scholarly journals Gettier Cases: A Taxonomy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Buckwalter ◽  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Gettier Case ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Deep Fault ◽  
Theoretical Literature ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

AbstractThe term “Gettier Case” is a technical term frequently applied to a wide array of thought experiments in contemporary epistemology. What do these cases have in common? It is said that they all involve a justified true belief which, intuitively, is not knowledge, due to a form of luck called “Gettiering.” While this very broad characterization suffices for some purposes, it masks radical diversity. We argue that the extent of this diversity merits abandoning the notion of a “Gettier case” in a favour of more finely grained terminology. We propose such terminology, and use it to effectively sort the myriad Gettier cases from the theoretical literature in a way that charts deep fault lines in ordinary judgments about knowledge.

scholarly journals Gettier Cases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Blouw ◽  
Wesley Buckwalter ◽  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Gettier Case ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Deep Fault ◽  
Theoretical Literature ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

The term ‘Gettier case’ is a technical term frequently applied to a wide array of thought experiments in contemporary epistemology. What do these cases have in common? It is said that they all involve a justified true belief which, intuitively, is not knowledge, due to a form of luck called ‘gettiering.’ While this very broad characterization suffices for some purposes, it masks radical diversity. We argue that the extent of this diversity merits abandoning the notion of a ‘Gettier case’ in favor of more finely grained terminology. We propose such terminology, and use it to effectively sort the myriad Gettier cases from the theoretical literature in a way that charts deep fault lines in ordinary judgments about knowledge.

Gettier Was Framed!

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard Machery ◽  
Stephen Stich ◽  
David Rose ◽  
Amita Chatterjee ◽  
Kaori Karasawa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Framing Effect ◽  
Order Effect ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Gettier Case ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Knowing That

Gettier cases describe situations where an agent possesses a justified true belief that p, without, at least according to mainstream analytic epistemology, knowing that p, while the “Gettier intuition” is the judgment that a protagonist in a Gettier case does not know the relevant proposition. Our goal in this chapter is to show that we can make the Gettier intuition compelling or underwhelming by presenting it in different contexts. We report a surprising order effect whereby people find the Gettier intuition less compelling when a case describing a justified but false belief is presented before a Gettier case. We also report a surprising framing effect: two Gettier cases that differ only in their philosophically irrelevant narrative details elicit substantially different judgments. Finally, we discuss the metaphilosophical implications of these effects.

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.

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.

Believing That I Don’t Know

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Foley
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Adequate Information ◽  
To Come ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

This chapter explores cases in which we believe something (P) to be true but readily admit we do not know it. Beliefs outside our areas of expertise are commonly like this. In contrast to the knowledge stories of contemporary epistemology, such cases are autobiographical, fusing the roles of storyteller and subject as one. Even in such a scenario the chapter argues that there is nothing puzzling about such reports, though the chapter also looks into other accounts of knowledge which have a harder time explaining such reports. Reliability and justification theorists may be able to come up with ways of explaining why reports of the form “I believe but don't know P” are common, but the chapter argues that there is no need even to search if knowledge is understood in terms of true belief plus adequate information.

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.

IS KNOWLEDGE THE ABILITY TO ϕ FOR THE REASON THAT P?

Episteme ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Gettier Case ◽  
Gettier Cases

AbstractHyman (1999, 2006) argues that knowledge is best conceived as a kind of ability: S knows that p iff S can ϕ for the reason that p. Hyman motivates this thesis by appealing to Gettier cases. I argue that it is counterexampled by a certain kind of Gettier case where the fact that p is a cause of the subject's belief that p. One can ϕ for the reason that p even if one does not know that p. So knowledge is not best conceived as an ability of this kind.

Lebanon Confronts Partition Fears: Has Consociationalism Benefitted Minorities?

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francisco Salvador Barroso Cortés ◽  
Joseph A. Kéchichian
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Territorial Integrity ◽  
Deep Fault ◽  
Region Partition ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Fault Lines

Lebanese consociationalism has been under stress due to serious internal and external pressures. Though Lebanese regional and global leaders continue to pay lip service to Lebanon’s unity and uphold putative commitments to its sovereignty and territorial integrity, partition to resolve internal crises remains on the table. After a long and still unsettled civil war, absolute internal discord among citizens and, increasingly, the uprisings throughout the region, partition was and is once again openly discussed by many even if most camouflage it under the decentralization, federalism, or con-federalism schemes. The article underlines the inherent vulnerabilities of the Lebanese state and analyzes its deep fault lines raising a serious question about the future integrity of Lebanon.

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.

The Inescapability of Gettier Problems

2020 ◽  
pp. 311-319
Author(s):  
Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
The State ◽  
False Belief ◽  
Proper Function ◽  
Good Luck ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter argues that any definition of knowledge as true belief + x will be subject to Gettier-style counterexamples as long as the connection between x (justification, reliability, proper function, etc.) and getting the truth is close but not inviolable. The recipe for generating a counterexample uses the idea of double luck. It starts with an instance of bad luck (A belief is false but has component x) which is canceled out by an instance of good luck (Make the belief true after all for reasons that have nothing to do with the believer). As long as the truth is never assured by the conditions which make the state justified, there will be situations in which a false belief is justified. With this common, in fact, almost universal assumption, Gettier cases will never go away.

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