Richman on the Principle of Deducibility for Justification

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-302
Author(s):  
G. W. Fitch
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

In a recent paper Robert J. Richman joins a host of doubters who question Gettier's claim that knowledge is not justified true belief. Richman's scepticism of Gettier's counterexamples to the traditional analysis of knowledge stems from what he says are two basic defects in the examples. One defect is that Gettier employs the Principle of Deducibility for Justification (PDJ) which Richman argues is false. The second defect is based on “the obvious consideration that a belief which is justified on the basis of one set of facts or assumptions need not be justified on the basis of a different set.” I shall consider each of these alleged defects and argue that Richman has not shown that in fact they are defects and that Gettier's counterexamples (or a modified version of them) do in fact show that knowledge is not justified true belief.The Principle of Deducibility for Justification states that for any proposition P, if P entails Q and S correctly deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then Sis justified in believing Q.

4. The analysis of knowledge

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nagel
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Causal Theory ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Classical Analysis ◽  
Alvin Goldman ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

‘The analysis of knowledge’ begins with Edmund Gettier who challenged the ‘classical analysis of knowledge’ that equates knowledge with justified true belief. His no-false-belief proposal had some flaws. Alvin Goldman then proposed the causal theory of knowledge: experience-based knowledge that requires the knower to be appropriately causally connected to a fact. Goldman went on to launch a fresh analysis of knowledge, focused on reliability. Reliabilism is when knowledge is true belief that is produced by a mechanism likely to produce true belief. But can knowing be analysed at all? The relationship between knowing and believing is considered in the knowledge-first and belief-first movements of epistemology.

Popper and Reliabilism

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lipton
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Reliable Method ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Deductive Inference ◽  
Inductive Support ◽  
Radical Scepticism ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

Karl Popper attempted to give an account of scientific research as the rational pursuit of the truth about nature without any appeal to what he took to be the fictitious notion of non-demonstrative or inductive support. Deductive inference can be seen to be inference enough for science, he claimed, once we appreciate the power of data to refute theory. Many of the standard objections to Popper's account purport to show that his deductivism actually entails a radical scepticism about the possibility of scientific knowledge. Some of these objections appear unanswerable in the context of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief; but this is neither a conception of knowledge that Popper himself accepted nor one that is currently in fashion. Reliabilism, the view that knowledge is a true belief generated by a reliable method, is now a popular replacement for the traditional analysis and one that is closer to Popper's own conception of knowledge. My aim in this essay is to consider in brief compass the prospects of a reliabilist reading of Popper's account of science. Such a reading makes it possible to turn some of the standard objections and helps to show which of Popper's views should be accepted and which rejected.

Knowledge, defeasibility theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Swain
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Ethical Concept ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

Based upon an analogy with the legal and ethical concept of a defeasible, or prima facie, obligation, epistemic defeasibility was introduced into epistemology as an ingredient in one of the main strategies for dealing with Gettier cases. In these cases, an individual’s justified true belief fails to count as knowledge because the justification is defective as a source of knowledge. According to the defeasibility theory of knowledge, the defect involved can be characterized in terms of evidence that the subject does not possess which overrides, or defeats, the subject’s prima facie justification for belief. This account holds that knowledge is indefeasibly justified true belief. It has significant advantages over other attempts to modify the traditional analysis of knowledge in response to the Gettier examples. Care must be taken, however, in the definition of defeasibility.

scholarly journals Knowledge Judgments in "Gettier" Cases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Gettier Case ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Knowledge Attributions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Experimenter Bias ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

“Gettier cases” have played a major role in Anglo-American analytic epistemology over the past fifty years. Philosophers have grouped a bewildering array of examples under the heading “Gettier case.” Philosophers claim that these cases are obvious counterexamples to the “traditional” analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, and they treat correctly classifying the cases as a criterion for judging proposed theories of knowledge. Cognitive scientists recently began testing whether philosophers are right about these cases. It turns out that philosophers were partly right and partly wrong. Some “Gettier cases” are obvious examples of ignorance, but others are obvious examples of knowledge. It also turns out that much research in this area of philosophy is marred by experimenter bias, invented historical claims, dysfunctional categorization of examples, and mischaracterization by philosophers of their own intuitive judgments about particular cases. Despite these shortcomings, lessons learned from studying “Gettier cases” are leading to important insights about knowledge and knowledge attributions, which are central components of social cognition.

Knowledge and Belief from Plato to Locke

2019 ◽  
pp. 3-33
Author(s):  
Michael Ayers ◽  
Maria Rosa Antognazza
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Famous Argument ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

This essential historical introduction to the main themes of the book starts with a close, sympathetic, and significantly novel analysis (with reference to associated arguments) of a famous argument in Plato’s Republic in which Plato draws a distinction of kind between knowledge and belief, and between their objects. It is then demonstrated that the distinction, broadly so understood, remained a dominant force, in one form or another, in all non-sceptical branches of the European philosophical tradition, including empiricism (not least, Locke’s), until the eighteenth century (the epistemology of the Stoics and of Aquinas being particularly striking examples). It is argued that there is much to learn from this history (so different from the myth of a ‘traditional analysis’ of knowledge as ‘justified true belief’), and specific features of the traditional distinction are identified as deserving the further, sympathetic consideration given, in effect, in later chapters.

scholarly journals Gettiered Beliefs are Genuine Beliefs

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
Gábor Forrai ◽  
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
First Case ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

In recent articles in this journal Benoit Gaultier and John Biro have argued that the original Gettier cases and the ones closely modelled on them fail, and the reason for the failure is that the subject in these cases does not actually have the belief that would serve as a counterexample to the justified-true-belief analysis of knowledge. They claim that if our evidence pertains to a particular individual (as in the first case) or to the truth of one of the disjuncts (as in the second case), we do not genuinely believe the existential generalization or the disjunction which logically follows. I will challenge their arguments and suggest that our unwillingness to assert the existential generalization or the disjunction under these conditions does not stem from lack of belief but from pragmatic principles.

Revisiting Anti-Luck Epistemology

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-115
Author(s):  
Patrick Bondy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge ◽  
Modal Notion

According to anti-luck approaches to the analysis of knowledge, knowledge is analyzed as unlucky true belief, or unlucky justified true belief. According to virtue epistemology, on the other hand, knowledge is true belief which a subject has acquired or maintained because of the exercise of a relevant cognitive ability. ALE and VE both appear to have difficulty handling some intuitive cases where subjects have or lack knowledge, so Pritchard (2012) proposed that we should take an anti-luck condition and a success-from-ability condition as independent necessary conditions on knowledge. Recently, Carter and Peterson (2017) have argued that Pritchard’s modal notion of luck needs to be broadened. My aim in this paper is to show that, with the modal conception of luck appropriately broadened, it is no longer clear that ALE needs to be supplemented with an independent ability condition in order to handle the problematic Gettier cases.

scholarly journals Putting the horse before the cart: a pragmatist analysis of knowledge

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luís M. Augusto
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Canonical Analysis ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge ◽  
Positive Work

The definition of knowledge as justified true belief is the best we presently have. However, the canonical tripartite analysis of knowledge does not do justice to it due to a Platonic conception of a priori truth that puts the cart before the horse. Within a pragmatic approach, I argue that by doing away with a priori truth, namely by submitting truth to justification, and by accordingly altering the canonical analysis of knowledge, this is a fruitful definition. So fruitful indeed that it renders the Gettier counterexamples vacuous, allowing positive work in epistemology and related disciplines.

When Is True Belief Knowledge?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Foley
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Significant Aspect ◽  
Coming To Know ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
What Matters

A woman glances at a broken clock and comes to believe it is a quarter past seven. Yet, despite the broken clock, it really does happen to be a quarter past seven. Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief. This book finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs—something important that she doesn't quite “get.” This may seem a modest point but, as the book shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information. Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge.

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