The Nature of Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter D. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Good Basis ◽  
Fallible Reasoning ◽  
The Gettier Problem

The purpose of the chapter is to show that the defeasibility theory of knowledge provides the best solution to the most philosophically interesting way of characterizing the Gettier Problem. I will examine Gettier’s presentation of the problem in order to show that the principles that Gettier used to motivate the problem require some important corrections and, even with those corrections, the hard task remains, namely to make clear how fallible reasoning can result in real knowledge by eluding epistemic luck. I argue that various etiology of beliefs theories of knowledge (tracking theories, safety views, reliabilism, and virtue theories) do not provide a good basis for characterizing epistemic luck and depend upon highly speculative empirical claims. In addition, I will argue that among evidentialist theories (defeasibility theories, Dretske’s and Foley’s views) only a well-constructed defeasibility theory can correctly and informatively solve the Gettier Problem.

Knowledge, Benign Falsehoods, and the Gettier Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudio de Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Inferential Knowledge ◽  
The Gettier Problem

Contrary to millennial thought, inferential knowledge does seem to arise in certain cases of reasoning to which false premises are evidentially essential. The phenomenon refutes all of the well-known epistemologies that account for inferential knowledge. I offer an explanation of the phenomenon based on a fairly conservative revision to the defeasibility theory of knowledge, and explain why Peter Klein’s proposed solution fails. The explanation put forward here aims at giving us these two highly desirable results: (a) something we have never had and may not have noticed we needed, a defeasibility theory that is compatible with epistemological fallibilism, and, (b) within this revised, fallibilistic version of the defeasibility theory, an explanation of the benign/malignant distinction for false beliefs that completes the defeasibilist resolution of the Gettier Problem.

scholarly journals Sorte, Virtude, e Anulabilidade Epistêmica

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
João Rizzio Vicente Fett
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Duncan Pritchard ◽  
Satisfactory Theory ◽  
Better Than ◽  
The Gettier Problem

http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/1808-1711.2016v20n2p179 Duncan Pritchard has suggested that anti-luck epistemology and virtue epistemology are the best options to solve the Gettier problem. Nonetheless, there are challenging problems for both of them in the literature. Pritchard holds that his anti-luck virtue epistemology puts together the correct intuitions from both anti-luck epistemology and virtue epistemology and avoids their problems. Contra Pritchard, we believe that there is already a satisfactory theory on offer, namely, the defeasibility theory of knowledge. In this essay we intend (i) to examine Pritchard’s anti-luck virtue epistemology, and (ii) to defend the defeasibility theory of knowledge as an alternative to Pritchard’s theory. We will provide the reader with reasons for believing that the defeasibility theory is better than Pritchard’s theory because the former is more economic and more ecumenical than the latter, since it goes without non-epistemic notions and remains neutral as for the internalism vs. externalism debate.

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.

Gettier Problem

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Timofey S. Demin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Strategy Analysis ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Constituent Elements ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge ◽  
The Gettier Problem

Theories, that answering the question “What is knowledge?” in analytic epistemology appears under the influence of Gettier cases – a way of refutation such theories of knowledge, that have truth and belief as constituent elements. In the paper were analyzed basic strategies of solving the Gettier problem. One way is to save the analysis of knowledge by changing the elements in order to avoid the Gettier problem. There are three possible ways of doing so: adding new elements to the justification, changing the justification on the other criteria or strengthen the justification in such a way, that it would resolve any possible Gettier cases. For each strategy analysis of the theories of knowledge is given. In the paper idea of the inescapability of Gettier cases for analysis of knowledge was supported by the argumentation of Linda Zagzebski. In that ground, the analysis of knowledge was refuted. From that perspective, two of the most influenced ways of answering the question “what is knowledge” was proposed. First, the irreducible theory of knowledge, where knowledge is a mere state of the mind. Second, rejection existence of the universal invariant of the knowledge in every case. There are multiple senses of what the knowledge is and none of them is prior to other. The author lives as the open question the right way to think about the knowledge. In the closing part of the paper, the author presents a perspective critique of the knowledge problem as the project of overrated significance, and argues for a need to create new arguments that supporting that problem.

Chained to the Gettier Problem— a Useful Falsehood?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert K. Shope
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Unexpected Effect ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Gettier Problem

Chapter 5 refines a solution previously proposed to the Gettier Problem focusing on proscribing certain roles for falsehoods in a ‘justification-explaining chain.’ The refinement is partly explained in contrast to Peter D. Klein’s defeasibility theory of knowledge, which focuses on proscribing certain relations of truths to ‘chains of justifiers.’ Klein eventually revised his defeasibility account in order to allow for instances of knowledge that depend on what he calls ‘useful falsehoods.’ His definition of the latter turns out to face counterexamples. An improved definition allows a role for useful falsehoods in justification-explaining chains. It also has the unexpected effect of pointing toward a solution to the Gettier Problem that obviates the need to appeal to either type of chain.

50 Years of Gettier: A New Direction in Religious Epistemology?

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 147-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Michael Church
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Religious Epistemology ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
The Future ◽  
Reductive Theory ◽  
The Gettier Problem

In this paper, I lend credence to the move toward non-reductive religious epistemology by highlighting the systematic failings of Alvin Plantinga’s seminal, religious epistemology when it comes to surmounting the Gettier Problem.  Taking Plantinga’s account as archetypal, I argue that we have systematic reasons to believe that no reductive theory of knowledge (religious or otherwise) can viably surmount the Gettier Problem, that the future of religious epistemology lies in non-reductive models of knowledge. 

scholarly journals Elusive luck: Contextualist approach to the Gettier problem

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 83-97
Author(s):  
Ema Brajkovic
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Epistemic Luck ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Contextualist Approach ◽  
Conversational Contextualism ◽  
The Gettier Problem

Lewis' philosophical ambition to eradicate the skeptical threat towards infallibilism was the driving force behind his contextualist approach to knowledge. One of the discerning characteristics of his conversational contextualism is the claim that it can solve the Gettier problem. The first part of this paper will be directed towards explicating the arguments Lewis employed in reaching said solution. The second part will be concerned with Cohen?s critique of the proposed explanation. Cohen?s considerations result in an insight that contextualism does not have the adequate means to answer the Gettier challenge. Finally, I shall make an attempt at further motivating Cohen?s claim by investigating the essential component of Gettier cases - epistemic luck. This will be done by appealing to Pritchard?s concept of veritic epistemic luck. The author?s goal is to suggest that contextualist resources are neither suitable to solve nor exhaustively articulate the Gettier problem.

Sed ubi Socrates currit? On the Gettier Problem before Gettier

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Hilpinen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Current Belief ◽  
The Future ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The Gettier Problem ◽  
The Way ◽  
Forward Looking

Medieval philosophers presented Gettier-type objections to the commonly accepted view of knowledge as firmly held true belief, and formulated additional conditions that meet the objections or analyzed knowledge in a way that is immune to the Gettier-type objections. The proposed conditions can be divided into two kinds: backward-looking conditions and forward-looking conditions. The former concern an inquirer’s current belief system and the way the inquirer acquired her beliefs, the latter refer to what the inquirer may come to learn in the future and how she can respond to objections. Some conditions of knowledge proposed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century epistemology can be regarded as variants of the conditions put forward by medieval authors.

Explaining Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Methodological Aspect ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
The Gettier Problem

This is an edited collection of twenty-three new papers on the Gettier Problem and the issues connected with it. The set of authors includes many of the major figures in contemporary epistemology who have developed some of the well-known responses to the problem, and it also contains some younger epistemologists who bring new perspectives to the issues raised in the literature. Together, they cover the state of the art on virtually every epistemological and methodological aspect of the Gettier Problem. The volume also includes some skeptical voices according to which the Gettier Problem is not deeply problematic or some of the problems it raises are not genuine philosophical problems.

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