The Aim of Inquiry

2021 ◽  
pp. 10-42
Author(s):  
Christoph Kelp
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Knowing That

Chapter 1 focuses on epistemologically substantive accounts of the aims of inquiry into specific questions. It mounts a detailed case that knowing that p/not-p is the aim of inquiry into whether p. To this end, Chapter 1 first develops two arguments that the knowledge aim of inquiry compares favourably with the main rivals in the literature, according to which the aim of inquiry is true belief or justified belief. Next, it shows how these arguments can be generalized to other views about the aim of inquiry that might be conceived. Finally, Chapter 1 responds to a number of objections to the idea that knowledge is the aim of inquiry and the argument developed in support of it.

scholarly journals THE NOTHINGNESS OF THE GETTIER PROBLEM

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Tom Eneji Ogar ◽  
Edor J. Edor
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Knowledge Claim ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Fourth Condition ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Traditional Account ◽  
The Gettier Problem

This work, “The Nothingness” of the Gettier Problem is an attempt to deconstruct the popularly held view that a fourth condition may be necessary for the Traditional Account of Knowledge otherwise known as JTB. Plato, it was who championed the traditional account of knowledge as justified Belief in response to the agitation of the skeptics notably Georgias and Protagoras. This tripartite account held sway until Edmund Gettier Challenged the position with his article “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Since this challenge, scholars have tried to solve what has become known as the Gettier Problem by trying to fashion out a fourth condition to JTB. This work argues that the celebrated Gettier counter-examples in the challenge of the tripartite account is a "nothingness". The traditional account is rather fundamental in knowledge claim, hence any new vista in form of additional information on JTB should not invalidate it. The textual analysis was adopted as a method for this research.

Closure and Skepticism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Foley
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
The World

This chapter considers a different puzzle to the luck issue. It discusses another story and stresses that not only is knowledge not incompatible with luck, it actually requires it. It requires, in effect, the world to be kind. The inclination to think otherwise derives from a failure to distinguish global from local luck. When one has a true belief as a result of local luck, one usually does lack knowledge, but this is so because the luck is accompanied by local ignorance. The chapter then turns to address questions on closure and skepticism, which in turn are more in line with questions about justified belief rather than knowledge.

Reliabilism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin I. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Visual Observation ◽  
Identical Twin ◽  
Psychological Process ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
Relevant Alternatives ◽  
Twin Sister ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Visual Identification ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Rule Out

Reliabilism is an approach to the nature of knowledge and of justified belief. Reliabilism about justification, in its simplest form, says that a belief is justified if and only if it is produced by a reliable psychological process, meaning a process that produces a high proportion of true beliefs. A justified belief may itself be false, but its mode of acquisition (or the way it is subsequently sustained) must be of a kind that typically yields truths. Since random guessing, for example, does not systematically yield truths, beliefs acquired by guesswork are not justified. By contrast, identifying middle-sized physical objects by visual observation is presumably pretty reliable, so beliefs produced in this manner are justified. Reliabilism does not require that the possessor of a justified belief should know that it was reliably produced. Knowledge of reliability is necessary for knowing that a belief is justified, but the belief can be justified without the agent knowing that it is. A similar reliabilist account is offered for knowledge, except that two further conditions are added. First, the target belief must be true and, second, its mode of acquisition must rule out all serious or ‘relevant’ alternatives in which the belief would be false. Even an accurate visual identification of Judy does not constitute knowledge unless it is acute enough to exclude the possibility that it is her twin sister Trudy instead. One major virtue of reliabilism is its ability to secure knowledge against threats of scepticism. In place of excessive requirements often proposed by sceptics, reliabilism substitutes more moderate conditions. People do not need infallible or certainty-producing processes to have justified beliefs, according to reliabilism, only fairly reliable ones. Processes need not exclude radical alternatives like Descartes’ evil demon in order to generate knowledge; they need only exclude realistic possibilities like the presence of an identical twin.

A Contextualist Solution to the Gettier Problem

2005 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Douven
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Benign Nature ◽  
Epistemic Duty ◽  
Contextualist Solution ◽  
The Gettier Problem

According to the deontological view on justification, being justified in believing some proposition is a matter of having done one's epistemic duty with respect to that proposition. The present paper argues that, given a proper articulation of the deontological view, it is defensible that knowledge is justified true belief, virtually all epistemologists since Gettier. One important claim to be argued for is that once it is appreciated that it depends on contextual factors whether a person has done her epistemic duty with respect to a given proposition, many so-called Gettier cases, which are supposed to be cases of justified true belief that are not cases of knowledge, will be seen to be not really cases of justified belief after all. A second important claim is that the remaining alleged Gettier cases can be qualified as cases of knowledge. This requires that we countenance a notion of epistemic luck, but the requisite kind of luck is of a quite benign nature.

How to Be an Epistemic Value Pluralist

Dialogue ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Matheson
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Justified Belief

ABSTRACT: In this paper I defend an epistemic value pluralism according to which true belief, justified belief, and knowledge are all fundamental epistemic values. After laying out reasons to reject epistemic value monism in its central forms, I present my pluralist alternative and show how it can adequately explain the greater epistemic value of knowledge over both true belief and justified belief, despite their fundamentality. I conclude with a sketch of how this pluralism might be generalized beyond the epistemic domain to the ethical.

Can a Justified Belief Be False?

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-568
Author(s):  
Douglas Odegard
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Deductive Inference ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
True Conclusion ◽  
False Premise ◽  
The Moment

Edmund Gettier objects to analysing knowledge as justified true belief (JTB) on the ground that someone can justifiably infer a true conclusion from a justified false premise and hence not know the conclusion's truth, although the conclusion is justified. For instance, someone can justifiably deduce a true p v r from a justified but false p, where he has no justification for the true r. Gettier's objection draws on two assumptions: first, that a justified belief can be false; second, that a premise can justify a conclusion even though the premise is false.Some JTB advocates grant the first assumption but deny the second. They usually concede the first assumption to protect the respectability of non-deductive inference. The argument is that if evidence e can nondeductively justify the conclusion c, then it must be possible for c to be justified and yet false, since e does not entail c. Although the assumption is sound, the argument as it stands fails to show it. But let us set this point aside for the moment.

Sextus Empiricus on Xenophanes’ Scepticism

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Shaul Tor
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Sextus Empiricus ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Two Alternatives

Sextus’ interpretation of Xenophanes’ scepticism in M 7.49–52 is often cited but has never been subject to detailed analysis. Such analysis reveals that Sextus’ interpretation raises far more complex problems than has been recognised. Scholars invariably assume one of two ways of construing his account of Xenophanes B34, without observing that the choice between these two alternatives poses an interpretive dilemma. Some scholars take it that Sextus ascribes to Xenophanes (i) the view that one may have knowledge without knowing that one has knowledge. Others take it that he ascribes to Xenophanes (ii) the view that one may have true belief without knowing that one has true belief. A close examination of Sextus’ paraphrase exposes a crucial but overlooked complication. Sextus elides Xenophanes’ pivotal distinction between knowing “the clear and certain” (to saphes) and believing “what has been fulfilled” (tetelesmenon). He eliminates altogether tetelesmenon from his analysis of B34, and expands the role of to saphes. I demonstrate that, as a result, Xenophanes B34, as interpreted by Sextus, does not consistently and straightforwardly express either view (i) or view (ii). Sextus, I argue, in fact develops a fundamentally incoherent interpretation of Xenophanes B34. On Sextus’ interpretation, Xenophanes justifies the proposition “No human knows” by arguing that, even if a human does, in fact, know, he does not know that he knows. Finally, I argue that Sextus’ incoherent account reflects not unthinking negligence, but a sophisticated if ultimately doomed attempt to interpret the logical structure of Xenophanes B34 in line with later models of second-order scepticism.

Internalism, Externalism, and Autonomous Belief

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-59
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Belief Condition ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Mental Structure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Externalist Approach

What must be the case for an autonomous belief condition on knowledge (motivated in Chapter 1) to be satisfied by a knower? Chapter 2 takes up this question by investigating whether or not the knowledge-relevant (viz., epistemic) autonomy of a belief is determined entirely by the subject’s present mental structure. What I’ll call ‘internalists’ about epistemically autonomous belief say ‘yes’, and externalists say ‘no.’ Internalism about epistemic autonomous belief turns out to be problematic for reasons entirely independent from those we might have for rejecting internalist approaches to epistemically justified belief. What is shown to fare much better is a kind of ‘history-sensitive’ externalist approach to epistemically autonomous belief. On the particular account I go in for, which draws from externalist thinking about attitudinal autonomy more generally (as well as from virtue epistemology), a belief lacks the kind of epistemic autonomy that’s needed for propositional knowledge if the subject comes to possess the belief in a way that (put simply) bypasses or pre-empts the subject’s cognitive abilities and is such that the subject lacks easy (enough) opportunities to competently shed that belief.

The Core Concepts of Epistemology

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Foley
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
The Core ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Level Of Effort

This chapter details the core concepts of this reoriented epistemology. These are true belief and epistemically rational belief. Knowledge and justified belief are derivative concepts explicated in terms of these core concepts together with human goals, needs, and values, which explains why the standards of both knowledge and justified belief become more demanding as the stakes go up. In the case of knowledge there cannot be important truths of which one is unaware, and in the case of justified belief the level of effort one expends in gathering evidence and deliberating should be commensurate with what it is epistemically rational to believe about the importance of the matter at hand.

The Theory of Knowledge and Theory of Justified Belief

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Foley
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Justified Belief

This chapter returns to Gettier's article, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” and considers its impact on the theory of knowledge and the theory of justified belief. It first discusses the internalist and externalist accounts on true belief proposed by many epistemologists in response to Gettier's article. The chapter then turns to the working strategy that has dominated epistemology since Gettier's article—the employment of the assumption that knowledge and justification are conceptually connected to draw strong, and sometimes antecedently implausible, conclusions about knowledge or justification. The strategy can be thought of as an epistemology game—a “Gettier game”—and the chapter concludes by offering solutions to it.

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