Tripartite Theory Of Knowledge - 25 Marker Flashcards
Introduction
- General overview of JTB; S knows that p iff i) s believes that p ii) p is true iii) s is justified in believing that p
- State the argument + agreement with/against the question.
Individual necessity of JTB
BELIEF -> You must believe something because you cannot know something you don’t believe in as it will be incoherent. Thus, belief is necessary, but not sufficient.
TRUTH -> It has to be true as you can’t know something that is false and doesn’t correspond to reality.
JUSTIFICATION -> You must be justified as you need good reasons for the ten belief - you cannot have improper justification because we are reluctant to grant somebody knowledge if they haven’t acquired it through inadequate evidence.
PLATO said that a rational account must be given.
Critiquing individual necessity of JTB
- Can have knowledge without belief - e.g, may have driven a route many times but not driven yourself so may not have believed you could drive there. ALTHOUGH, if you managed to drive the route then that shows you did have the knowledge, but not the BELIEF, therefore you can have propositional knowledge without belief showing that it isn’t individually necessary.
- We can never have ultimate truths as truths change over time e.g, the earth is flat.
- Justification may not always be necessary for knowledge e.g John can do something that is always done correctly, but he can’t say how he does it, THEREFORE he has propositional knowledge without justification.
Conditions are jointly sufficient (criticism)
Gettier gives 2 counter examples to JTB;
Smith and Jones
-> S and J have applied for the same job, after the interview J is told that the man that has got the job has 10 coins in his pocket, J is sure he will get the job, so S believes the proposition that ‘the man that has 10 coins in his pocket will get the job’, but S also has 10 coins in his pocket unbeknownst to him and is later informed that he has got the job.
->S’s belief was justified as it was inferred deductively from justified beliefs, thus is it both true and justified, but we can’t say that S knew as it was inferred from a false belief of J getting the job.
-> S can be justified in believing that P, even if it is false, arguing that when Q is logically entailed within P then a JTB (Q) can be derived from a JFB (P).
-> It’s LUCK that makes him right.
-Brown in Barcelona
->S has evidence that J has a ford as he has talked about it with him and saw him arrive in it every day - his belief is justified.
-> He forms 3 disjunctive beliefs whilst having no clue where Brown is
J has a ford or
Brown is in Barcelona or
Both 1 and 2 are true
-> By coincidence, B is in Barcelona so the proposition ‘Either J owns a ford or B is in Barcelona’ is true, not because of J owning a ford, but because B is in Barcelona.
-> What makes his belief true (that B is in Barcelona) has come apart from what justifies his belief (that J owns a ford).
No false lemmas condition
You know that p if and only iff
I) p is true ii) you believe that p iii) your belief that p is justified and iv) you did not infer that p from a false belief.
This deals with Gettier’s counterexamples, but doesn’t address justification and truth coming apart.
INFALLIBILISM as a response
Argues that knowledge is CERTAIN.
Infallibilism suggests to make justification so strong that it is impossible for a justified belief to be false - justification as certainty somehow guarantees the truth of the belief, so truth and justification can’t come apart. THUS, renders all Gettier’s cases impossible as they leave a gap between truth and justification.
-> DEFENDS JTB and renders Gettier’s cases impossible as in those cases there isn’t JTB.
CRITICISM of infallibilism
“If i know that p then i can’t be mistaken about p’
A) it can’t be the case that if i know that p, i am mistaken that p
B) ‘if i know that p, I can’t possibly be mistaken that p’
Whether i AM mistaken, or whether I COULD be mistaken?
E.g, perception or memory in some cases I COULD be mistaken that p.
RELIABILISM
S knows that p iff i) p is true II) s believes that p iii) s forms the belief that p through a reliable cognitive process (RCP)
RCP -> belief forming process that has a higher rate of leading to true beliefs rather than false ones e.g, memory, perception.
BUT, doesn’t solve Gettier’s cases
APPLIED TO S AND J
-> Q is logically entailed within p - p is a reliable belief (RB)
Reasoning is a RCP but has to be valid and sound.
Q is not a RB as it isn’t formed through a RCP
THEREFORE, TB = K, but there is no RCP.
One advantage of reliabilism is that it allows young children and animals to have knowledge - their true beliefs are caused by RCP’s, regardless of justification.
Fake barn example applied to reliabilism (CRITICISM)
Belief of seeing the REAL barn in fake barn county is true and it is produced by a RCP.
BUT IT ISN’T KNOWLEDGE as it’s only a matter of luck that his belief is true.
RELIABILISM would say that he does know that there is a barn as his belief is true and an RCP
BUT, the issue arises as the RCP has produced a true belief in circumstances in which the belief still seems only accidentally true.
ISSUE with reliabilism (1) - circularity
We utilise circular reasoning to see the rate of true beliefs rather than false beliefs, THEREFORE there is no independent reason for believing our cognitive processes are reliable.
ISSUE with reliabilism (2) - Goldman on no relevant alternatives to infallibilism
-> We should only count a process as reliable if it is able to distinguish between the truth and other relevant possibilities.
E.g, fake barn county; vision (RCP) couldn’t distinguish between the real barn and the fake barns.
-> THUS, we should accept infallibilism.
Virtue epistemology
(V+T+B)
You know that p if an only iff i) p is true ii) you believe that p and iii) your belief that p is a result of you exercising your epistemic or intellectual virtues.
->VE focuses on the person and what they do in forming their beliefs rather than analysing the process.
ZAGZEBSKI -> a virtue motivates us to pursue what is good; intellectual virtues encourage us to discover the truth
A virtue involves a component that enables us to be successful e.g, to be reliable in forming true beliefs.
‘P is true’ is entailed by Zagzebski’s second condition which is ‘that the belief of p arises out of acts of intellectual virtues encourage us.
ISSUE with virtue epistemology - young children and out of character example.
1) Does this restrict children and animals unlike reliabilism?
->young children can have knowledge just as soon as they can tell the difference between truth and falsehood and are motivated to find the truth.
2) EXAMPLE: somebody who doesn’t really have intellectual virtues on one occasion wants to know if something is true so spend time finding evidence to reach the truth - this is an act of intellectual virtues, but it is out of character; is it still accidental as it arose from an out of character situation? Is knowledge granted to people at a certain degree of exercising intellectual virtues?
