You seem to think that fallibility helps you defend JTB from the objection that it fails as a definition of knowledge. I've tried to explain why fallibility cannot help you defend JTB from the objections we're making against it. The one point of disagreement which we have to settle is that you think that the man doesn't have epistemic justification in the Russell example, but I think (as does Bartricks) that he does have justification. Although I believe Bartricks thinks he does because he thinks the broken clock lends epistemic justification. Nevertheless, the man in the Russell example satisfied the JTB definition. If you disagree with that point, then we too are going to talk past each other. — fiveredapples
It doesn't matter if the believer doesn't realize the clock is not working. It's not working. They believe that it is working. That is false belief. False belief does not make good ground for knowledge. Luck? Sure. So, that case is not a case of well grounded true belief even if it is a case of being lucky. — creativesoul
Again, I'm not sure how your claim pertains to the Gettier examples, — fiveredapples
In the Russell example Bartricks gives, the man has justification under the JTB conception of knowledge. If he didn't, it would pose no problem for the JTB conception of knowledge. The problem is that our intuitions about knowledge tell us that something is awry. We don't think he has knowledge, pace JTB, and we pinpoint the problem to the source of his belief: namely, the broken clock. There is no human fallibility at play here. To think fallibility is at work here -- to respond that the man made a mistake in thinking the broken clock was a working clock -- is to not realize that the justification criterion, per JTB, has actually been satisfied in the example. — fiveredapples
Why, or how, does the man know that it’s 3 o’clock? Only because he looked at the clock which, to his mind, was working properly. The obtainment of truth that it is 3 o’clock is thus here directly determined solely by the reality of there being a working clock. — javra
Gettier's cases have different issues, which I've explained at length beginning on page six, and again on the last couple pages. I've only touched on Case I, but II suffers the exact same flaw... conflation of proposition(conjunction that time) and belief. — creativesoul
May I ask which scenario you are referring to: the Russell example or the counter-example? — fiveredapples
declarative knowledge is: true belief that, on account of being true, can be factually justified without end were one to so want and be capable of doing. — javra
No, that's not enough. If that were enough, then he could simply guess the correct time and he'd have knowledge, according to your definition. This is an even weaker conception of knowledge than JTB.Via the Russel example, I was addressing the understanding that the man can only know its 3 o'clock if his beliefs conform to reality. — javra
To those who are aware that the clock is not working, the man does not hold knowledge of what time it is - this because the primary belief upon which his second belief is founded is untrue, thereby making the second belief factually unjustified, despite if happening to be correct by mere luck. — javra
No, that's not enough. If that were enough, then he could simply guess the correct time and he'd have knowledge, according to your definition. This is an even weaker conception of knowledge than JTB.
At least JTB attempts to tie the belief to reality by way of a reliable source of truth. — fiveredapples
I will not repeat what I said in my previous posts, but this clearly did not take what I said in context. — javra
Am I wrong that you're a Coherentist? — fiveredapples
Coherency of beliefs applies, in part, to justifications - not to truth. Do you find that justifications for beliefs can be incoherent and yet valid? — javra
Do you mean...Can I reasonably hold two beliefs which don't cohere? — fiveredapples
As you have defined it, you'd have to know that you know it is raining in order to say that you really know that it is raining. — Harry Hindu
How do you know that you know if knowing and thinking are indistinguishable? — Harry Hindu
What a curious response. I showed why there was no need to invoke the notion of luck in your treatment of the two knowledge claim scenarios. Your only coherent response is to argue why my objection is somehow mistaken or insufficient. Instead, you want to move on to some other point without admitting your error. — fiveredapples
Before we spend more sweat and tears on responses to each other, I want to highlight a very important disagreement we have, which might be the source of most of our disagreements. You believe that a broken clock can lend epistemic justification to beliefs about the time. I believe that a broken clock cannot lend such justification. Unless we address this disagreement, we're going to be talking past each other quite a bit. We might simply have different intuitions about knowledge. — fiveredapples
So, the question to others is, can a broken clock lend epistemic justification to beliefs about the time? Or, in simpler English, if you come to believe that it's 3 PM based on your looking at a broken clock, do you have the right kind of justification for your true belief -- by sheer coincidence, the time actually is 3 PM ---- to count as knowledge? — fiveredapples
Although I believe Bartricks thinks he does because he thinks the broken clock lends epistemic justification. — fiveredapples
My take away from this is that declarative knowledge is: true belief that, on account of being true, can be factually justified without end were one to so want and be capable of doing. In practice, we never spend an entire lifetime factually justifying one single belief-that, so our justifications are never perfect but always approximate. Regardless, we assume that anything we consider a known could be so justified ad infinitum without and problems manifesting in the process. The shortened version of all this is then, imo, JTB. — javra
But it still seems true (and would seem true to them too, were they aware of the nature of their situation) that they do not, in fact, possess knowledge. — Bartricks
declarative knowledge is: true belief that, on account of being true, can be factually justified without end were one to so want and be capable of doing. — javra
To me the conceptual problems only emerge when we presume (or else intend to gain) an omniscient perspective of reality and, thereby, possession of an infallible knowledge. We never hold such. — javra
Would it be too much to have it all in one post? Reading someone's theory piecemeal is way too taxing for a sluggard like me. — fiveredapples
So, my position - as described in the OP - is that knowledge consists of a feeling Reason is adopting towards true beliefs. — Bartricks
No, we're not talking past each other. I refuted your view. How? I outlined a case in which a person forms a belief about the time based on a broken clock's report - and it was clear that the person's belief qualified as knowledge. Your analysis would insist it would not qualify as knowledge. It does - clearly it does - therefore your analysis is false. — Bartricks
Smith believed Jones would get the job, and no one else. Gettier needs Smith to believe otherwise, but he quite simply does not. — creativesoul
Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his
Gettier wrote:
(d) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his
pocket.
(e) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.
This doesnt follow. If her belief is true then it qualifies as knowledge. Her belief can be justified, but not true. So she can't have knowledge unless she knows her belief is true. How will she know if her belief is true when she only has justifications from which truths don't necessarily follow?In order to justifiably believe that it is raining, Alice needs to look out the window. If her belief that it is raining is true then she knows that it is raining. — Andrew M
Suppose I affirm knowledge that it will rain today. You ask me why. I then reply by justifying this belief to true with the following: there’s a satellite up in the sky and my cat is next to a plant out in the backyard – with this being the full scope of my justification. The two givens, even if true, do not cohere in any intelligible manner to my belief. — javra
Is validity used to talk about justification? Having studied a little logic, it has always bothered me when people use the colloquial use of 'valid' in philosophical discussions. Sorry, just a pet peeve. But do enlighten me, not that it matters to our discussion (as I understand you) if I'm wrong about validity as a term for justification.Here, I’d consider that my justification was invalid.
Like I said, they already cohered, in my opinion, but now I might be swayed into thinking you have enough for epistemic justification for knowledge. I don't, of course, as 80% reliability, even coupled with your prescient cat, is not enough, in my opinion. And, again, it's a claim about the future, so I wouldn't care if satellite reports were 100% reliable to date. To me, you wouldn't have knowledge even then.Now suppose that I explain things in a coherent manner as such: the satellite up in the sky has given a weather forecast of 80% chance of rain and my cat has always had a weird habit of sitting next to a plant in my backyard a few hours before it rains, next to which he is now sitting. The same basic truths are presented, but now the explanation provided makes them cohere with my belief that it will rain today.
Yes, I'd say that you have perfectly good reason to believe that it's going to rain later today.Here, I’d consider that my justifications were valid – even if less than perfect.
I don't subscribe to this formula of saying someone had knowledge after all because their belief about the future turned out to be correct or true. So, to me, in neither case you had knowledge, and in neither case you had JTB either.In case it does rain – thereby evidencing my belief-that to be true – I can then maintain my claim of having had JTB in the latter case, but I can't claim JTB in the former case.
What nonsense. You're just insisting that your scenario shows what you say it does. Everyone is perfectly in his own right to say whether it strikes him as a case of knowledge or not. — fiveredapples
...you're the dogmatist. You've now got an unfalsifiable thesis. — Bartricks
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