The justification condition is quite clearly understood as being about the reason(s) the individual believes what he does. Your quote doesn’t say otherwise (in fact it explicitly mentions justified false beliefs). The debate between internalists and externalists is over what constitutes good reasons. Regardless of which side is correct, it is nonetheless about the reasons the individual believes what he does. — Michael

Yes, I agree. One such reason might be "my epistemic peers have thrown every conceivable test at it and they all believe it's the case" a justification.

Also, as we've just agreed, a legitimate definition of 'truth'

Hence, the 'truth' part of JTB is not distinct from the justification part. It's just a particular type of justification.

There is no point arguing fellow forum members. The JTB definition is such that justification doesn't imply truth. — Agent Smith

Correct.

What is the criterion for truth, if not justification? — Agent Smith

The criteria for truth (for claims such as the ones being discussed) is that some state of affairs is as described by the proposition. Consider for example proposition A1 ("The carrier is under A1") before my first strike, from my battleship example here. A1 is true if the computer placed the carrier on A1 in its game representation. That truth is independent of justifications.

How do we know that a given proposition is true? — Agent Smith

Each time I make a play and receive "hit" or "miss" information, I gain some information for which of the 100 propositions are true. I may or may not eventually be able to use this information to form a true belief about where the carrier is in that game. But the carrier being in a certain place on the game board does not depend on my figuring out where that place is.

It can't be justification of course; why mention truth separately? — Agent Smith

Well, yeah, it is justification. Keep in mind though that justification is about knowledge, and knowledge is person-relative (each person has their own perspective and knowledge). Truth (of these sorts of claims) by contrast is ontic; it is person-independent.

Hence, the 'truth' part of JTB is not distinct from the justification part. It's just a particular type of justification. — Isaac

But "truth" does not (generally) describe justification in the first place. It describes a state of affairs. I can describe what must the case (i.e., what configuration a state of affairs must have) in order for a proposition to be true without knowing if it is indeed the case (i.e., if the state of affairs is in fact in that configuration).

ETA:

true 1 c : being that which is the case rather than what is manifest or assumed. — Merriam Webster

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/true

Yes, I agree. One such reason might be "my epistemic peers have thrown every conceivable test at it and they all believe it's the case" a justification. — Isaac

It’s not the only justification (in fact I would say it’s rarely the justification as we rarely throw every conceivable test at our beliefs and certainly not as a coordinated group which shares its findings) and not all true beliefs are justified (in this way or in any other).

It is entirely possible that we have good reasons to believe something but that one’s epistemic peers wouldn’t believe it were they to test it (justified but not true so not knowledge).

It is entirely possible that we don’t have good reasons to believe something but that one’s epistemic peers would believe it were they to test it (true but not justified so not knowledge).

It is entirely possible that we have good reasons to believe something and that one’s epistemic peers would believe it were they to test it (justified and true so knowledge) but that our reason for believing it isn’t that we are aware that one’s epistemic peers have tested it and believe it.

So, no, we cannot simply treat truth and justification as the same.

Hence, the 'truth' part of JTB is not distinct from the justification part. — Isaac

And now you’re contradicting yourself yet again:

At the very least you finally understand that truth is distinct from the actual justifications we have. — Michael

I've never said anything to the contrary. If I have, I'd rather you quote me than attribute positions to me I've never held. — Isaac

You were accepting that truth can be inaccessible and that’s how we can be wrong. Presumably you wouldn’t say that justification is inaccessible?

a trivial social media forum — Isaac

Hey now

a trivial social media forum — Isaac


Hey now — Srap Tasmaner

Oh, I meant 'trivial' in the early 15c use of the term to refer to the trivium - the first three liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric and logic).

Obviously!

But "truth" does not (generally) describe justification in the first place. It describes a state of affairs. — InPitzotl

So are you arguing that deflationary, coherence, and pragmatic positions on truth are wrong, of that they just don't even exist?

It’s not the only justification — Michael

No.

So, no, we cannot simply treat truth and justification as the same. — Michael

I didn't say we could. We also can't treat one justification as if it were the same as another, but it's not J1, J2, J3, J4, J5, TB is it?

And now you’re contradicting yourself yet again:

At the very least you finally understand that truth is distinct from the actual justifications we have. — Michael


I've never said anything to the contrary. If I have, I'd rather you quote me than attribute positions to me I've never held. — Isaac


You were accepting that truth can be inaccessible and that’s how we can be wrong. Presumably you wouldn’t say that justification is inaccessible? — Michael

Still playing gotcha?

Your proposition refers to "the actual justifications we have", mine refers to "justifications" sensu lato.

If you think something I've said is inconsistent, you could just ask, rather than playing this childish game of trying to catch me in a contradiction. As I said, one day you will win that game, I don't proof read my comments that accurately. I don't see what you think you're going to gain by it though.

I don't quite get what you're saying. How do we find out a proposition is true? Anything we say is a method falls under the rubric of justification.

If you think something I've said is inconsistent, you could just ask, rather than playing this childish game of trying to catch me in a contradiction. As I said, one day you will win that game, I don't proof read my comments that accurately. I don't see what you think you're going to gain by it though. — Isaac

If you can’t maintain a consistent argument - if you continually say contradictory things - then your argument has failed.

Your proposition refers to "the actual justifications we have", mine refers to "justifications" sensu lato. — Isaac

The “actual justifications we have” is what the JTB definition of knowledge is referring to.

I believe that it rained last night because the cars and road are wet. I have a good reason to believe what I do. My belief is justified.

This isn’t the same thing as the fact that a community of epistemic peers with access to a time machine would believe that it rained last night were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis.

Therefore my belief being true isn’t the same thing as my belief being justified.

This is why the JTB definition has separate conditions for truth and justification. If in another scenario I believe what I do because it’s my interpretation of a Tarot card reading then my belief would be true but unjustified, and so not knowledge. If in another scenario the community of epistemic peers would believe that it didn’t rain but that a fire truck passed by with its hose on then my belief would be justified but false, and so not knowledge.

Knowledge requires both that my belief is true and that I have a good reason for having it, and as neither entails the other there is in fact a distinction.

If you can’t maintain a consistent argument - if you continually say contradictory things - then your argument has failed. — Michael

Indeed it has.

There's three options here;

1. I'm constantly saying contradictory things for some reason - stupidity, stubborness, mental instability...

2. I'm saying perfectly consistent things, but I've either made a trivial mistake, or you've misunderstood what I'm saying.

3. I'm saying perfectly consistent things and you're deliberately seeking out any contestable inconsistencies to avoid having to actually address the argument.

It takes a fairly substantial ego to rule out (2) as even being a possibility, yet, being the most charitable of (1) and (2), one would need a good reason to rule it out, unless one were choosing option (3).

This isn’t the same thing as the fact that a community of epistemic peers with access to a time machine would believe that it rained last night were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis.

Therefore my belief being true isn’t the same thing as my belief being justified.

This is why the JTB definition has separate conditions for truth and justification. If in another scenario I believe what I do because it’s my interpretation of a Tarot card reading then my belief would be true but unjustified, and so not knowledge. If in another scenario the community of epistemic peers would believe that it didn’t rain but that a fire truck passed by with its hose on then my belief would be justified but false, and so not knowledge. — Michael

Just repeating the claim doesn't progress the argument at all. I've argued that 'truth' is a type of justification (specifically that one's epistemic peers would believe it if it survived all the tests they could throw at it).

I know it's raining because...

The cars outside are wet.

I can hear it on the roof.

The cows are lying down.

My tarot cards say it's raining.

My community of epistemic peers have thrown every test they can at the hypothesis 'it's raining' and it's withstood every test.

I act as if it's raining and I'm not surprised.

I make predictions based on a model of it raining and my predictions work out.

My epistemic peers have exhausted all the predictions they can make and every single one has worked out as expected.

All justifications for my belief that it's raining. None are of some special genera.

So, in checking if some belief is 'knowledge', we're just looking for some specific justification, not something else in addition to justifications. "My tarot cards say it's raining" is not good enough for 'knowledge', but "My epistemic peers have exhausted all the predictions they can make and every single one has worked out as expected", may well be.

So, in checking if some belief is 'knowledge', we're just looking for some specific justification, not something else in addition to justifications. "My tarot cards say it's raining" is not good enough for 'knowledge', but "My epistemic peers haven’t exhausted all the predictions they can make and every single one has worked out as expected", may well be. — Isaac

That the truth can be used as a justification isn’t that a belief being true is the same thing as a belief being justified.

If you want to argue that a belief being true is the same thing as a belief being justified then you have to argue that the below are both false:

1. Justified false beliefs are possible
2. Unjustified true beliefs are possible

You must argue that all true beliefs are necessarily justified and vice versa.

If you don’t accept that all true beliefs are necessarily justified and vice versa - if you accept that justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs are possible - then you must accept that a belief being true isn’t the same thing as a belief being justified and so that it isn’t redundant to talk about beliefs that are both true and justified, as the JTB definition of knowledge does.

And aside from the sense of such a distinction, if you want to argue that the distinction is irrelevant with respect to knowledge then you must argue that both justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs count as knowledge.

In my previous post I gave clear examples of a justified true belief, an unjustified true belief, and a justified false belief, and explained that the first can count as knowledge but that the second and third can’t. Do you disagree with that analysis? If not then you must accept that relevance of the distinction between truth and justification in the JTB definition of knowledge.

if you want to argue that the distinction is irrelevant with respect to knowledge then you must argue that both justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs count as knowledge. — Michael

Not at all. The JTB definition assumes there's a definable status 'justified', that something might binomially either have or not. Likewise 'true'.

But this is just an assumption (and a flawed one). We do not, in general, consider beliefs to be either justified or not. We consider beliefs to be more or less justified. Better or worse. We can (and frequently do) grade justifications from better to worse. You did so yourself in your previous post.

So there's absolutely no sense in saying that in leaving off 'true' we're somehow magically obligated to pretend we no longer grade justifications and instead treat them as binomials, either in or out.

Beliefs which are well-justified can be treated as knowledge, those that are poorly justified not.

Your examples (of justification but not knowledge), are just examples of poor, or insufficient justification. Had they had much better justification (such as the survival of multiple tests by epistemic peers), they could unproblematically be treated as knowledge.

In my previous post I gave clear examples of a justified true belief, an unjustified true belief, and a justified false belief, and explained that the first can count as knowledge but that the second and third can’t. Do you disagree with that analysis? — Michael

To be clear.

What you're calling a justified false belief is just a belief whose justification isn't good enough.

What you're calling an unjustified true belief is a belief whose (high quality) justification is not known to the person holding it.

Returning to Gettier...

The person who believes it's 12 o'clock (when it is, in fact 12 o'clock), but believes so on the basis of a broken clock does not have knowledge. His justification (the clock says it's 12) is insufficient - clocks break. A sufficient justification would be that all his epistemic peers have tested their clocks, and checked with the sun, and radioactive decay, and yes, it is indeed 12 o'clock. Then he would have knowledge. Then his justification would be sufficient. JTB can't handle the situation precisely because JTB makes this completely unwarranted assumption that a belief must be either justified or not and does not properly allow for the grading of justifications we use every day.

Beliefs which are well-justified can be treated as knowledge. — Isaac

They’re only knowledge if they’re also true (if a community of epistemic peers would also believe it were they to throw every conceivable test at it). It is entirely possible that my belief is well justified but also false. This is why it must be specified that a belief is both true and (well) justified.

What you're calling a justified false belief is just a belief whose justification isn't good enough. — Isaac

No, it’s a belief that isn’t true but that I have a good reason to hold.

What you're calling an unjustified true belief is a belief whose (high quality) justification is not known to the person holding it. — Isaac

As I have repeatedly said and that you’re either wilfully ignoring or incapable of understanding, the justification condition is referring to the reasons the person believes what he does.

I’ll try to make this even simpler for you:

S knows that p if S believes that p, S has one or more good reasons for believing that p, and a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis that p.

It is entirely possible that my belief is well justified but also false. — Michael

No. If a belief is false then it clearly was not well-justified. The justification must, logically, have been insufficient, since whatever test our epistemic peers used to determine it's falsity was clearly necessary but lacking, hence an insufficient justification.

No, it’s a belief that isn’t true but that I have a good reason to hold. — Michael

You're just repeating the same error without addressing what I've said about it. Do we routinely define reasons as only either 'good' or 'not good', or do we, rather, grade reasons being able to see that some are better than others whilst others are even better still? If yes, then why insist on this odd language where everything scalar is treated binomially?

the justification condition is referring to the reasons the person believes what he does. — Michael

Yes. I'm saying there exist a high quality justification (hence we can say it's true), of which the believer is unaware (hence unjustified). In this instance, you could indeed say the belief was unjustified but true, but this doesn't get around the fact that if the believer became aware of the high quality justification they would have a belief which counted as knowledge on the basis of justification alone (just now justification of a sufficient quality), so JTB fails.

S knows that p if S believes that p, S (1) has one or more good reasons for believing that p, and (2) a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis that p. — Michael

Yes. That's the position I started from.

(2), if S were to be aware of it, would be a justification. Hence it's possible for S to merely hold (1), and still have knowledge where his (1) is "that a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis that p."

If a belief is false then it clearly was not well-justified. — Isaac

Have you read Gettier’s little paper?

No. If a belief is false then it clearly was not well-justified. The justification must, logically, have been insufficient, since whatever test our epistemic peers used to determine it's falsity was clearly necessary but lacking, hence an insufficient justification. — Isaac

Justification doesn’t require certainty. Justifications can be fallible. I’m pretty sure you’ve accepted this before, although I can’t be bothered to check for more inconsistencies with your past posts.

If you tell me that your name is Isaac and show me a driving license that shows your name to be Isaac then my belief that your name is Isaac is well justified, even if in fact your name is John and you lied to me with a forged ID.

I don’t need to work with a community of epistemic peers with a time machine to go back and watch your parents first name you and sign your birth certificate to be well justified in believing something about your name.

You're just repeating the same error without addressing what I've said about it. Do we routinely define reasons as only either 'good' or 'not good', or do we, rather, grade reasons being able to see that some are better than others whilst others are even better still? If yes, then why insist on this odd language where everything scalar is treated binomially? — Isaac

You did this before when specifying that a belief be well justified. What’s the difference between saying that a belief be well justified and saying that one has good reasons for a belief? Splitting hairs on this wording is missing the point. The point is that it’s about the reasons one holds a belief, and not about whether or not the belief is true. It’s two separate conditions.

Yes. I'm saying there exist a high quality justification (hence we can say it's true), of which the believer is unaware (hence unjustified). In this instance, you could indeed say the belief was unjustified but true, but this doesn't get around the fact that if the believer became aware of the high quality justification they would have a belief which counted as knowledge on the basis of justification alone (just now justification of a sufficient quality), so JTB fails. — Isaac

JTB doesn’t fail on this account. It is still the case that if my actual reason for believing that is raining is sufficient then I don’t have knowledge if it isn’t raining and that if my actual reason for believing that is raining is insufficient then I don’t have knowledge even if it is raining.

Knowledge isn’t just hypothetical. We have it in real situations where we don’t have access to the beliefs of some community of epistemic peers who have comprehensively tested a belief.

(2), if S were to be aware of it, would be a justification. Hence it's possible for S to merely hold (1), and still have knowledge where his (1) is "that a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis that p." — Isaac

I explained the mistake you are making here. That we can sometimes use the truth to justify a belief isn’t that a belief being true is the same as a belief being justified. If when getting married you have a single thing that is old, borrowed, and blue then being old, being borrowed, and being blue are still three different conditions.

So are you arguing that deflationary, coherence, and pragmatic positions on truth are wrong, of that they just don't even exist? — Isaac

All I'm arguing is that your notion that T is just more J fails to describe what T is in regards to JTB. How you apply that to your understanding of deflationary, coherence, and pragmatic positions of truth is a separate matter.

I don't quite get what you're saying. — Agent Smith

(A) What is the criterion for truth, if not justification? — Agent Smith

(B) How do we find out a proposition is true? — Agent Smith

(A) and (B) are different questions. (A) is asking what the criteria for truth is. (B) is asking how we find out a proposition is true.

The answer to (A) is that proposition A1 is true if A1 describes the state of affairs. That is the case if and only if the computer program placed the carrier over the A1 square.

The answer to (B) is different because it is a different question. (B) is asking how a person is to know that the computer program placed the carrier over the A1 square. That is through justification. If I (a person) fire at A1, at A2, at A3, and at A4; and if the result is that I (a person) get confirmation that each of those is a hit; and the result is also that I (a person) do not get confirmation that any of those sinks a ship, then I (a person) have obtained sufficient information for me (a person) to conclude that the computer placed the carrier over square A1 (aka, I have obtained justification for believing proposition A1). The reason this information is sufficient for me (a person) to reach the conclusion that proposition A1 is true is precisely because only the state of affairs being as described by proposition A1 can explain these observations (given my priors).

Have you read Gettier’s little paper? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, some time ago. Have I misrepresented it somewhere? It didn't leave a particularly strong impression on me. I've here been mostly talking about how alternatives to correspondence theories on truth interact with JTB and whether it captures ordinary language use. I suppose I've been a bit contumacious in veering so far from Gettier...sorry.

Eh. Almost the whole discussion has been pretty far from Gettier, but still valuable.

"If a belief is false, then there's no way it can be justified," is a pretty common reaction to JTB theories, and it just happens that a lot of people don't even encounter JTB outside Gettier.

You've been arguing that we call beliefs 'true' when we have especially strong justification for believing them, perhaps even the strongest we can imagine.

Naturally then you'll equate 'false' with not or very poorly or weakly justified. It's consistent, but way off the reservation for talking about Gettier, which assumes you can have, in your circumstances, what anyone would consider very good reasons for your belief, which happens to be false. You have to keep track of everyone's perspective here, and you just take the extra step of saying that this last step is also perspective-bound.

You argue this position consistently, or at least as consistently as you can, because it sure looks like our ordinary ways of thinking and talking about the world have a built-in commitment to realism. (I know you describe your position as a kind of realism, but it's not a kind anyone wants.) That makes it hard even to state your position. Whether it makes it incoherent -- that's a tough one. I tend to think so, but I'm not sure it's a battle worth fighting. -- That is, the best way forward might be to pass right by this debate and try a different approach.

What’s the difference between saying that a belief be well justified and saying that one has good reasons for a belief? Splitting hairs on this wording is missing the point. — Michael

It's the exact point. You're' treating something as binomial which is, in fact scalar. There's not 'well-justified' and 'not well-justified' there's better justified and worse justified. So all your examples of the sort "I can have a justified belief..." or "I can have a well-justified belief..." are just nonsensical. No-one treats belief as if they only fell into one of two categories with regards to justification.

Knowledge isn’t just hypothetical. We have it in real situations where we don’t have access to the beliefs of some community of epistemic peers who have comprehensively tested a belief. — Michael

Knowledge is JTB right (for you)? You agreed that T could be that a community of epistemic peers have exhaustively tested the hypothesis and found it sound, right? Now you're saying we can have knowledge outside of needing that latter condition. So how?

That we can sometimes use the truth to justify a belief isn’t that a belief being true is the same as a belief being justified. — Michael

But it is. Unlike the Old/Blue/Borrowed example, truth is nothing else but the justification that my epistemic peers have exhaustively tested the hypothesis and found it to yield the expected results. Blue things are sometime not borrowed things, borrowed things are sometimes not old things. Truth is not sometimes not as I've described it (under pragmatic or deflationary understandings).

Should have also said that traditional realism clearly has issues, so I'm not really up for denouncing either in the name of the other.

Knowledge is JTB right (for you)? You agreed that T could be that a community of epistemic peers have exhaustively tested the hypothesis and found it sound, right? Now you're saying we can have knowledge outside of needing that latter condition. So how? — Isaac

I’m saying that a belief being true isn’t sufficient for it to count as knowledge. A lucky guess isn’t knowledge. A true belief brought about by a Tarot card reading isn’t knowledge. Knowledge requires that one’s actual reason for holding the belief is sufficiently good (whether you want to understand “sufficiently good” as a scale or not).

That when forming our belief we theoretically might consider the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers that has comprehensively tested the hypothesis doesn’t change this fact, especially given that we almost never have access to the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers that has comprehensively tested the hypothesis: nobody has a time machine and so I can only accept your word, and if available something like a driving license that I assume isn’t a forgery, that your name is Isaac. That’s the actual reason I believe what I do and is important when considering if I know your name.

If your name isn’t Isaac then obviously I don’t know that your name is Isaac, even if my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I have. If your name is Isaac then we can argue over whether or not my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I have and if not then I don’t know your name and if so then I do.

I only know that your name is Isaac if I believe that your name is Isaac, if my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I consider when forming my belief, and if your name actually is Isaac.

Naturally then you'll equate 'false' with not or very poorly or weakly justified. — Srap Tasmaner

Not quite. It takes something else to be false - a contradiction, a surprising result which can't be accommodated. I don't actually think false is always the opposite of true (but that's not going to be popular either).

It's consistent, but way off the reservation for talking about Gettier, which assumes you can have, in your circumstances, what anyone would consider very good reasons for your belief, which happens to be false. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think I need deny that assumption. Part of what I've been arguing with @Michael is that the notion of 'well-justified' is an artificial one entirely confined to these kinds of discussions in JTB. No-one thinks like that, of two bins marked 'well-justified' and 'not well-justified'. It's of very little significance that a belief is well-justified (but false) because any belief is well-justified to some extent but not as well-justified as it could be. It's always somewhere on the scale measuring the quality of justification. Right at the top of that scale is "my epistemic peers have exhaustively tested it and it still yields unsurprising results". Very few beliefs can claim that justification, but a large number can assume it (the earth is round, gravity pulls downward, this table is solid,...etc)

I know you describe your position as a kind of realism, but it's not a kind anyone wants. — Srap Tasmaner

Hey now! There was a colleague I spoke to about it some time ago who didn't entirely reject it...although he was drunk...no... you're right, no-one wants it.

That makes it hard even to state your position. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that's been a consistent problem. I use the words 'true', 'fact', 'actually', 'in fact' to mean what I mean by them (not as Humpty-Dumpty I should stress, I'm not literally the only person who thinks this way), but my interlocutors will keep thinking "Ha! you said "x actually is..." showing that you agree with correspondence theory because you acknowledge that some things 'actually are' the case". An argument which only works assuming I was using 'actually is' under a correspondence understanding of what that would mean. Perhaps a more careful language would help - but as I said, this is just a 'trivial' internet discussion forum, people can always ask.

I’m saying that a belief being true isn’t sufficient for it to count as knowledge. A lucky guess isn’t knowledge. A true belief brought about by a Tarot card reading isn’t knowledge. Knowledge requires that one’s actual reason for holding the belief is sufficiently good (whether you want to understand “sufficiently good” as a scale or not). — Michael

Yes, I agree with that, even with my 'epistemic peer' definition of truth. If a person isn't aware of that justification (despite the fact that it exists) but rather uses another, flawed, one, then they can't be said to have knowledge. This doesn't change the fact that both are forms of justification.

especially given that we almost never have access to the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers that has comprehensively tested the hypothesis — Michael

No you're using the same 'access' argument you dismissed earlier. We don't have access to your version of truth either. You didn't see that as barrier to using it then. Why now has it become a problem?

the fact remains that I only know that your name is Isaac if I believe that your name is Isaac, if my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I consider when forming my belief, and if your name actually is Isaac. — Michael

I don't dispute that. I'm disputing that 'actually is...' is any different kind of thing to 'I believe'. There's no sense to 'actually is...' that's not about beliefs (in this case the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers after exhaustive testing). It's not a different kind of thing, just a stronger version of it.

I don't dispute that. I'm disputing that 'actually is...' is any different kind of thing to 'I believe'. — Isaac

You're changing your position again. You were saying that the truth is what a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test some hypothesis (and which can be inaccessible, hence why we can be wrong). That's not the same thing as what I believe (given whatever limited evidence I have available to me).

Yes, I agree with that, even with my 'epistemic peer' definition of truth. If a person isn't aware of that justification (despite the fact that it exists) but rather uses another, flawed, one, then they can't be said to have knowledge. This doesn't change the fact that both are forms of justification. — Isaac

How many times do I have to explain this to you? When the JTB definition says that a belief must be justified it is saying that the individual's belief must be sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence they considered when forming their belief.

You seem to have so much trouble with the words "true" and "justified" in the context of the JTB definition. I don't know why this is. So let's just do away with them and explain in excruciating detail what the JTB definition is saying:

S knows that p iff:

1. S believes that p,
2. S's belief that p is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence that S considered when forming his belief that p, and
3. A community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis that p

2 and 3 do not mean the same thing. It is possible that 2 obtains but that 3 doesn't, and so that S doesn't have knowledge. It is possible that 3 obtains but that 2 doesn't, and so that S doesn't have knowledge. Both 2 and 3, which are different things, must obtain for S to have knowledge.

If you want to rename JTB to J₁J₂B then go ahead, but it's such a trivial concern that doesn't address anything of substance that I don't know why you'd spend page after page trying to do so. The rest of us understanding perfectly what is meant by JTB.

@Isaac

Oh wait, I just remembered, Gödels' incompleteness theorem. Didn't he combine language and math to prove that math was finite or something like that?

You're changing your position again. You were saying that the truth is what a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test some hypothesis (and which can be inaccessible, hence why we can be wrong). That's not the same thing as what I believe (given whatever limited evidence I have available to me). — Michael

Different thing ≠ Different kind of thing. My Whiskey cup and my Teacup are different things, but the same kind of thing.

When the JTB definition says that a belief must be justified it is saying that the individual's belief must be sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence they considered when forming their belief. — Michael

Yes. The trouble is that the word 'sufficiently' there has no measure other than proximity to 'truth' which it's already used. To say X's justification is 'sufficient' but X's belief is false is a contradiction. His justification was clearly not sufficient because the resulting belief was false and the sole purpose of justifications is to get closer to truth. If a justification so utterly fails to do that as lead to a belief which is actually false, then it, by definition, was not a sufficient justification.

S knows that p iff:

1. S believes that p,
2. S's belief that p is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence that S considered when forming his belief that p, and
3. A community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis that p — Michael

Yes (barring my concerns above about the use of 'sufficiently reasonable' in cases where p turns out to be false). Pretty much how I opened when I talked about the role of the beliefs of the community in establishing the truth of "John is a bachelor". But you insisted that...

Nothing about the JTB definition of knowledge has anything to do with what I or the language community believes. — Michael

...hence I'm struggling to understand how this new definition fits in with your approach. In this new definition it has everything to do with what I believe and what the beliefs of the language community - those are literally the only measures you're using.

I just remembered, Gödels' incompleteness theorem. Didn't he combine language and math to prove that math was finite or something like that? — john27

Outside my wheelhouse I'm afraid. I believe there was some overlap, but it'd be the blind leading the blind if we tried to see how it might impact belief independent truths. Might make an interesting thread though.