Knowledge as Justified True Belief

Question 1

Define ‘acquaintance knowledge’

Answer 1

KNOWING OF

• often involves knowing something by experience
• e.g. what the view from the top of the Empire State building is like
• we don’t have to verbally articulate this knowledge

Question 2

Define ‘ability knowledge’ or ‘practical knowledge’

Answer 2

KNOWING HOW

• the capacity to perform some kind of action
• e.g. how to bake a cake
• we don’t have to verbally articulate this knowledge

Question 3

Define ‘propositional knowledge’

Answer 3

KNOWING THAT

• concerns knowledge that something was the case
• e.g. we know that Socrates was a man
• we’d need to express this knowledge verbally

Question 4

Define ‘the tripartite view of knowledge’

Answer 4

JUSTIFIED, TRUE BELIEF

• individually necessary; the absence of any one of the JTB prevents a proposition counting as knowledge
• jointly sufficient; where all three are present, it discriminates completely between knowledge and not

Question 5

Explain why ‘justification’ is necessary to the definition of Knowledge

Answer 5

Justification is necessary because in it’s absence we are only left with an opinion, even if it is true

Question 6

Explain why ‘truth’ is necessary to the definition of Knowledge

Answer 6

Truth is a necessary condition because if a proposition does not accord to the way things are then it is merely a falsehood, despite any Justification or Belief which lies behind it

Question 7

Explain why ‘belief’ is necessary to the definition of Knowledge

Answer 7

Belief is a necessary condition because if we do not hold a proposition to be true then it would be illogical to claim knowledge of it

Question 8

Outline a reason why ‘Truth’ may not be individually necessary

Answer 8

Coherence Theory:

• This theory points out for various reasons that we cannot always know whether our beliefs match up to reality
• e.g if a man who looks drunk stumbles up to me saying that there are pink elephants up the road, I am likely to reject this as true despite not really knowing if the man is right
• This is because it would not cohere with my knowledge of elephants being grey and not living in Surrey

Question 9

Outline a reason why ‘Belief’ may not be individually necessary

Answer 9

‘Infallibilism’ is the view that belief is uncertain and knowledge is 100% certain

Question 10

Outline a reason why ‘Justification’ may not be individually necessary

Answer 10

Firstly, some might say they have knowledge through faith, which technically is not justified
Secondly, “savants”. These are people with extraordinary talents (e.g. being able to state the day of the week of any date given). If these people are always accurate, they may not be able to explain how or why they have the knowledge without Justification

Question 11

Explain Gettier’s argument that JTB is not sufficient for Knowledge

Answer 11

e.g. Smith and Jones apply for a job, Smith finds out from the president of the company that Jones is likely to get the job. Smith also knows that Jones has ten coins in his pocket. Smith believes, with justification, that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job. Unexpectedly, Smith gets the job, and Smith also finds that he himself has ten coins in his pocket.

For Gettier, this shows JTB that the winning candidate had ten coins in his pocket, yet Smith did not know the outcome

Question 12

Outline the JTB + Infallibilism response to Gettier

Answer 12

Gettier relies on lucky beliefs, to get around this we need “Infallibilism”. For something to be infallible, it is impossible to be mistaken. (e.g. the clock in the Waterloo Station example is fallible, as it has the potential to stop or be wrong)

Question 13

Evaluate Infallibilism as a criteria for Knowledge

Answer 13

For:
-Rules out Gettier examples, which rely on luck or coincidence

Against:

• Infallibilism sets the bar too high, and rules out most knowledge
• Seems to be based around what knowledge should be, not what knowledge usually is

Question 14

Outline the JTB + “No False Lemmas” response to Gettier

Answer 14

A “lemma” is what designates a statement which leads to previous assumptions to form a conclusion

In the Smith and Jones example, Smith believing Jones will get the job linked to his assumption that Jones has ten coins in his pocket and that the successful candidate has ten coins in his pocket.

The belief that Jones would get the job is a “false lemma”

Question 15

Evaluate “No False Lemmas” as a criteria for Knowledge

Answer 15

For:

Deals with many of the Gettier examples, but unclear if it deals with all of them

Question 16

Outline the Reliabilism (RTB) response to Gettier

Answer 16

Reliabilism is the involvement of a reliable process in the definition of knowledge

e.g. learning that Plato was a woman from your sister who read a book about Ancient Greeks once, or finding out Plato was a wrestler from a philosophy textbook that a respected philosophy professor gave you.
The second case arrives at a conclusion in a more reliable way

Question 17

Evaluate Reliabilism as a criteria for Knowledge

Answer 17

For:
In the case of Savants; it seems to justify that, using the example of the person who can put the day to any date, the information is gained through a reliable process even though we can’t justify it in terms of evidence

Against:
It is not clear what counts as a reliable process. The savant may get the day and date right 30 times, and then never again. Was that luck or reliability?

Question 18

Outline the Virtue Epistemology response to Gettier

Answer 18

Virtue Epistemology explains itself using the “Triple A Rating”: Accuracy/Adroitness/Accuracy

Ernest Sosa’s Archer analogy illustrates these points:
Accuracy; whether the arrow hits the target deliberately (or, whether the knowledge is true)
Adroitness; the level of skill involved
Aptness; the shot hit the target because it was adroit

(However, if the archer was accurate and skillful, but the wind took the arrow but then it bounced off a tree and hit the target, it would not be Apt)

Question 19

Evaluate Virtue Epistemology as a criteria for Knowledge

Answer 19

For:
This approach deals with Gettier examples as it shows that beliefs may be true but they are not often apt

Against:
Virtue Epistemology moves the focus from the relation between belief and the external world to a focus on the habits and claims of the person

Question 20

List the four responses to Gettier’s criticism of JTB

Answer 20

1) Infallibilism
2) “No False Lemmas”
3) Reliabilism
4) Virtue Epistemology