The Classical Account of Knowledge, where knowledge is understood as a justified true belief was discussed in this week’s reading of Pritchard. In attempt to define knowledge, we must be able to see it from multiple aspects. So we consider the aspect where knowledge as a justified true belief. “Knowledge is to be understood as justified true belief, where a justification for one’s belief consists of good reasons for thinking that the belief in question is true” (Pritchard 28). This leads us to the JTB Account for Knowledge, which is an analysis that claims that justified true belief is necessary and sufficient for knowledge. Now if we accept this analysis of knowledge to be true, that raises even more concerns. What is truth? What is a proper justification for that truth? That is when Gettier comes along with an article that shows that the JTB Account for Knowledge may be false. With the use of logic, Gettier successfully proves that the consequent (P is true, S believes that P, and S is justified in believing P), is not jointly sufficient of the antecedent (if and only if S knows that P). “I shall argue that [the JTB Account of Knowledge] is false in that the conditions stated therein do not constitute a sufficient condition for the truth of the proposition that S knows that P” (Gettier 345). Basically, he proved that one could have a justified, true belief and still lack the knowledge of one’s belief because that belief could have been obtained through luck (Pritchard 23).
On the other hand, there is another philosopher, Richard Feldman, who published an article, An Alleged Defect in Gettier Counter-Examples, that essentially describes how Gettier’s work was flawed: “I conclude that even if a proposition can be justified for a person only if his evidence is true, or only if he knows it to be true, there are still counter-examples to the justified true belief analysis of knowledge of the Gettier sort” (Feldman 69). He came to this conclusion with the help of many other researchers, in which Feldman too, agrees to conclude that Gettier came up with his conclusion using false evidence.
This all leads back to the big question: How does one begin to define knowledge? It is evident that this comes with great difficulty, also known as the problem of the criterion. This basically means that one is only able to identify circumstances of knowledge only if one knows the criteria for what knowledge is and one can only know what the criteria for knowledge is as long as one is able to identify specifics of that knowledge? Well, one can start by finding the common variable in all cases and then become able to ascertain what knowledge really is. But in the end, it can be concluded that one needs to understand knowledge in an entirely new way, where one cannot just simply believe in the truth of a question (Pritchard 29).
Other than the readings, I referred to:
Ichikawa, Jonathan and Steup, Matthias (2012) ‘The Analysis of Knowledge,’ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-anaylsis/>.
Anjali, why do you think Feldman is criticizing Gettier. The quote you use from Feldman’s text claims that even if the definition of justification is amended to include only true evidence, there remain Gettier-type counter-examples to JTB. That seems to defend rather than criticize Getteir’s claim. (This speaks to the broader question of just what Feldman’s aim is in the paper).
I’m also interested in hearing more about you’re last claim:
I definitely want to know what it means to `believe in the truth of a question’! How can a question be true or false?
Moreover, I’m not sure what reasons you have for the conclusion that one needs to understand knowledge in an entirely new way. New way from what? The JTB account? Well, if Gettier is successful in providing a counter-example to JTB, then what makes you think that an account of knowledge that handles Gettier-type cases will need to be entirely new? Why not just add a fourth condition on knowledge that covers the counter-examples?
I think you are right, I misunderstood the point that Feldman is trying to make here. “I think, though, that there are examples very much like Gettier’s that do not rely on this alleged false principle…I conclude that even if a proposition can be justified for a person only if his evidence is true, or only if he knows it to be true, there are still counter-examples to be the justified true belief analysis of knowledge of the Gettier sort” (Feldman 69). And I must concede my last claim about there being a truth in a question, since only propositions can be true or false. The point I was trying to make was that there is no simple way to respond to the Gettier cases, so in order to understand it, we need to use an entirely new approach, instead of just accepting the question asked at face value. I think that Gettier concludes that you can have a justified true belief and yet you can still lack knowledge because luck could always be involved.