Gettier presented
two cases in which a true belief is inferred from a justified false belief
. He observed that, intuitively, such beliefs cannot be knowledge; it is merely lucky that they are true. In honour of his contribution to the literature, cases like these have come to be known as “Gettier cases”.
Why are Gettier cases not cases of knowledge?
Thus, Gettier claims to have shown that the
JTB account is inadequate because it does not account for all of the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge
. … Some reject Gettier’s examples, while others seek to adjust the JTB account of knowledge and blunt the force of these counterexamples.
What is a gettier case example?
Another example of a Gettier case can be developed from an example concerning
whether an executive’s secretary is in his office
. Suppose that she looked into the office and saw, sitting behind the desk, a figure who looked to her exactly like her secretary.
How do you make a gettier case?
- One way to understand Gettier cases involves knowing how to make them. …
- Step 1: select any false proposition, P, for which some believer A has ample justification.
- Step 2: generalize away from P using a principle of deductive logic to a claim Q that is true but not for the reasons adduced by A in support of P.
What is the JTB theory?
The JTB theory is
an attempt to give an analysis of the concept of knowledge
. It tries to “break the concept down” by giving necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge.
What is the problem that all Gettier cases have in common?
Rather, it is
to find a failing — a reason for a lack of knowledge
— that is common to all Gettier cases that have been, or could be, thought of (that is, all actual or possible cases relevantly like Gettier’s own ones).
What happens in the fake barns case?
In a fake barn case,
the agent believes that something is true because she directly perceives it
. But it turns out that she is in an environment where her perceptual evidence could very easily have been misleading and led her to form a false belief.
What is a false lemma?
It says
knowledge is justified true belief + that is not inferred from anything false
(a false lemma). This avoids the problems of Gettier cases because Smith’s belief “the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket” is inferred from the false lemma “Jones will get the job”.
Is knowledge always true?
Knowledge is always a true belief
; but not just any true belief. (A confident although hopelessly uninformed belief as to which horse will win — or even has won — a particular race is not knowledge, even if the belief is true.) Knowledge is always a well justified true belief — any well justified true belief.
Is real knowledge possible?
Belief is necessary but not sufficient for knowledge. We are all sometimes mistaken in what we believe; in other words, while some of our beliefs are true, others are false. … However, we can say that truth is a
condition of knowledge
; that is, if a belief is not true, it cannot constitute knowledge.
What are true beliefs?
Beliefs are characterized as “true” or “false”
in virtue of the truth or falsity of the propositions that are believed
. People can believe propositions with varying degrees of conviction, but believing something does not make it so, no matter how hard you believe.
What is the no false lemmas condition?
Under No False Lemmas,
knowledge is restricted to justified true beliefs that are based upon other truths, or facts of the matter
– one cannot just so happen to know something in the way that the JTB definition of knowledge allows.
How do you justify your beliefs?
Epistemic coherentism – Beliefs are justified
if they cohere with other beliefs
a person holds, each belief is justified if it coheres with the overall system of beliefs. Infinitism – Beliefs are justified by infinite chains of reasons.
What is an example of epistemology?
(uncountable) The branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge; theory of knowledge, asking such questions as “What is knowledge?”, “How is knowledge acquired?”, “What do people know?”, “How do we know what we know?”. … An example of epistemology is
a thesis paper on the source of knowledge.
How is knowledge acquired?
By most accounts, knowledge can be acquired in many different ways and from
many sources
, including but not limited to perception, reason, memory, testimony, scientific inquiry, education, and practice.
What are the three condition of knowledge?
According to this account, the three conditions—
truth, belief, and justification
—are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for knowledge of facts.
