Epistemological question
 

The Gettier problem is one of the main and most highly regarded rebuttal to the tradition account of knowledge (TAK), also known as the Justified True Belief. The JTB account of knowledge, states knowing in this manner:

A subject S knows that a proposition P is true if, and only if:

P is true
S believes that P is true, and
S is justified in believing that P

The gettier problem attacks this account by showing (or does it) that it may lead to 'knowledge by luck', which many people would not allow to count as knowledge. In these problems, the subject has a JTB, but it may not be what we call knowledge. Gettier cases are built on 2 propositions:
1) JF: false beliefs can be justified
2) JD: deduction always transmits justification


One Case:

Smith has applied for a job, but, it is claimed, has a justified belief that "Jones will get the job". He also has a justified belief that "Jones has 10 coins in his pocket". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of the transitivity of identity) that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket".
In fact, Jones does not get the job. Instead, Smith does. However, as it happens, Smith (unknowingly and by sheer chance) also had 10 coins in his pocket. So his belief that "the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket" was justified and true. But it does not appear to be knowledge.


A similar case:

Subject is driving by a town well known for its red barns. The subject looks into a field and sees a red barn. What the subject does not know is that the field is scattered with many fake, look-alike barns (due to a recent tornado, many barns were destroyed, but in order to keep tourists coming by, fake, one-walled barn look-alikes were erected). It is true the subject is looking at a barn, believes he is looking at a barn and is justified in thinking he sees a barn. Yet, it is equally likely he would have looked at a fake barn and formed the same belief. Therefore, it does not appear his JTB is equivalent to knowledge.


What do you all think? Has Gettier made a good case, is one of his propositions incorrect or has he miscontrued the JTB...or do Gettier subjects indeed have knowledge?

Re: Epistemological question
 

I think the justification of P and the facticity of P are different categories. If you believe P, for whatever reason, you have knowledge of P's facticity. Knowledge of P's justification is in a disjoint domain.

So I guess I would agree with Gettier...the JTB conflates two different categories of knowledge for no clear reason.

Multiple choice tests, for example...you can easily have knowledge of the correct answers without even bringing justification into the picture.

Re: Epistemological question
 

You believe you could know a multiple-choice answer P, without having a justified belief that P is true? Justification isn't necessarily something you have to be wholly cognizant of at the very moment, but if you were asked to justify your belief, you could do so and in a rational manner.

Re: Epistemological question
 

Gettier problems demolish simple TJB as knowledge but doesn't obviously mean there aren't methods of justification that don't suffer from gettier type problems.

Seems like the wrong tack to me anyway. Rational beliefs are justified and to tack on the label knowledge to the ones that happen to be true seems to miss the point.

Nozick's truth tracking also has problems but seems to far better grasp the idea of knowledge.

Re: Epistemological question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Justification isn't necessarily something you have to be wholly cognizant of at the very moment, but if you were asked to justify your belief, you could do so and in a rational manner.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm...yeah, I was thinking of justification too narrowly; as in, I "know" that e=mc^2, but I can't "justify" my knowledge by deriving that equation from first principles. Of course I CAN justify my belief by appealing to scientific authority.

But once we broaden "rational justification" beyond direct logic, it seems that justification becomes mostly a question of epistemic scope and personal utility. It's pretty easy to "justify" any belief when you make enough qualifications and compromises.

What's a good introduction to these issues...why do people argue about these models?

Re: Epistemological question
 

For those unfamiliar with Gettier's story when he was first up for tenure in the early 1960's he had not yet published anything, so at the behest of his colleagues he submitted for publication a 3-page paper entitled "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge" which through the use of counterexamples overturned the prevailing conception of knowledge as justified true belief, and spawned an industry of papers for the next decade trying to solve the problem. I don't think he's published anything since.

Re: Epistemological question
 

[ QUOTE ]
Seems like the wrong tack to me anyway. Rational beliefs are justified and to tack on the label knowledge to the ones that happen to be true seems to miss the point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bingo.

Re: Epistemological question
 

I think the idea of knowledge is fine as long as you don’t try to pin it down. If you do it falls apart as true knowledge is impossible and hence meaningless. But then I have never heard of Getter or the TAK.

Re: Epistemological question
 

They are a part of academic epistemological study. Nozick, Goldman and other's theories are arguably just as popular, if not moreso, but I found this argument against the traditional view of knowledge to be quite condemning.