a proposition - a statement/claim about how things are.
A paradox is a contradictory, or an apparently contradictory, sentence.
What is knowledge?
Acquaintance knowledge – knowledge of (London)
Propositional knowledge – knowledge that (London is the capital of England)
Ability knowledge – knowledge how (to ride a bike)
Definitions:
Zagzebski says we can use conceptual analysis to get a definition of something:
Breaking a concept down into various parts by deciding what conditions are
necessary for a true example of the concept.
Some definitions of knowledge emphasise causes while others don’t. Zagzebski
thinks both can be successful. VTB and RTB are causal because they use a cause
to get the definition (either the cause of exercising epistemic virtue or the cause
of the reliable cognitive process).
The definition shouldn’t be circular (include the term defined).
The definition shouldn’t be obscure as then the definition would not further our
understanding.
The definition shouldn’t be negative. A definition of a term by what it is not isn’t
helpful.
The definition shouldn’t be ad hoc. This means coming up with a definition that is
specific to meeting a particular problem.
Sosa’s view – virtuous shot in archery (accurate, adroit, apt).
The tripartite view is a definition of propositional knowledge that states that it is
justified true belief. You have to believe it, you have to be correct, and you have
to have suitable justification. These three conditions are individually necessary
and jointly sufficient.
Conditions are not jointly sufficient:
Gettier cases object to the tripartite view by giving examples of times in which
JTB would render something knowledge yet we would not want to call it
knowledge showing how it is counter-intuitive. One example is that Smith and
Jones both go for a job interview. Smith is told that Jones is going to get the job
by the manager and after he leaves the interview, he counts that Jones has 10
coins in his pocket. He forms the belief that ‘the man who is going to get the job
has 10 coins in his pocket’. As both his original beliefs are justified, Gettier states
,that an inference from both those beliefs is also justified. As it turns out, the
manager was lying to Smith and he actually got the job. By a stroke of luck, he
also had 10 coins in his pocket and his belief was true. According to JTB this
should be considered as knowledge because it is true, believed, and justified, yet
we wouldn’t want to call it knowledge since it was inferred from a false belief and
lucky. Therefore, JTB are not sufficient conditions for knowledge and the tripartite
view is false.
Infallibilism strengthens JTB by raising the bar for knowledge. It says that my
belief has to be infallible for it to be knowledge, meaning that if I am justified in
some knowledge, I can’t possibly be wrong. If it is at all possible that my belief is
incorrect then it is not infallible and therefore not knowledge. This creates issues
because it raises the possibility of not being able to have any knowledge as what
is there that we can be so certain about?
No False Lemmas adds another necessary condition to the traditional tripartite
view – stating that my belief cannot have been inferred from a false belief. This is
considered ad hoc as the definition is specific to meeting a particular problem,
which Zagzebski says is a bad definition in her account of the nature of
definition. Additionally, there are still Gettier style cases that prove No False
Lemmas wrong. In fake barn county, there are fake barns that look identical to
real barns. Smith is driving through here and often thinks ‘there is a barn’ when
looking at the fake barns. These beliefs are not knowledge as they are not true.
On one occasion, Smith looks at the single real barn and thinks ‘there is a barn’.
This time, his belief is true and not inferred from a false belief. According to No
False Lemmas, Smith must have knowledge here, although because Smith’s
belief is clearly not knowledge – it was lucky – so the No False Lemmas definition
must be false.
Reliable True Belief states that my justification simply has to be that my belief
was formed through a reliable cognitive process. A reliable cognitive process is
one that often produces correct beliefs in me – such as perception. Generally, my
eyes do not deceive me of what I see and are correct, therefore my perception is
a reliable cognitive process and beliefs I for using my perception that are correct
should be considered knowledge.
Virtuous True Belief requires that your true belief was came to as a result of
exercising epistemic virtue. For example, if you correctly answered a question in
a test by guessing, this would not be knowledge as you are not exercising
epistemic virtue by guessing. If you correctly answered a question in a test
because you had revised relevant material, it would be knowledge because you
have exercised relevant epistemic virtue (by revising) and this has justified your
belief in the answer which was correct.
Conditions are not individually necessary:
Belief is not individually necessary because if you refuse to believe that a relative
has died (because of pure emotion), we wouldn’t want to say that that means
you don’t know they have died. You know they are dead; you just don’t believe it
yet – although this doesn’t make what you have not knowledge.
, In this case, some would argue that you do actually believe the proposition and
are just not showing it to the external world, or even yourself consciously. I can
believe something and lie about my belief in it to others. Similarly, I can believe
something and lie about my belief in it to myself. In both cases I believe the
proposition but am either in refute of the belief or am trying to hide it.
Truth is not individually necessary because, for example, everyone believed that
Pluto was a planet until it was disproven. We didn’t have epistemic access to the
truth, but the justification was so high and universal that it was considered
knowledge. In this case, we would want to say that we knew Pluto was a planet
despite our belief being false.
Knowledge involves cognitive contact with reality – therefore a false belief is not
knowledge. You cannot know something is false. The belief that Pluto was a
planet was a contextual truth (one that was true given our current understanding
of the world) whereas the belief that Pluto is a dwarf planet is an ontological
truth (one that is true given the nature of reality). Only ontological truths can
constitute knowledge – contextual truths may appear like ontological truths
although they never are.
Justification is not individually necessary because if one asked ‘do you know who
wrote the meditations?’ and I had the true belief that it was Descartes without
any justification then that is all that the interviewer is interested in and they
would argue that I knew the answer. This is because you can have knowledge
without justification – in some situations you only need to know the answer, not
why. In this case, I can have knowledge without justification.
Despite appearing to have knowledge to the interviewer, if someone has no
justification that Descartes wrote the meditations then the mere fact that they
believe it doesn’t make it knowledge. It’s like when you believe you know the
answer to a question but have no idea why you think it’s that answer. You
wouldn’t say you have knowledge in this case. Ruling out justification takes out
what is good about knowledge – what separates intellects from non-intellects.
25 marker plan:
Is JTB successful: leave out VTB and say no, even modifications to it fail.
Is JTB the best theory: include VTB, JTB isn’t the best theory as VTB is better.
Outline the tripartite view and how it relates to Zagzebski’s idea of conceptual
analysis and the idea of necessary and sufficient conditions.
Thesis – JTB fails as while it manages to overcome the objection that the
conditions are not individually necessary, it fails the objection that the conditions
are not jointly sufficient. Other definitions of knowledge are given and fail (JTBN,
infallibilism) and only VTB succeeds, so knowledge is VTB.
