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.

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.

Aquinas on the Foundations of Knowledge

1991 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 125-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Alvin Plantinga ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
The West ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
Classical Foundationalism ◽  
The Middle Ages

Aquinas is sometimes taken to hold a foundationalist theory of knowledge. So, for example, Nicholas Wolterstorff says, “Foundationalism has been the reigning theory of theories in the West since the high Middle Ages. It can be traced back as far as Aristotle, and since the Middle Ages vast amounts of philosophical thought have been devoted to elaborating and defending it‥ ‥ Aquinas offers one classic version of foundationalism.” And Alvin Plantinga says, “we can get a better understanding of Aquinas … if we see [him] as accepting some version of classical foundationalism. This is a picture or total way of looking at faith, knowledge, justified belief, rationality, and allied topics. This picture has been enormously popular in Western thought; and despite a substantial opposing ground-swell, I think it remains the dominant way of thinking about these topics.”

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.

Intuitions

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Ichikawa ◽  
Ernest Sosa
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Hypothetical Case ◽  
Belief Theory ◽  
Contemporary Work

Philosophy often proceeds via appeals to intuition. In a prototypical instance, a theory is rejected on the basis of its counterintuitive verdict about a real or hypothetical case. A famous example is Edmund Gettier’s rejection of the justified “true belief” theory of knowledge; the dominant view was that knowledge was equivalent to justified true belief, but Gettier provided thought experiments involving subjects with beliefs derived from justified falsehoods, which happened by luck to be true—these thought experiments generally gave rise to intuitions to the effect that they described cases of justified true belief without knowledge. And on this basis, 20th-century epistemologists generally rejected the justified true belief theory. In recent decades, significant metaphilosophical attention has turned to such uses of intuitions in philosophy. What are intuitions? In what sense do arguments such as Gettier’s rely on the use of intuitions? Why should we trust them? What can they show us? This entry focuses on contemporary work on these and related topics.

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.

scholarly journals Cosmogonic or creation myths A mythical, philosophical and theological interpretation of the diverse cosmogonic myths: In conversation with Charles Long

2020 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan A. Van Rooyen
Keyword(s):  
Subject Area ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
Creation Myths ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Alternative Process ◽  
Creation Myth ◽  
The World

Cosmogonic myths, also referred to as creation myths, are theological and philosophical explanations of ancient myths of creation within a religious Homo sapien hamlet. In the context of this article, the word myth is attributed to the extravagant quixotic interpretation in anecdote (in both visionary and narrative sense) of what is accomplished or ceased as a key or essential phenomenon. The terms or language concepts of cosmogonic or creation invoke the start of things, whether by the desire and action of a surpass Actuality, by emergence from some eventful Actuality or by an additional alternative process. Mystics, scientists, philosophers and theologians of today set forward a method, to my mind, of pluralistic interpretation of the whole understanding and interpretation of a cosmogonic and creation myth that includes a variety of Actualities (deities or gods), in the world, according to basic Western and Eastern religious and rational classifications. These rational classifications have a phenomenological epistemic impact and even a certain righteousness of whoever wants to believe whatever of creation. Let it be …, as it should be ontological (showing the relations between the concepts [myths] and categories [criterion of these myths] in a subject area [a variety of philosophies or religions] or domain [places where these myths are experienced]) and epistemological (relating to the theory of knowledge [how these myths evolved in the thought processes of sapiens], especially with regard to its methods [e.g. sacramental], validity [the genuineness and lawfulness of these myth’s], scope [the extend thereof] and the distinction between justified belief and opinion) and be positive for theologians as objects and religious sapiens as subjects.

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.

scholarly journals The idea of epistemics

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Markosović
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Justified Belief

This article examines the main ideias of Goldman’s theory of knowledge and justified belief. This theory is shown as an alternative theory to the traditional epistemologies of foundationalism and coherentism. Special attention is paid to the naturalistic essence of Goldman's epistemology which can be seen in its close alliance with cognitive psychology. Namely, it is not possible to resolve questiones of knowledge and justified belief without knowledge of the psyhological processes of cognition, that is, of belief-forming processes. If these processes are not reliable our beliefs will not be cases of knowledge, since a belief which is not adequately formed doesn’t have a connection with the facts which make a certain proposition true.As for justified belief, if a belief has been produced by unreliable processes, we can not say we justifiably believe, since the causes of the belief have a tendency to produce false beliefs much more often then true ones. Hence, cognitive psyhology i® an indispensable discipline, being a discipline which investigates cognitive processes whose reliability is essential in deciding whether our beliefs are cases of knowledge or justified belief.

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.

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