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.

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.

scholarly journals Do Safety Failures Preclude Knowledge?

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-319
Author(s):  
J. R. Fett
Keyword(s):  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Sensitivity Theory ◽  
Safety Condition ◽  
The Gettier Problem

The safety condition on knowledge, in the spirit of anti-luck epistemology, has become one of the most popular approaches to the Gettier problem. In the first part of this essay, I intend to show one of the reasons the anti-luck epistemologist presents for thinking that the safety theory, and not the sensitivity theory, offers the proper anti-luck condition on knowledge. In the second part of this essay, I intend to show that the anti-luck epistemologist does not succeed, because the safety theory fails to capture a necessary requirement for the possession of knowledge. I will attack safety on two fronts. First, I will raise doubts about whether there is any principled safety condition capable of handling a kind of case, involving inductive knowledge, that it was designed to handle. Second, I will consider two cases in which the safety condition is not met but the protagonist seems to have knowledge nonetheless, and I will vindicate my intuitions for thinking that those are in fact cases of knowledge by contrasting them with traditional, well-known Gettier cases. I want to conclude, finally, that safety failures do not necessarily prevent one from acquiring knowledge.

scholarly journals Experimental Epistemology and "Gettier" Cases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Personality Traits ◽  
Experimental Literature ◽  
Behavioral Patterns ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Theoretical Literature ◽  
The Gettier Problem

This chapter reviews some faults of the theoretical literature and findings from the experimental literature on “Gettier” cases. Some “Gettier” cases are so poorly constructed that they are unsuitable for serious study. Some longstanding assumptions about how people tend to judge “Gettier” cases are false. Some “Gettier” cases are judged similarly to paradigmatic ignorance, whereas others are judged similarly to paradigmatic knowledge, rendering it a theoretically useless category. Experimental procedures can affect how people judge “Gettier” cases. Some important central tendencies in judging “Gettier” cases appear to be robust against demographic variation in biological sex, age, language, and culture, although there could be some interesting differences related to culture and personality traits. Some remaining questions regarding Gettier’s cases, “Gettier” cases, and “the Gettier problem” concern the psychology and sociology of contemporary anglophone theoretical epistemology. Some remaining questions regarding the empirical study of knowledge judgments concern mechanisms underlying observed behavioral patterns.

Inferential Knowledge and the Gettier Conjecture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Borges
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Causal Dependence ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Inferential Knowledge ◽  
Dead End ◽  
Straightforward Solution ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
The Gettier Problem

The Gettier Problem, when properly understood, has a straightforward solution. My main thesis—my ‘Gettier conjecture’—is that gettierized subjects fail to know in virtue of their justified true belief depending causally and evidentially on something they fail to know. Inferential knowledge (i.e., knowledge of a conclusion) requires knowledge of all the premises on which one’s conclusion depends causally and evidentially. This chapter is a first effort in trying to support this thesis. Section 2 discusses the Gettier conjecture, the notions of evidential and causal dependence, and applies the conjecture to the original Gettier cases. Section 3 looks at two objections: the claims that the conjecture fails to deal with all Gettier cases and that the Gettier Problem is a philosophical ‘dead end.’ In Section 4 I offer further support for the conjecture by situating it within a knowledge-first framework.

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.

scholarly journals In Gettier's Wake

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
The Gettier Problem

A critical review of “Gettier” cases and theoretical attempts to solve “the” "Gettier" "problem".

scholarly journals Lewis’s contextual solution to the Lottery paradox and the Gettier problem

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
Marija Rekovic
Keyword(s):  
David Lewis ◽  
Main Topic ◽  
Epistemic Contextualism ◽  
Lottery Paradox ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Conversational Contextualism ◽  
Skeptical Paradox ◽  
The Lottery Paradox ◽  
The Gettier Problem

The main topic of this paper is conversational contextualism, one of the most dominant versions of epistemic contextualism, endorsed by David Lewis. Proponents of conversational contextualism, including Lewis, argue that the key advantage of this view lies in its unique way of analyzing and solving the most prominent epistemological problems. Among those problems are the skeptical paradox, the Gettier problem and the Lottery paradox. The first part of the paper is concerned with the general features of conversational contextualism. In the second part of the paper the author highlights the main hypotheses of conversational contextualism, proposed by Lewis, as an attempt to solve the Gettier problem and the Lottery paradox. The last part of the paper analyzes the pros and cons of the Lewisian solutions to the aforementioned problems. The key part in that analysis is the Cohen?s criticism of those solutions.

Consistency and Shifts in Gettier Cases

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-343
Author(s):  
Andreas Stephens ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
And Shifts ◽  
The Gettier Problem

Two Gettier cases are described in detail and it is shown how they unfold in terms of reflective and reflexive desiderata. It is argued that the Gettier problem does not pose a problem for conceptions of knowledge as long as we are consistent in how we understand justification and knowledge. It is only by reading the cases with a reflective understanding of justification but a reflexive understanding of knowledge, without acknowledging that this takes place, that the cases become ‘problems.’

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.

scholarly journals THE GETTIER PROBLEM AND LEGAL PROOF

Legal Theory ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Pardo
Keyword(s):  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Legal Literature ◽  
Legal Proof ◽  
The Gettier Problem

This article explores the relationships between legal proof and fundamental epistemic concepts such as knowledge and justification. A survey of the legal literature reveals a confusing array of seemingly inconsistent proposals and presuppositions regarding these relationships. This article makes two contributions. First, it reconciles a number of apparent inconsistencies and tensions in accounts of the epistemology of legal proof. Second, it argues that there is a deeper connection between knowledge and legal proof than is typically argued for or presupposed in the legal literature. This connection is illustrated through a discussion of the Gettier problem in epistemology. It is argued that the gap or disconnect between truth and justification that undermines knowledge in Gettier cases also potentially undermines the success of legal verdicts.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document