TL;DR:
In my essay The Gettier Grid, I propose a four-dimensional classification system for Gettier cases. It accounts for instability in justification, truth, temporal dynamics, and context. Using a simple example (“Student and Charlatan Teacher”), I illustrate how different perspectives can lead to radically different epistemic evaluations — from apparent knowledge to complete epistemic failure.

In my new essay „The Gettier Grid: A Reflexive Heuristic for Epistemic Volatility“, I propose a structural framework for classifying and analyzing Gettier cases that moves toward a more systematic understanding of epistemic failure. The central idea is that knowledge doesn’t merely break down because of faulty justification or accidental truth, but because of what I call epistemic volatility — the inherent instability of epistemic states across time, changing contexts, and varying interpretive standpoints.

To make this volatility analytically tractable, I introduce a four-dimensional coding system that classifies cases based on (1) the stability of justification, (2) the stability of truth, (3) temporal dynamics (whether a case evolves or gets reinterpreted over time), and (4) context (whether it is subjective and closed or opened up by external, objectifying factors). Each of these dimensions is coded in binary (1 = stable, 0 = unstable), yielding 16 possible structural profiles. The point of the model is not to impose rigid classifications, but to offer a reflexive and diagnostic tool that captures the layered, often perspectival nature of epistemic assessment.

Consider the following illustrative case: A student believes that “2 + 2 = 4” simply because their teacher told them so. While the proposition is necessarily true, the justification rests entirely on trust in authority. Unbeknownst to the student, the teacher is generally incompetent and usually wrong about mathematics — in this case, they just happen to be correct. From the student’s internal perspective, the belief seems justified and true; there is no epistemic tension (coded as 1100). However, from the perspective of an external analyst, who knows the teacher’s reputation, the belief’s justification collapses while the truth remains stable — yielding a classic Gettier case (coded as 0101). Taking a normatively rigorous view — for instance, applying reliabilist or safety-based criteria — the belief may fail entirely as knowledge, since it is both unjustified and lacks epistemic control (0001).

What this example shows is that knowledge is not a static or purely logical state, but one that is embedded in dynamic, perspectival, and contextual frameworks.
Ultimately, the analysis suggests that knowledge is not a static possession but a dynamic, perspective-sensitive process — always vulnerable to revision, and never entirely immune to epistemic luck: See Justified True Crisis and my Post „Gettier‘s Gap“.

The Gettier Grid helps make these frameworks explicit. It allows us to identify precisely where knowledge breaks down, how different perspectives yield divergent evaluations, and why some cases appear epistemically solid from within, but collapse when external factors come into play. More than a classificatory system, the model is a heuristic for epistemic reflexivity — for understanding that our judgments about knowledge are themselves situated, and that epistemic stability is not absolute in dynamic scenarios.

The full essay is available here:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/390729212_The_Gettier_Grid_A_Reflexive_Heuristic_for_Epistemic_Volatility