tripartite view Flashcards
Gettier 10 coins
- smith and jones are applying for the same job
- s believes j will believes j will get the job - prefer him and better cv
- s randomly counts coins in J pocket - 10
- the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket
- s gets the job
- and also has 10 coins
- JTB or just luck?
Strengthen justification: INFALLIBILISM
- gettier assumes smiths beliefs are justified
- smith has good reasons for his initial beliefs, not significant enough to claim as ‘justified’
- A BELIEF IS NOT JUSTIFIED UNLESS CERTAIN
- if he did have infallible justification for his belief then Jones would get the job
INFALLIBILISM premise form argument
P1. No one can know what is false
C1. Therefore, if i know that p, then i cant be mistaken about p
C2. TF, for justification to be secure knowledge justification must guarentee truth
C3. TF, if im justified in believing that P, i cant possibly be mistaken
C4. Therefore, if it is possible that i am mistaken, then i cant be justified in believing that p
C5. INFALLIBILISM must be true
Objection to INFALLIBILISM
- bar set too high
- very few of our beliefs are certain, so according to this we have very little knowledge
- gravity, newtons law -> shouldn’t these count? Aren’t they reliable enough?
- knowledge can be a good thing worth having, even if it isnt infallible
Addition of a condition: NO FALSE LEMMAS
- tripartite becomes quadpartite
- lemma -> claim part way through an argument
- ‘jones will get the job’ is the lemma
- inferred his claim from a false lemma
NO FALSE LEMMAS; premise form argument
- P is true
- You believe that P
- Your belief that P is justified
- You didn’t infer that P from a false belief
Objection to NO FALSE LEMMAS
- doesnt address truth and justification coming apart
- what makes smiths beliefs true is that its become detached from what justifies his belief
- NFL doesnt actually address the problem
- it just adds a 4th condition so all boxes can be ticked
Fake barns
- Henry is driving through fake barn county
- ‘there’s a barn’ -> false they’re all fake barns
- one time there is a real barn and Henry says this again, so he has JTB
RELIABLISM
- caused by a reliable cognitive process
- perception, memory and testimony
- if a true belief is caused by a reliable process then in counts as knowledge
- if it happens to be a false belief is doesnt count as knowledge, but thats because its false so condition 1 isn’t satisfied
Advantage of reliablism
- odd to claim children and animals would have reasons or evidence for their beliefs
- if JTB is correct would be difficult to claim that they have propositional knowledge, yet their behaviour suggests they do
- reliabilism claims justification is irrelevant for propositional knowledge
- true beliefs are caused by reliable processes
Objection to reliablism
- Henry didnt have knowledge, it was just luck
- belief is only accidentally true
Response to the objection to reliablism
- Alvin Goldman
- changes the 4th claim so it states
- ‘you are able to discriminate between relevant possibilites in the actual situation’
REPLY -> cheating.
SOSA’s virtue epistemology
- needs to be:
- Adroit -> using intellectual skill
- Accurate -> one that is true
- Apt -> BECAUSE its adroit
- condition 3, your belief that p is a result of you exercising your intellectual virtues
- you worked for it using your abilities
Objection to SOSA’s virtue epistemology
- Henry’s belief is apt; using same beliefs as before
- ‘there’s a barn’ is counter intuitive and was just by accident
- virtue epistemology isnt dependable and secure enough for that
Zagzebski’s virtue epistemology
- 2nd condition; your belief that P arises from an act of, or acts of, intellectual virtue
- focuses on the person, subject of knowing, and what they do in their beliefs
- only has 2 conditions
- a virtue motivates and a virtue enables us to be successful
Advanatge of Zagzebskis virtue epistemology
- explains the goodness of knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues
- if defined ‘virtue’ enough, acts of it can also be relatively automatic and unconscious
- motivation to find the truth doesn’t have to be obvious, can be as simple as knowing what happened yesterday
Objection to Zagzebski
- some argue that her explanation is too vauge
- SOMETIMES, not necessarily always
ability knowledge
- knowing how to do something
acquaintance knowledge
- knowing of someone or some place
propositional knowledge
- knowing that some claim is true or false
tripartite view
- the proposition p is true
- you believe that p, and
- your belief that p is justified
the conditions are not individually necessary: justification
- know means believe truly; arguably
- the meanings of words are revealed by the way they are used in everyday speech; the common property of all users of the language
- if we commonly use the word ‘i know’ to mean ‘believe truly’ then that’s what the word ‘know’ means
- just means that i believe something and i am correct because it’s true, justification doesn’t come into it
the conditions are not individually necessary: truth
- some beliefs can be strictly false, and roughly true yet still count as knowledge
- they are still knowledge because they are justified and are justified because they work, fit into our everyday experience and are confirmed by it
the conditions are not individually necessary: belief
- it is possible to sometimes remember something that you’ve learnt whilst at the same time not believing that fact
- it is possible to know something yet not believe it
(French word example)
