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.
