AQA A LEVEL PHILOSOPHY NOTES - EPISTEMOLOGY
A* Level Notes which are concise and easy to understand.
Written by a student predicted 4A*, with an offer to study Philosophy & Economics at the LSE.
Very helpful to understand complexed philosophical concepts.
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What is “Knowledge” - Notes
Types of knowledge
1. Ability knowledge: to know how to do something.
2. Propositional knowledge: to know that - knowledge that – knowledge of a fact/ proposition (sentence). Can
be true or false.
3. Acquaintance knowledge: knowledge of (direct knowledge and relational) - comes from sensory perception
and experience (a posteriori) - e.g. knowledge of Paris.
Key terms
Belief: mental state representing one’s version of reality (can be true or false)
Truth: statement which corresponds with reality
Necessary: if you don’t have X, you cannot have Y (e.g., brain and being human)
Sufficient: if you have X, it is enough for you to have Y (e.g., being a peacock to be a bird)
Knowledge is always true, but beliefs can be false
Knowledge never changes but beliefs are always changing, but you can have knowledge during changing
times
Knowledge is about what is real, ignorance is about what isn’t real – beliefs are constantly changing so is
neither, belief is what we sense
Tripartite view of knowledge
Knowledge = Justified true belief (reason to back up belief)
Describes knowledge well: justification makes truth more likely and less coincidental so intuitively is logical.
Beliefs are necessary for knowledge, because there cannot be a tenuous link between S knowing that p is
true. So, the mere fact that p is true does not entail that S knows it. For S to know p, they must accept p is
true, and this requires a belief.
Issue with individual parts of JTB being necessary for knowledge: through the innate knowledge thesis. This
is referring to Leibniz’s dispositional knowledge argument, where we do not have a belief, yet we have
knowledge, it just needs to be uncovered (unconscious knowledge). Needs to be triggered by experience,
they are unaware they have the knowledge. An alternative case is when someone had learnt a large amount
of information 10 years ago, and then took a test on that information in the present day. They would feel like
they are merely guessing because they cannot remember properly. If they get the majority of questions
correct, we can say that they do have knowledge, yet don’t believe in it because they didn’t believe in what
they said.
Issue of justification as necessary for knowledge: the experience of redness needs no justification; it is
acquaintance knowledge, and you have propositional knowledge of what it’s like to experience red simply by
experiencing red. You don’t need to justify why your experience is valid.
Response: when talking to others about redness, you do this to verify it. So it’s a form of subconscious
justification, even if you’re not openly thinking about it but you verify and justify that your experience is
consistent with everyone else’s.
Issue of truth being necessary for knowledge: one who thinks that they know that flamingos are grey
because they saw it in a book: they have knowledge, but it isn’t true. Their belief doesn’t need to be
objectively true (e.g., that the Earth is flat – intuitively, these people “knew” this – it influenced all their
actions), but true for some society (relative to a society; relativism). To say it is “true for them” means more
than they just believe it, because if truth was what anyone believed then everyone would get 100% in tests.
And also, an issue of saying it is “true for them” is that, how can it be true for me that the earth is spherical,
but true people 1000 years ago that it was flat; the earth obviously didn’t just change shape. So, what is
more sensible is to remove the truth condition all together. We can thus say that there is no “objective
truth” about the shape of the earth, and can only as “What shape is the earth (for us)? So, people 1000 years
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ago had knowledge of the shape of the earth regardless of the truth condition. So, there is no objective truth
and what we know is true relative to a society.
Gettier cases challenge JTB (specifically whether the conditions are sufficient for knowledge): sufficient here
means that JTB is enough to be counted as knowledge.
Case 1: Smith’s proposition satisfies JTB but intuitively it seems he doesn’t have knowledge. 2 men have just
had an interview, and Smith believes Jones will get the job (premise 1). He also sees Jones has 10 coins in his
pocket (premise 2). Therefore, he concludes that the man with 10 coins in his pocket will get the job.
However, there is a change and Smith actually gets the job, but he also happens to have 10 coins in his
pocket. Hence Smith’s proposition according to JTB is knowledge. It’s a true belief and it is justified through
perception of seeing the coins and inferring Jones (who had the coins) would get the job, yet intuitively it
seems like he doesn’t have knowledge.
Case 2 (principle of disjunction introduction): Smith has a justified belief that Jones owns a ford. He then
makes the proposition that either Jones owns a ford or Brown lives in Barcelona (he doesn’t really think
Brown is in Barcelona). It turns out that Jones doesn’t own a ford, but Brown does live in Barcelona. So,
Smith does have a justified true belief, but it seems coincidental that he has this knowledge. Thus, this
challenges whether JTB is an accurate account. Justified belief because Jones owns a Ford is justified, e.g., he
saw a Ford parked outside Jones’ house. True belief because Brown does live in Barcelona. But still seems
entirely coincidental.
Real Definition: tells you about the essence of something, how it is as it exists in reality; its essence in nature.
How it truly is; fundamental characteristics. E.g., gold is malleable, hard, brittle, etc.
Artificial (nominal) definition: meaning of concept as its commonly understood in language (label associated
with it). E.g., dog is four-legged mammal.
Relativism vs Correspondence theory
Relativism: knowledge can be relative to different societies, for example ancient societies had knowledge that the
earth is flat. Two different truths can be correct and not contradict (congruence) if they fit with two different
people’s webs of belief (everything they believe to be correct).
Correspondence theory: for a statement to be true, it must accurately describe (or correspond with) the world.
No false lemmas definition of knowledge
Knowledge = JTB + no false lemmas.
No false lemmas means that the justification is based of no false premises.
It matches intuition well because it allows us to know lots of things but rules out propositions with weaker
justification.
It copes well with the Gettier case: Smith does not have knowledge because one of his premises (Jones will
get the job) is false, therefore his justification is invalid. It highlights how there is no connection between the
belief’s truth and its justification (there is a false reason to support the belief).
However, it copes less well with other Gettier cases (e.g., Alice and clock): she gains knowledge through the
false assumption that the clock is functional (so there is no explicit false premise)
Barn County Case: man is driving on a road, and every barn beside him is just a façade (not a real barn).
However, the one barn he does look at is real. He looks at the barn (P1), therefore concludes the barn exists.
Intuitively it seems that he doesn’t know the barn was there, it seems very coincidental but satisfies JTB+ No
false lemmas.
Infallibilism
Knowledge = JTB, but justification is so strong that it guarantees the conclusion (can never be wrong)
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