Responses Flashcards
Strengthening the justification condition:
A.Knowledge as the feeling of certainty
- Knowledge must be a justified true belief of which you feel certain
- (JTB + K + feeling of certainty)
- However certainty is a subjective feeling
- If you are asked a question in a test and you are sure of the answer, yet you have doubt in your knowledge, it may mean you don’t know the answer
- If a feeling of certainty was necessary then you did not know
- However according to justified true belief you did know
- Subjective certainty has no bearing on whether someone knows
- Therefore it cannot be a sufficient condition for knowledge
- Adding a subjective certainty condition does not overcome any of Gettier counter examples
- In each case the person could have a justified true belief they felt certain about
- However this does not mean they have knowledge
Strengthening the justification condition:
B.Knowledge as an infallible belief
- Knowledge must be justified true belief where justification is so strong that it dismisses other possibilities
- Infallible belief means that the belief must be true and it is impossible to be mistaken
- (K=JTB + infallibility)
- Many proponents of this claim that knowledge does not involve belief
- Therefore it would be (K+JT+infallibility)
- The most justified true beliefs under this theory would not count as knowledge
- Only those beliefs that cannot be rationally doubted can be knowledge
- For example 2+2=4
Criticism of infallibilism
- Beliefs only occur when doubt is possible
- Knowledge only occurs when doubt is impossible
- Therefore according to infallibilism, knowledge and belief are incoherent concepts
- Infallibilism goes against our intuitions
- For example, it goes against our intuition that the Sun will rise in the morning
Strengthening the justification condition:
C:Knowledge as fairly certain belief
- Knowledge must be justified true belief where the justification is extremely strong
- The relative alternatives would be deemed impossible and ruled out
- (K=JTB+no relevant alternatives possible)
- For example John is standing in front of a tree looking at it
- According to infallibilism he does not know that the tree is there
- This is because there are alternative explanations that could explain his perception
- For example an the tree could exist in reality or within a dream
- Perhaps an evil demon is causing his perception or a super-computer has created a virtual image of a tree
- John can only believe there is a tree there but he cannot know it
- The theory of relative alternatives would state that these alternative possibilities are irrelevant
- As there are no relevant alternatives, John can know that there is a tree in front of him
- Deciding what is relevant can be a difficult probelm and many Gettier-style scenarios could be conjured
- Soon enough this theory will start to resemble infallibilism, by removing all other possibilities
Define a lemma
A belief or assumption that is held to be true and is used to justify a piece of knowledge
No false lemmas condition
- This theory claims that knowledge is justified true belief
- Where belief is not based on a false assumption
- It adds an external element to the account of the knowledge
- In most cases when we justify knowledge based on a false lemma it turns out to be false
- Therefore it would not count as knowledge
- Therefore it makes sense to rule it out on occasions when it luckily turns out to be true
- (K=J+T+B+N) where N is no false lemmas
No false lemmas condition criticism
- We can use a Gettier style analogy of a broken clock
- Imagine you had a rough belief that the time was 12pm
- You look at to clock which says 12pm which reaffirmed your belief
- However, by coincidence, the clock was broken and was stuck on 12pm when you looked at it
- Also, by coincidence, when you looked at the clock it was in fact 12pm
- This collection of coincidences prove that you would have no knowledge even though no assumption was false
- Therefore the theory of K=J+T+B+N does not work
- This is because it knowledge does not always equal N
Reply to the criticism of no false lemmas
•However you can argue that you falsely assumed the clock was correct
•We can resurrect a different version of the theory:
1.You believe it is roughly 12pm
2.You see a clock that says 12pm
3.You falsely assume that the clock is working
4.You believe it is 12pm
•It is an essential assumption that you make in concluding it is 12pm
•As this is a false assumption, you do not know it is 12pm
•This Gettier problem no longer exists
The fake-barn-style case against no false lemmas
We can use the fake-barn style cases to show how the theory of no false lemmas still cannot work:
•I see someone in London looking very similar to Boris Johnson riding a pink bike
•I then believe that this person is Boris Johnson riding a pink bike
•However today was a Boris look-alike day
•However I did not know that such a day existed
•In this context, I am justified to believe that I saw Boris as I did not know of the look-alike day
•So far there are no false lemmas in this example
•However this example shows justified, true beliefs with no false lemmas that do not constitute knowledge
Reliabilism example
We can consider two cases:
•You read on Facebook that a man in China has 45 fingers
•You watch Planet Earth-a documentary about nature and animals
•In the documentary, the narrator claims that porcupines are mostly nocturnal
•You can be said to know that porcupines are mostly nocturnal
•However you cannot be said to know that the Chinese man has 15 fingers
•One main difference is that the documentary was a reliable source, whilst Facebook was not
•The more reliable the source, the more likely we are to say the person knows the fact
•In this case, by reliability we mean that the documentary tells the truth with a high level of regularity
Explain Reliabilism
- The theory of knowledge that claims that:
- the reliability of the process involved in generating a belief is the key factor in whether or not we should call it knowledge
- The theory claims that knowledge is a true belief that is produced by a reliable process
- This involves incorporating a reliable process into our own definition of knowledge
- (K=R+T+B)
- Some philosophers claim that things that accord with out intuition can be classified as knowledge
- For example simple arithmetic or trustworthy sources
Role of Reliabilism in replacing justification
- Reliabilism replaces justification in this theory
- In essence, reliable is what we mean by justified belief:
- A belief produced by a reliable/justifiable process
- Reliabilism avoids the difficulty of defining justification
- In cases where two people arrive at the same truth:
- The one who is considered to have knowledge requires a high level of accuracy
- Therefore the belief is justified
- Reliable processes are external to the believer so the person does not need the capacity to explain the process
Criticism of Reliabilism
- Justification is internal whilst reliabilism is external
- Therefore they cannot be said to mean the same thing
- Justification also requires reasons for beliefs whilst reliabilism only requires causes
- Consider the case of John who is gifted in that he can tell you day of the week if you give him any date from history
- He can do this time after time faultlessly
- However he cannot understand how he does this or the reason behind his gift
- Therefore he has no justification for his skill
- This either shows that a reliable process is not the same as justification
- Or this highlights a strength showing how our concept of justification is not a necessary condition of knowledge
- Instead it should be replaced by the idea of a belief produced as part of a reliable process
- Therefore we can reform K = JTB to K= R+T+B
Replacing justification with an account of epistemic virtue
- If someone uses good intellectual processes and virtuous sources:
- We tend to believe that the person is justified and so we can believe what they say
- These intellectual virtues may include qualities such as careful analysis of the available empirical evidence, an open mind or a lack of bias etc.
- If someone is using bad processes then we tend to believe they are not justified
- Therefore they are an unreliable source of knowledge
- This theory focuses on the virtues of the person rather than on the process
- The theory claims that knowledge is a true belief brought about by virtuous intellectual disposition
- Importantly, it must be because of these virtues that the belief in question turns out to be true.
- In the Gettier counter-examples, the beliefs are true entirely aside from the method through which the beliefs were formed
- This explains why they are not genuine cases of knowledge.
Sosa’s AAA theory
- We can use the analogy of an archer shooting an arrow to understand the triple A rating
- Accuracy is a measure of whether or not the arrow hits the target
- An accurate shot can come about through luck or low levels of skill
- Adroitness is how skilful the shot was
- Not all adroit shots will hit the target-e.g a sudden gust of wind may affect the path of the shot
- Aptness is a shot that is accurate because it was adroit
- However not every accurate adroit shot is apt
- A footballer could take an adroit free kick that a gust pushes away from the target
- The ball would proceed to hit a defender and deflect into the back of the net
- The strike was skilful (adroit) and accurate as it went in
- However it was not apt
- It only went in because luck was involved, not skill
