knowledge
As only analytic and mathematical truths would be counted as knowledge.
All empirical knowledge we are not 100% certain of so would be fallible and therefore would not be able to constitute knowledge.
Ruling out all synthetic knowledge seems counter intuitive
What is the “no false lemmas” response to Gettier?
Why is this better than infallibilism?
Avoids Gettier cases with the addition that knowledge cannot be based on false assumptions
This would avoid the clock example as the belief that the clock would not be broken would be a “false lemma”
This does allow empirical knowledge to constitute knowledge so is a less counter intuitive example than infalliblism
Why might the no false lemmas example not work?
It does not account for all Gettier style examples
It does not account for the ones relating to context
I.e. Boris Johnson look alike day
If it is boris Johnson look alike day and you do not know this but happen to see Boris Johnson, you will have a justified true belief with no false lemmas that you saw boris Johnson
However this would not constitute knowledge as it would still be a fluke
What is the response of reliabilism to Gettier?
Removing and replacing justification with ‘reliable processes’ would avoid Gettier cases as Gettier cases work where justification fails due to it coming about through unreliable processes
Justification is replaced as it usually refers to our intemperate reasons for believing, a reliable process is an external criteria.
A reliabilist would argue that looking and basing knowledge off a broken clock is not a reliable process as relying on flawed devices does not lead us to the truth
A reliabilist standpoint would also help us explain examples which seem to have unclear justification but reliable processes
Savant examples like a boy who can recall pie up to 25,000 numbers that sees numbers as shapes and colours
Why might reliabilism not work?
How can this be salvaged
It is not clear what counts as a reliable process
Does seeing through fog twice count as reliable?
This is unclear
However
If criteria for “reliable processes” is established then the response will be successful
What is the response of virtue epistemology ?
Knowledge must be
Accurate - true
Adroit - must have come about by intellectual virtuous processes / correctly exercising cognitive facilities
Apt - must be true because it came about though intellectually virtuous processes/ correctly exercising cognitive faculties
Example -
Archer analogy
Accurate - is it true ? Did they hit the target
Adroit - was the shot fired with skill?
Apt - did the arrow hit the target because it was fired with skill?
Avoids all Gettier examples
Avoids the stopped clock because you don’t arrive at the truth by correctly exercising cognitive faculties or because of intellectual virtue. You arrive at the truth by chance so it is not apt and not sufficient to constitute knowledge.
