Aristotle demonstrated that "knowledge", claimed by Parmenides as "being", is inconsistent with the reality of "becoming" which was asserted by Heraclitus. These two aspects of reality, being and becoming are simply incompatible. The solution to this problem is dualism.

Plato demonstrated in The Theaetetus, that "knowledge" as we know it cannot be described as JTB. This is because the possibility of falsity cannot be excluded, therefore we cannot hold truth as a criterion. In other words, the requirement of truth cannot be justified, therefore the idea that knowledge is JTB cannot itself be knowledge.

And if we remove the requirement of truth, we are left with justified belief, and this does not properly represent what we request from knowledge. So Plato concludes The Theaetetus with the proposal that trying to understand knowledge with the preconceived notion that it is some form of JTB is actually misleading.

Plato demonstrated in The Theaetetus, that "knowledge" as we know it cannot be described as JTB. This is because the possibility of falsity cannot be excluded, therefore we cannot hold truth as a criterion. In other words, the requirement of truth cannot be justified, therefore the idea that knowledge is JTB cannot itself be knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

I always thought the T in JTB was weird. I mean it makes sense, but then it makes Knowledge just as inaccessible as Truth itself. We only have access to justifications about our beliefs, there's no oracle who can tell us if that belief satisfies the T or not.

So we can only really appeal to our justifications when calling a certain belief "knowledge", we can't ever appeal to the raw T.

So are we just supposed to be agnostic about if any belief is knowledge? Because... well, of course if we think it's J then we think it's T, but we can't really distinguish between the beliefs we think are justified and are actually true vs the beliefs we think are justified but aren't true. I mean, if we could - if we could know, "I'm justified in this belief but it isn't really true", then we wouldn't believe it anymore.

It just feels like the J is doing all the work and the T is coming along for the ride.

I've read about half in seriousness and about half skimming because of time this morning. What I can say so far: Well done. This is a serious paper that a LOT of work went into and there's no way I could answer such a piece without really looking into it in depth. I'll comment more later.

Welcome to the forum.

However, we typically regard knowledge as stable and reliable, a foundation we can trust. Gettier problems like this challenge the traditional JTB definition by revealing cases of accidental knowledge, suggesting that justification, truth, and belief alone are insufficient for genuine knowledge. — DasGegenmittel

Of course what we call knowledge isn't, never will be, and never can be "stable and reliable." This demonstrates that justified true belief definition of truth is fundamentally flawed. JTB does not describe knowledge as we normally think of it, use it, or act based on it. The unnecessary and convoluted Gettier "problem" just highlights that fact.

My approach? Focus on the practical justification needed before we act on specific knowledge rather than on it's truth.

I very much like the general thrust of your thesis and find much agreement with it, but as a minor quibble:

Knowledge is treated today as if it were static and timeless, as Plato might have suggested, [...] — DasGegenmittel

Knowledge so construed would be lacking in any possibility of being wrong - and so would be infallible by entailment. Such that the notion of infallible knowledge to me corresponds what you’ve termed “static knowledge”.

Plato, via Socrates’s voice, however, is almost always understood to present the case for what is called - not Cartesian Skepticism, which is about doubting everything till some infallible knowledge is supposedly obtained - but Ancient Skepticism, whose aim can well be argued via today’s terminology to present the case that there can be no such thing as infallible knowledge, else what you’ve termed static knowledge. Such that the very knowledge that “there can be no infallible knowledge” will of itself be fallible knowledge - else what you term “dynamic knowledge” - this rather than infallible or else static.

@Metaphysician Undercover
You pointed out the tension between Parmenides’ being and Heraclitus’ becoming, referencing Aristotle, who saw these opposites as irreconcilable. Your proposed solution is a dualism that separates both aspects. This is precisely where my distinction between Static Knowledge and Dynamic Knowledge comes in:
• SK refers to timeless, secure knowledge (e.g., mathematics).
• DK is tied to changing conditions (e.g., the fastest route to work today).

Immutable and timeless elements (see deduction) are often conflated with mutable and temporal ones (see induction), as is the case in many Gettier examples. The expectation that knowledge should work the same way in inductive contexts as it does in deductive reasoning is, as you imply, unfounded. The epistemic monism currently dominant in the field is therefore deeply problematic. That’s why I wrote my paper Justified True Crisis—because this issue often goes unrecognized. It’s reassuring to know there are people out there who think along similar lines.

In relation to Plato’s Theaetetus, you argue that knowledge cannot be understood as “Justified True Belief” (JTB) because we can never completely rule out the possibility of falsehood. Therefore, “truth” cannot serve as a sufficient criterion, and JTB itself cannot be equated with knowledge. This interpretation reflects a typical post-Gettier skepticism, namely that the concept of truth itself remains “inaccessible.”

In my model, this doesn’t mean we discard truth altogether. Rather, the discussion around Gettier cases (e.g., the stopped clock) highlights the need to distinguish between static and dynamic knowledge. We still need “truth” as a goal and standard for knowledge, but we must accept that in DK-domains, our beliefs are constantly subject to revision, and we can never claim absolute certainty in changing environments.

@flannel jesus
You find the “T” in JTB problematic because we can never know with final certainty whether something is truly true. Ultimately, we only rely on our justifications (J) and beliefs (B). That’s exactly what we see in everyday dynamic contexts: we live in a world where everything flows and changes, and we can only partially verify whether a belief is really true.

This is where the idea of Justified True Crisis (JTC) comes in. In dynamic contexts, we may hold an assumption about what is true, but it must always remain open to potential correction. You could say we operate in a constant crisis mode: we have to act, even though we don’t have ultimate certainty about the “T” in JTB. That’s precisely why justification (J) does most of the work in practice, while truth (T) in a dynamic setting is only attributed hypothetically.

@Philosophim
Thanks so much for the kind feedback. I’m looking forward to any further questions you might have as you dig deeper into the text. And yes, a lot of work went into it ;D… I really hope it reads well, makes sense, and is useful. It’s tough to get feedback when you’re no longer in university. I wrote the essay after finishing my Master’s because I wanted to explore this idea further. The essay is like a bottle thrown into the sea, hoping to be found.

@T Clark
Thanks, it’s a pleasure to be able to talk with you all. You mention that knowledge in everyday life isn’t really “stable and reliable” the way we often wish it were—or the way the JTB definition implies. The Gettier case is really just an elegant illustration of this. You suggest instead focusing on practical justification before taking action.

This aligns very well with my introduction of Dynamic Knowledge: we might try to treat knowledge as a solid foundation, but in reality, there are always gaps and uncertainties. That’s exactly why I propose that in dynamic contexts, we shouldn’t rely on the illusion of “eternal validity,” but rather see knowledge as an ongoing process that must handle uncertainty and revision (JTC).

@javra
You find the idea of distinguishing between “static” and “dynamic” knowledge interesting and connect it with Plato’s (or rather Socrates’) skepticism in the Theaetetus. I think this connection is spot on and can be deepened by taking a more nuanced look at Platonic epistemology:
• Static Knowledge can be understood as an aspirational ideal, most clearly expressed in Plato’s treatment of mathematics, logic, or the theory of Forms—domains in which knowledge appears “unchanging and timeless.” While these ideals may seem to offer infallibility, they remain, for Plato, somewhat out of reach in the sensible world.
• Dynamic Knowledge, by contrast, aligns more closely with the core of Ancient Skepticism, as voiced through Socrates in the Theaetetus: the view that no claim to infallible knowledge can ultimately hold. Even the assertion that “there is no infallible knowledge must itself be fallible—thus placing it within the realm of DK; It’s important to emphasize that knowledge here is usually understood monistically, not dually—and that’s precisely the problem. In areas like everyday experience, empirical science, or historical understanding, knowledge is inherently provisional and context-dependent. Here, skeptical questions like “Can I be sure I have hands?” (cf. JTC) remain meaningful, even as practical certainties like “I have hands” are asserted. But depending on the epistemic standards at play, such claims are always vulnerable to what I call a crisis: "To differentiate dynamic knowledge with its crisis-like nature at this point, the Platonic conviction, δόξα (doxa), can be substituted with the ancient Greek κρίσις (krisis). κρίσις also means an opinion but more importantly, it conveys assertion and judgment, implying a crossroads. Thus, the structure and effectiveness of the JTB definition are preserved, with the difference that it is adapted to the reality and limits of concept knowledge." (see JTC, p. 25)

In this light, Plato doesn’t simply reject knowledge, but dramatizes the limits and tensions between the ideal of certainty and the reality of fallibility—between SK and DK. The aporia in dialogues like the Theaetetus reveals not a collapse of knowledge, but a shift toward understanding it as dynamic, contextual, and always open to revision.

In other words: Plato’s JTB framework implicitly aims at fixing knowledge in timeless validity, yet remains in a paradoxical or aporetic state due to the underlying “either/or” between change/unchange and temporal/timeless (see the Ship of Theseus).
JTC, by contrast, makes visible that in many contexts, knowledge must be continually justified, challenged, or defended anew. The duality opens up a “both/and” perspective, depending on the nature of the object under investigation. The two perspectives don’t contradict each other—they complement one another. That, in my view, is what makes the distinction between SK and DK fruitful.

I'm very glad we agree.

You mention that knowledge in everyday life isn’t really “stable and reliable” the way we often wish it were—or the way the JTB definition implies. The Gettier case is really just an elegant illustration of this. You suggest instead focusing on practical justification before taking action.

This aligns very well with my introduction of Dynamic Knowledge: we might try to treat knowledge as a solid foundation, but in reality, there are always gaps and uncertainties. That’s exactly why I propose that in dynamic contexts, we shouldn’t rely on the illusion of “eternal validity,” but rather see knowledge as an ongoing process that must handle uncertainty and revision (JTC). — DasGegenmittel

Your formulation seems unnecessarily complicated to me. As I see it, the purpose of knowledge is to allow us to make decisions, to act, effectively and safely. Recognizing there will always be uncertainties in that knowledge, we need to decide how much risk of failure we can tolerate and how much justification we need to limit that risk. In order to provide that level of uncertainty, we need to determine what the consequences of failure are. If I risk losing $10 in a bet, the consequences and required justification are small. If the risks include endangering human life, much more justification is needed.

So, in this context, knowledge is adequately justified belief based on the consequences of failure.

Hmmm, remind me why Gettier is even a problem.

The businessman believed himself to be justified that the time was correct. However, in retrospect, after learning that the clock was broken, he would realize that his belief wasn't justified. The clock was right only twice a day, and just by chance he picked one of those. His belief wasn't justified, it was only apparently justified, and it was true merely by luck.

Truth, as @flannel jesus points out, is always uncertain. Perhaps the same holds for justification as well. What counts as justification is always subject to revision in the light of new information. We only ever think something is true, and we only ever think its truth is justified. Therefore, we only ever think we know something, and that belief needs to always be held in proper suspicion. At least for what @DasGegenmittel calls dynamic knowledge.

Could that be all there is to it?

@T Clark

TL;DR: Your proposal works well as a practical heuristic. But without a clearer framework, many of the beliefs we treat as “knowledge” wouldn’t actually qualify — not because they’re false, but because their justification dissolves over time. Justified True Crisis (JTC) formalizes that pragmatism by asking why we treat something as “justified enough,” when we take the Weiji-Jump, and how we manage that risk epistemically.
Not to complicate knowledge, but to take its fragility seriously — and to ground it in conceptual knowledge: not claims about reality itself, but about the best models we have at a given time. Without that, we risk treating coincidence as certainty. And once the world changes, we confabulate continuity — while JTB keeps calling it knowledge, even if the bottle has already shattered.

In more Detail:
I see your point. You’re offering a pragmatic perspective that I broadly agree with: knowledge must enable action despite uncertainty. In my work on Dynamic Knowledge (DK) and Justified True Crisis (JTC), the goal isn’t to complicate things unnecessarily, but rather to methodically account for that uncertainty — without falling into dogmatic pseudo-certainty.

You write: “Knowledge is adequately justified belief based on the consequences of failure.” That’s very close to what I argue with JTC. The key difference is that JTC doesn’t just focus on the immediate utility of a belief for action. It also emphasizes the awareness of epistemic crisis — the recognition that our justification may be context-sensitive, fragile, or even coincidental. The Weiji-Jump (危机; meaning crisis, precisely combines this with the risk (危: wei) associated with uncertainty and the opportunity (机: ji) into one term.; Inspired by Kierkegaard’s concept of the "leap of faith") refers to precisely that moment: a decision is made despite uncertainty, but with a reflective grasp of the risks involved. I’m not just proposing a new definition, but outlining a form of epistemic responsibility — especially important in complex, dynamic environments.

Now, why does this need to be more than JTB or a pragmatic cost-benefit approach? Because those models collapse when confronted with time-sensitive or shifting contexts. Let me illustrate this with a simple case:

Imagine you see a bottle sitting on a table at 12:00. You say, “The bottle is intact.” At 12:02, you hear a crash — it has fallen and shattered.
Did you know the bottle was intact?

Under JTB: ✔ justified (you saw it), ✔ true (at the time), ✔ believed — so: knowledge.

But epistemically, your statement is unstable. What you actually knew was: “The bottle was intact at 12:00.” Without temporal indexing, your statement becomes retroactively misleading — even though it was “true” in a narrow JTB sense. The JTB model implicitly assumes that once a belief qualifies as knowledge, it remains so — even if the real-world referent (like an intact bottle) changes moments later, unless we explicitly update or retract the claim. But if we continue to treat the original statement as knowledge after the bottle breaks, we’re no longer tracking reality — we’re confabulating coherence where none exists. Consider as well Gettier’s job application case: at t₁, Smith believes he knows that “Jones will get the job” (definiendum) and “has ten coins in his pocket” (definiens). However, at t₂, it turns out that Smith himself gets the job and — unknowingly — also has ten coins in his pocket (similar to the broken bottle; new information).

This is where DK becomes essential (and more detailed):
• DKa addresses how a concept (e.g., “intact”) adjusts to the context and change.
• DKh tracks whether that concept remains coherent across time.

These two components are complementary; both necessary and jointly sufficient to describe knowledge in dynamic settings. JTC operationalizes this into a model for decision-making: not just whether you’re justified, but when, how, and under what conditions of risk you’re willing to treat a belief as knowledge.


@hypericin Great summary — yes, that’s exactly the core of dynamic knowledge. But the reason Gettier still matters is that it shows how easily we confuse fragile, coincidental beliefs for solid knowledge. It’s not just a theoretical issue — it’s a practical warning: we often act on what only seems justified in retrospect.

The Ship of Theseus illustrates how both identity and knowledge can shift over time — subtly, gradually — without us noticing. That’s the danger of dogmatic knowledge: it assumes timeless certainty and ignores change. In dynamic contexts, this isn’t just naïve — it’s a failure of risk management.

That’s where Justified True Crisis (JTC) comes in: it reframes knowledge not as a fixed state, but as a responsible, time-bound assertion made in awareness of uncertainty.

Here, conceptual knowledge plays a key role. It’s not knowledge of reality itself, but of our best available concepts — abstracted, structured, and always partial. We don’t access the world directly; we model it. As Popper argued, our theories are nets we cast to catch the world — but we must never forget they are nets.

JTC takes that seriously: it treats knowledge as something we claim through concepts, knowing they’re fallible — but also knowing they’re the most reliable tools we have to navigate a changing world.

dynamic knowledge aka "we're doing the best we can, and according to the best we can, this seems right right now".

Honestly yeah, I don't think there's all that much to it. We have degrees of confidence, things we're almost certain of and things that are a bit more speculative.

As long as you're self aware enough to tell when you should be certain, when you should be very confident, and when you should have a belief that's easily shaken by new evidence, you should be okay.

The point is that truth as representation or correspondence has many failures to keep pace with reality. In any case we are still restricted to the subject-object division. That is why I advocate the construction of knowledge as working with reality. A truth is not something you discover or think about or believe in. But in a very different way it is something that is constructed. The subjective part should not be taken as the epicenter from which knowledge is constructed. If we take scientific work as an example we are actually working with reality constructing synthetic identities in which theories, phenomena, operations and relations converge in the same flow of human action in a harmonic way so to speak.

I agree with pretty much every thing you say. The one part we may differ is that I question the validity of the Gettier problem. In the sense that it attacks JTB. If the businessman was not justified in his belief, then it is not a counterexample of JTB. It's just that, to truly know whether something is a JTB, we need to adopt the omniscient perspective implicitly taken in the thought experiment. In the real world, empirical knowledge is always provisional.

@hypericin Yes, absolutely—we share similar perspectives. Still, Gettier remains important because he challenges us to explain the lack of supposed knowledge in a way that the current debate around Gettier cases fails to grasp. Highlighting the problems that arise from this and offering a way out of the conceptual fly-bottle is precisely what I aim to do.

Plato and Aristotle both knew—as I believe you do as well—that JTB alone is insufficient in dynamic contexts (though it may suffice in static ones), contrary to the dominant interpretation today. Consider, for example, Plato’s aporia at the end of the Theaetetus, or Aristotle’s view that statements about the future are contingent. If one were to claim that Plato believed JTB applies meaningfully in dynamic contexts, his entire theory of Forms—and the idea of the fleeting shadows of the sensible world—would be rendered meaningless.

Gettier appeals to our modern intuition that we can have knowledge of the temporal and changeable world, as @JuanZu also illustrates. Unfortunately, this assumption is flawed. Every perception—even when enhanced by technological means—is only an approximation of reality, because reality itself is temporal and mutable. What appears whole in one moment can be altered in the next. We cannot see when atoms are missing, nor can we perceive the flow of electrons. Our perception saturates reality in such a way that we experience things as unified objects or quantities, though they are fundamentally individual—take the example of the original kilogram (which wasn't a kilogram anymore because of radiation of itself), which has been replaced by definitions grounded in natural constants (which, at least for now, are considered invariant).

Subjective human perception cannot be eliminated by supposedly objective, yet still technologically mediated, perception. Technology may offer finer resolution than our senses, but it too is bound by the limits of perception. It is a substitutive tool—not a replacement. That’s why epistemic humility is crucial, and, where possible, the use of tools—as @JuanZu implied—is helpful.

But knowledge is only possible of concepts that attempt to capture this mutable and temporal world. And since, as @hypericin rightly noted, true knowledge in a changing world would require an omniscient perspective—which we cannot attain—we ultimately cannot possess absolute knowledge. Many resist this idea, which is why they cling to a kind of dogmatic pseudo-knowledge.

Plato and Aristotle both knew—as I believe you do as well—that JTB alone is insufficient in dynamic contexts (though it may suffice in static ones), contrary to the dominant interpretation today. — DasGegenmittel

I was going to ask you if Gettier problems are really all that much different from the Allegory of the Cave, but I bounced it off ChatGpt first, and it didn't seem like I was making much of a point, but I don't know. They say all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Is there some truth to that here?

That’s an interesting question @RogueAI – one I’ve actually never thought about this way before, since Gettier cases and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave usually aren’t connected in academic philosophy, at least not explicitly. So thank you for that. And yes, there’s definitely something to it: both deal with the question of what real knowledge is, and both expose forms of false or illusory knowledge. In Gettier cases, we have a “justified true belief” that, on closer inspection, turns out to be a mere coincidence. Similarly, the prisoners in the cave take shadows on the wall for reality, simply because they lack access to the bigger picture. Both scenarios reveal that knowledge requires more than justification and truth – it also needs context, perspective, and an awareness of epistemic change. In that sense, the Cave even anticipates aspects of the so-called (atypical) Fake Barn Gettier case: the illusion seems real because it occurs under epistemically unreliable conditions.

Plato covered an astonishing range of topics and shaped them in a way that still resonates – that’s part of why he holds such a foundational status. But that doesn’t mean everything else is just derivative. I think the idea that “all philosophy is a footnote to Plato” can be misleading. There are independent contributions. But maybe that’s not the point. We all stand in relation to what came before us – and that’s a good thing. The key is to stay aware of those connections so we can recognize what we might want to do differently.

:up:

Welcome to the forum!

Just as a side note, this is the intro to Flowers for Algernon, and it's always made me tear up:

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the den.

Every perception—even when enhanced by technological means—is only an approximation of reality — DasGegenmittel

This is precisely the idea that I criticize. If we abandon the idea that we are trying to represent reality faithfully, the matter becomes something very different. Science can no longer be conceived as knowledge but as technique. A human technique that, as I have said, constitutes synthetic identities. That is, as a device of reality that can function or not. Here to function means to be in continuity with reality but no longer in a representative sense of our beliefs but in a sense of fitting or adjustment. So a truth is not something that is discovered but that is produced, truth is the synthetic identity where different courses of action converge and resonate with each other, as a well-adjusted device.

You put a lot of emphasis on change. I'm wondering if you are under emphasizing a more fundamental epistemic problem.

As I see it, the core problem of knowledge is that we don't perceive reality itself, but rather we experience sensations which are something like signals emanating from reality, much like Plato's shadows. Based on these signals, we construct models of the reality that produced them. The problem is, there are always multiple models that fit the signals we receive. Some seem more likely, some less, some seem absurd, yet for any set of observations there is never just one possible model. This is true both of everyday life and of science.

This directly leads to the Gettier problem. The businessman saw the clock , and saw the train arrive at the proper time. Naturally he assumed that the clock was functioning, and had told him the correct time. He probably never considered the alternate model which also equally fit his observations: that the clock was broken, but by chance was stopped at the correct time. With imagination you can construct still less likely, yet consistent, models (i.e. the clock was painted on the wall, or a hallucination sent to him by a benevolent train spirit).

Notably, this problem would obtain even in a static, unchanging universe.

What do you think? How does this jibe with JTC?

Your proposal works well as a practical heuristic. But without a clearer framework, many of the beliefs we treat as “knowledge” wouldn’t actually qualify — not because they’re false, but because their justification dissolves over time. — DasGegenmittel

The required justification applies at the time when a decision is required, not at some time in the future when previous justifications have "dissolved." If things change, additional justification may be needed, again, depending on the consequences of failure.

In my work on Dynamic Knowledge (DK) and Justified True Crisis (JTC), the goal isn’t to complicate things unnecessarily, but rather to methodically account for that uncertainty — without falling into dogmatic pseudo-certainty...

...JTC doesn’t just focus on the immediate utility of a belief for action. It also emphasizes the awareness of epistemic crisis — the recognition that our justification may be context-sensitive, fragile, or even coincidental. — DasGegenmittel

In my experience as an engineer, accounting for uncertainty is the decider's job, it's part of the engineering process and there are specific standards of practice. Strikes me that is true for other fields also. It's the deciders responsibility to evaluate the uncertainty, acceptable risk, and level of justification available and make their decisions on that basis.

Imagine you see a bottle sitting on a table at 12:00. You say, “The bottle is intact.” At 12:02, you hear a crash — it has fallen and shattered.
Did you know the bottle was intact?

Under JTB: ✔ justified (you saw it), ✔ true (at the time), ✔ believed — so: knowledge.

But epistemically, your statement is unstable. What you actually knew was: “The bottle was intact at 12:00.” Without temporal indexing, your statement becomes retroactively misleading — even though it was “true” in a narrow JTB sense. The JTB model implicitly assumes that once a belief qualifies as knowledge, it remains so — even if the real-world referent (like an intact bottle) changes moments later, unless we explicitly update or retract the claim. — DasGegenmittel

I've already stated that JTB is not a good definition of knowledge. My definition - adequately justified belief - addresses the issue you identify, without unnecessary complication.