What is Knowledge

Question 1

There are 3 types of knowledge, state them

Answer 1

• Ability
• Acquaintance
• Propositional

Question 2

Explain each of the 3 types of knowledge and what they are

Answer 2

Ability knowledge = eg ‘i know how to ride a bike’ (possessing a certain skill)

Acquaintance knowledge = eg ‘ I know Japan’ (because you’ve been there/acquainted with it)

Propositional knowledge = eg ‘ I know that elephants are heavier than ants’ (describes how things are)

• A proposition is a declarative statement or more accurately wat is expressed in a declarative statement. They usually go after phrases ‘ i know that…’

Question 3

What does JTB stand for?

Answer 3

Justified True Belief

Question 4

Explain theory No.1 the Tripartite theory of knowledge - Justified True Belief ( JTB )

Answer 4

JTB = the Tripartite theory of knowledge
States that knowledge is a Justified True Belief so for someone to possess knowledge they must ;
- Have a reason for believing it (justification)
- Believe it
- Truth (it must be true)

The theory set out;
"I know that 'P'"
"The proposition 'P' is true"
"I believe in 'P'"
"My belief in 'P' is justified"

“i know that ‘P’ if these conditions are met / fulfilled and they are”

Therefore “I know that ‘P’”

Tripartite definition doesn’t require the belief (B) to be ‘certain’ however, whilst it can be argued ‘knowledge’ must be certain + we only really ‘know’ something if we can be certain of it. To say a belief is justified doesn’t equate to certain because we have good reason to believe many things possible to doubt.

Question 5

Explain what is meant by Necessary & Sufficient Conditions.

Answer 5

Sufficient conditions = Each condition is necessary for knowledge thus you cannot just have 2 out of the 3 conditions ie Justified and Belief because only the joint 3 conditions together are sufficient at ‘guaranteed knowledge’.

A proposition that is simply a ‘true belief’ but doesn’t have any justification for example is not satisfactory as a definition for knowledge as believing somethings ‘true’ can be found/held on irrational grounds and therefore by inputting justification as our beliefs and truths will be required to be rational

Necessary = Knowledge can be true with at least 1 of the 3 conditions ie if a proposition only had 1 out o the 3 conditions such as Justified it can make knowledge possible however you always need at least on part present.

Question 6

Explain the Criticism of the Tripartite definition of knowledge ‘ The Belief condition’

Answer 6

Argument ;
- Do we really need to believe something in order for it to be true, can we have knowledge without Belief? Many philosophers argue knowledge is about how someone acts rathe than what someone believes or entertains

John example - john the student is very nervous + unconfident going into exam and thinks has got all the answers wrong and yet he comes out with 100% right due to his revision

Reply of criticism - John has unconscious belief - he does know the answers completely he just doesn’t know that he does but when we ascend to something that is a form of belief and unconscious belief is still belief.

Question 7

Explain Theory No.2 - K = JTB + Infallibility ( I )

Answer 7

JTB + Infallibility removes luck completely from the process if justification is only what is infallible (impossible to prove wrong) The aim being to make jistfication so strong yet its impossible for a justified belief to be false. Therefore Gettier cases would become impossible + mistakes/luck plays no role in equasion

No one can know what is false. Thus for justification to secure knowledge it must guarantee truth. Im justified in believing that ‘P’ ie something concerning my own introspection but its possible I’m mistaken if its not something infallible. Therefore Infallibalism stands + is true.

There’s no doubt between my internal belief and an external fact so ‘ I am i pain’ is infallible because its your ‘ Introspective thoughts’ within your internal mind (Introspection) and your considering your own mind not external world (thus soon as we move outside our internal mind things become doubtful)

Some infallibility claim Knowledge isn’t a kind of belief as its a separate thing beliefs only occur when doubt is possible thus knowledge is not a form of belief.

Question 8

Explain the Criticism of Theory No.2 - JTB + Infallibilism

Answer 8

Infallibilism is too strict

• Limits what we actually know so that only logical truths + direct sensations ie pain can be true/knowledge
• It rejects instincts ie ‘knowing someone’s outside my window’ but they would say we don’t know it whatsoever which can be problematic
• We end dup w a radical idea of what knowledge is.

Question 9

Explain Theory No.3 - Knowledge = JTB + No false Lemmas ( N )

Answer 9

Knowledge = JTB + N
Lemmas = a belief or assumption that is held to be true + used to justify a piece of knowledge. No false Lemmas argues knowledge is JTB as long as / whereby the justification is not based on any false lemma. If a belief is based on a 'false lemma' even though it may feel like knowledge it is not

Because before with just JTB = K it leaves possibility for things to be luckily true however NO false lemmas doesn’t allow this. ie in Gettier’s Smith & Jones example it doesn’t work under JTB+ N because it relies on a false lemma(the president of the company) so perfectly counters Gettier’s example as the only reason Jones thought smith would get the job was due to owner saying saying the man w 10 coins would get the hjob (false lemma)

Zagzebski describes a case based on induction. Dr Jones has good evidence her patient Smith is suffering from virus X as the symptoms are all consistent with Smith having virus X + no other virus produces such symptoms so Jones therefore believes he has virus X (justified belief) however Smiths symptoms are caused by him having unknown virus Y but by chance Smiths just caught virus X so recently thus hasn’t caused any symptoms + didn’t show on lab tests. Dr Jones assuming Smith had virus X is completely justified, and she beliefs it however it wasn’t true so wasn’t knowledge. However it was because of the false lemma (Dr Jones evidence from labs which only showed virus X that misleads her) Therefore JTB + No false lemmas is sufficient for knowledge not JTB alone.

Question 10

Explain the criticism of JTB + No false lemmas

Answer 10

What about the Fake Barn example - despite having JTB+ N it was still luckily true that he looked at the only barn that was actually real and could have very easily been completely wrong.

This wasn’t knowledge + was only luckily true.

Question 11

What is a ‘Paradigm’?

Answer 11

Paradigm = a persons view of the world

Question 12

Is justification ( J ) a necessary condition?

Answer 12

For example what about a person who looks at people and knows their birthdays immediately without reason + justification.

Ie human nature/instinct such as feeling somethings wrong or that someones watching you doesn’t have rational justification behind it but can be accurate.

Thus do we need to worry or concern ourselves w justification?

Question 13

Explain the Gettier criticism of the Tripartite definition of knowledge (JTB) Does JTB = K ?

Answer 13

Gettier objection = the Smith + Jones example proves JTB doesn’t equal Knowledge as its possible to have justified true belief and not knowledge

Gettier begins claiming a Deductive argument preserves justfication (your reason for believing he premises also = your reason for believing the conclusion).

Two men attend a job interview. Smith + Jones. Smith has excellent reason to believe (justifiably) that Jones will get the job as smiths been told by the employer and been informed the man with 10 coins in his pocket will get the job and has counted that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. Thus both his beliefs are justified + so Smith deduces Jones will get the job (He believes it) however Jones doesn’t get the job, smith gets the job so checks his pockets to see he has 10 coins in his pocket - so smiths belief happened to also be true. Yet smith didn’t possess knowledge whatsoever as he was wrong despite having all the sufficient conditions.

Question 14

Explain the advantages of JTB + Infallibilism

Answer 14

• Its not open to Gettier’s counter examples and takes luck completely out of the equation so knowledge is actually knowing things
• Knowledge needs to be a certain which is absolute and it is very clear (has to be internal mind not other ppls)

Question 15

Explain the theory of Reliabilism - RTB = knowledge ( Reliability + Truth + Belief )

Answer 15

Reliabilism TBR = K takes justification out of the conditions, stating ‘knowledge is a true belief that is produced by a Reliable process’

You know that P if;

• P is true
• You believe that P and
• Your belief is caused by a reliable cognitive process

Reliable Cognitive process = is just one that produces a high percentage of true belief eg perception, memory
A false belief caused by a reliable process is not knowledge. The idea of a reliable process replaces the justified condition because true beliefs caused by this reliable process count as knowledge.

Thus an advantage of Reliabilism is that it allows young children + animals to have knowledge which is rgublky true as It would be idd ti deny that they do and their beliefs are caused by a reliable cognitive process.

Question 16

Explain the Criticisms of REliabilism (RTB = K)

Answer 16

Justification is a different reliable process and they cannot be equated as Justification is internal to the believer and involves conscious thoughts but reliable process you cannot necessarily explain the process it is external in this sense.
- ie considering why there’s a book in front of me + accepting is a book when you see it because of a reliable process. Therefore they are not the same thing and we cannot just replace one with another.

Reliabilism doesn’t solve Fake Barn county either as despite having a reliable cognitive process, Henry was still only accidentally true so the belief was only accidentally true so RTB can’t be sufficient for knowledge.

Question 17

Explain the Fake Barn criticism against JTB + L (no false lemmas)

Answer 17

Fake Barn example;
A man, Henry, drives through fake barn country where every single ones fake apart from a single one and he stops an happens to look at the only real one and believes beyond all doubt that he’s looking at a real barn
-He has JTB and he is correct as he is looking at a real barn however the problem is that it is only luckily true and could so easily have been wrong. Thus JTB isn’t sufficient for knowledge because even though it wasn’t based on a false lemma - it was still only luckily true. So JTB + No false lemmas successfully solves Gettiers Smith + Jones criticism but not the Fake Barn and so does RTB (Reliabilism) it passes Smith& Jones but not Barn country.

Question 18

What is virtue epistemology?

Answer 18

The general definition of virtue epistemology V + T + B

(knowledge which is virtuously which is true and you believe it) For example Virtue epistemology is like a maths student who has perfect workings out which ecards to the correct answer however if the maths student had rubbish workings out but led to the correct answer this would not be virtue epistemology

Question 19

State what Ernest Sosa argues virtue epistemology requires in order to have knowledge

Answer 19

Ernest sosa stated suppose an archer shoots at a target there was;

Accuracy; did he hit the target?
Adroitness; was the arrow shot well? Was the shot competent?
Aptness (is like skillful technique); did the arrow hit the target because it was shot well?

So the definition of knowledge is doing something virtually, correctly and accurately because without virtue something can be correct and thus knowledge can be present but without the correct accuracy and adroitness and aptness it isn’t really knowledge because it can be only luckily true or true by pure chance.

So basically the theory wants accuracy due to skillful technique.

Gettiers smith + jones is not adroitness or skillful so it doesn’t pass virtue epistemology.

It can be used to counter the fake barn criticism as Henry knowing the bar is a real barn was accidental + a coincidence and thus doesn’t pass virtue epistemology because he doesn’t fulfil all of Sosas three As.

Thus virtue epistemology can be utilised as solution

Question 20

Explain an argument for the claim that the ‘truth’ condition is not a necessary condition for knowledge

Answer 20

Can knowledge be a justified disbelief?

We dont normally say someone can ‘know’ what is false ie ‘i know that flamingos are grey’ but no i don’t know because ultimately i’m mistaken (I only think that i know but i’m wrong). People used to ‘know’ that the earth was flat but that was not knowledge.

We can utilise the idea of physics + Kuh who argues science proceeds by replacing one ‘paradigm’ by replacing it with another. However we cannot compare the two paradigms (peoples view of the world) and say one is true and one is false because changes in paradigms involve new concepts and there is no ‘theory-neutral’ way of describing evidence. Therefore truth is not a necessary condition for knowledge.