the causal connection may not always be sufficient for knowledge. Consider the fake barn scenario. — Andrew M

I agree this has to be done carefully, and I tried to cover some of the obvious issues. It looks like some of the "not the right way" issues just get kicked down to "not caused the right way", so causal connections are not just a 'win card' we can play.

If I get a handle on Goldman's approach, I'll report back, particularly on how he deals with barns. I will note, in passing, that it's my impression there is even less unanimity on the barn cases — that is, in a lot of Gettier cases there is little conflict among philosophers' intuitions, but with the barn cases I believe there is.

Which is interesting because it means the conflict there is a new data point to explain.

This is more or less a typical Gettier case because the conclusion is an existential claim that is true in virtue of the existence of some particular: it is true that there is a cow in the field because this particular cow, let's call her Alice, is in the field. — Srap Tasmaner

Still granting too much to begin with.

Attributing "there is a cow in the field" to a farmer that believes that a piece of cloth is a cow is an accounting malpractice. At that particular moment in time, in that particular set of circumstances, that particular farmer believes that a piece of cloth is a cow.

The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. Belief that there is a cow in the field can be true. The farmer's belief cannot be true. Belief that there is a cow in the field cannot be the farmer's belief.




Regarding rendering the farmer's belief as belief that p...

It does not follow from the fact that the farmer's belief can be rendered in terms of propositional attitude that the farmer's belief is equivalent to a propositional attitude. In this particular case, rendering the farmer's belief in terms of an attitude towards the proposition "there is a cow in the field" such that they take that to be true is to completely change what it takes in order for the farmer's belief to be true. That's a big problem.

The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer's belief cannot be true. "There is a cow in the field" can be true. "There is a cow in the field" cannot be the farmer's belief.

My way of putting this raises some issues though: in what sense is the farmer's belief about Alice? This doesn't look good at all. Since Alice played no role in the farmer's belief formation, it's pretty clear Alice is no part of the content of the farmer's belief. Alice does play a part in the existential claim; Alice is what makes that claim true. — Srap Tasmaner

So...

Alice plays no role in the farmer's belief, but does play a role in the existential claim. Seems to me that the only conclusion to draw is that the existential claim is not the farmer's belief.

...he might have seen Alice and mistaken Alice for a bit of cloth flapping in the breeze — so not seen that Alice is a cow — and formed the mistaken belief that there's a bit of cloth in the field, which might also be Gettierly true. — Srap Tasmaner

Belief that Alice is a bit of cloth flapping in the breeze is false. The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer's belief cannot be true. Belief that there's a bit of cloth in the field can be true. Belief that there's a bit of cloth in the field cannot be the farmer's belief.

...I don't think there is a remaining problem with the existential generalization after all because we can just enumerate it: if Alice, Bobbie, Clarabelle, and Dixie are the cows in the field, then the truth of such an existential claim as we're concerned with is a truth about at least one of those: one of those four ought to play a causal role in the farmer's belief, expressed as an existential generality...

...Suppose the farmer thinks the cow he's seeing is Clarabelle, when it's Alice, even though Clarabelle is out there in the dark. — Srap Tasmaner

Belief that Alice is Clarabelle is false. The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. Belief that Alice, Bobbie, Clarabelle, and Dixie are the cows in the field can be true. The farmer's belief cannot be. Belief that Alice, Bobbie, Clarabelle, and Dixie are cows in the field cannot be the farmer's belief.

@creativesoul, I think some of your concerns are addressed above. — Srap Tasmaner

Doesn't seem like it. I'm not at all fond of the 'causal' language. Seems totally unnecessary and more of a distraction from the problem than a solution.

The only part I have not addressed is the mention of disjunctive belief/knowledge. Do you have an example that does not succumb to the critique of Gettier's Case II? Belief that either this or that is true is always based upon belief that this or that is true. To neglect to take this into account is to provide an accounting malpractice of S's belief. Putting S's belief in terms of belief that P or Q is an accounting malpractice.

If it is P that is believed, and S asserts P or Q, then S's belief that P or Q is true is better rendered as belief that P or Q is true because P. If Q, then S's belief is better rendered as belief that P or Q is true because Q.

If P or Q is true because P, and the farmer believes it's true because Q, then the farmer's belief is false, and vice versa. Rendering the farmer's belief in terms of P or Q is to treat the proposition(disjunction) as a naked one, which changes the truth conditions of S's belief.

Belief that [P or Q is true because P] is false if P or Q is true because Q. False belief cannot be true. Belief that P or Q can be true because Q is. The farmer's belief is false. Belief that P or Q cannot be the farmer's belief.

Accounting malpractices. All of them.

My point is that if one wants to deduce conclusions from premises based on formal logic, then the meaning of the terms is irrelevant — neomac

The meaning of terms used to construct premises and deduce conclusions is irrelavent? I don't think I agree.

When dealing with maths equations the meaning can be considered irrelevant as it's completely standardised, is discrete and finite. 1 =1. We don't have to bog ourselves down with "what do we really mean by 1". Everyone knows what one of something is.

But when applying logic to the broader language-scape _
- to concepts that are not as discrete as numbers like "human", "animal" "wing" etc, It's much more subjective and open to interpretation as the same word can have many nuances of meaning and many relationships and associations, depending on who is reading it.

Therefore meaning is always relevant in linguistic logical discourse dealing with anything more than the numerical (mathematics - which we typically make distinctions with from linguistics because of that very fact. Mathematic meanings are universal and standardised and thus ignored to perform logical deductions. But maths is a still a language like any other.)

In more complex languages, one must define exactly what you mean by the words (terms) or abbreviations used to make them applicable to a logical deduction.

I already highlighted precisely what I meant by H, A and W and strictly within the confines of the meaning i defined for each and there relationship to eachother, the logical conclusion was thus.

I never said the conclusion was correct based on actual reality. All I was demonstrating is the importance of the meaning (relative nature) applied to the terms, do they "equal" eachother in which case the equation is reversible and can run forward and backwards
Or is one "a lesser subset" of the other in which case A =B but B is not = A (not réversible)

The meaning of terms used to construct premises and deduce conclusions is irrelavent? I don't think I agree. — Benj96

Then you do not understand formal logic.

I already highlighted precisely what I meant by H, A and W — Benj96

In formal logic, what you mean by H, A and W is irrelevant.

If you believe otherwise, good luck.

@creativesoul There certainly seems to be a problem about the farmer’s belief that a piece of cloth is a cow. You seem to be assuming that in reporting the farmer’s beliefs, you need to use words that he would have done, and he certainly wouldn’t have said that a piece of cloth was in the field. The tricky bit is that that is exactly how we would formulate his belief and we can’t say that there’s a cow in the field (unless we are referring to the cow that is in the field, which would be very misleading.)

First off, “see” is a factive verb. In reporting what people see, we need to report what they actually see, not what they think they see. When we report what they think they see, we have to make it clear, so we need to report, not that he sees a cow in the field, but that he believes he sees a cow in the field, or that he sees what he believes is a cow in the field.

We focus too much, in these discussions, on what people say in reporting their own beliefs. But that is only one way that people show what they believe. Their beliefs also show in what they do and in other things that they say. That’s how we know that he believes that a piece of cloth is a cow. But I would use that way of putting it only to other people, not to the farmer himself. Curiously, if I was telling the farmer about his mistake, I would say “you know that cow in the field? Well actually it’s a piece of cloth.” Or “I’m afraid that cow in the field is actually a piece of cloth”.

Or at least that’s my solution to your problem.

Everything can be identified under many descriptions. We use the one that is most appropriate for the context, including the method of identification that works for our audience. When we come to reporting the belief (and knowledge) of other people, we do not stick to the reference that they are using or would use; we use the reference that works for the audience we are reporting to. After all, the point is to enable our audience to understand.

It is complicated, so I hope this is reasonably clear.

(Srap Tasmaner) I think you are identifying the right problems, but I would suggest rather different solutions. I’m not happy with the causal theory of perception (though I’m not up to date with more recent ideas about it.) because what we see is so heavily dependent on interpretation, which doesn’t fit happily with causality.

Many Gettier problems depend on an inference typified by existential generalization in formal logic. We can infer from “Alice is in the field” to “There is a cow in the field” The catch is that if Alice is not in the field (or even if it isn’t Alice that the farmer saw), the inference collapses, and yet “Daisy is in the field” (if true) is a truth-condition for “There is a cow in the field.” The same applies if the farmer does not know which cow he saw or thought he saw. If the farmer saw a cow, there is a specific cow that he saw. If the cow that he doesn’t know about is the one that establishes the truth, then he didn’t know there was a cow in the field.

“A cow” is ambiguous between “a certain cow” and “a cow” as in “some cow or other”. If the farmer sees a cow, there is some specific cow that is seen, even if he doesn’t know which one it was; the scope of “a” is limited. However, suppose that the farmer has told one of his workers to put some cows in the field without specifying which ones or how many, and says to someone else “There is a (i.e. at least one) cow in the field.” That would be “cow” in the sense of “some cow or other”, which would be made true by any of the cows in the field, so it wouldn’t be a Gettier problem. The reason is that the scope of the justification matches the scope of the proposition. In Gettier cases, it doesn’t, and that’s the root of the problem. This may not apply to some cases proposed as Gettier cases, such as Russell’s clock. But those cases seem to me to have a different format.

I would like to pursue Gettier’s belief that it is possible to be justified in believing that p even when p is false. After all, this is where the door opens for Gettier cases.

Clearly, this falls away when justification is conclusive because falsity does not arise. (If one thinks one has a conclusive justification and it turns out that p is false, one needs to downgrade the justification to partial.)

Partial justification will undoubtedly always be more common than conclusive justifications, so it is worth considering in more detail than Gettier provides.

I can’t see that there is a problem with Gettier’s point when the falsity of p is merely a possibility. Even when p is false, but unknown to anyone, I can't see that it would affect anyone's belief or knowledge.

What matters is what happens when the falsity of p is known, and who knows it.

First, the clearest case. If S knows that p is false, S needs to consider this evidence in relation to the justification for believing that p. Since p is (by definition) conclusively false, the new evidence will outweigh any possible justification available to S, so S will cease to believe that p (or continue to believe that p on irrational grounds). In other words, S cannot believe that S is justified in believing that p and p is false; it is a variant of Moore’s paradox. Hence, of course, Gettier cases always specify that S does not know that p is false. (I have never seen this explained.)

Second, what happens when we know that p is false, but S doesn’t? Gettier cases never specify whether the falsity of p is known to anyone, but it has to be, because we could not appreciate the problem if we don’t. Can we, do we simply say that S is justified in believing p and p is false?

It seems pretty obvious that it is not entirely a matter for S to decide whether we accept his justification; if it were, then any old rubbish could be counted as a justification, and that’s precisely what the J clause was invented to exclude. So, if p is false, then either S’s evidence does not support p, or S’s evidence is false. So the fact that p is false does undermine S’s justification.

I just posted a post in reply to Srap Tasmaner. I meant to copy you in because I thought you might be interested. Forgive me if I'm wrong.

Some people think that there is no knowledge in Gettier cases, but that there is justified true belief. Hence they conclude that the JTB definition is inadequate. Others, like me, think that the JTB is correct, (subject to some caveats). They think that if there is no knowledge, there cannot be justified true belief. The question comes down to whether the main character's belief is justified or not; the stories create situations in which it isn't possible to give a straight answer. Or that's my view. — Ludwig V

I think one way to see this issue more clearly is by considering the distinction between valid and sound deductions. A conclusion could be validly inferred from some premises and be true, yet the deduction could be unsound because at least one of the premises is false. Example:
[P1] All cats are plants
[P2] All plants are mammals
[C] All cats are mammals
Now let’s ask: if C is true, X believes that C and X is justified in believing that C by that deduction, then does X know that C? Well if a valid deduction is enough to be deductively justified, then we do not have a case of knowledge (i.e. knowledge can not equate to JTB). But if only sound deductions can qualify as deductive justification, then we do not have a case of justification (i.e. knowledge can still equate to JTB).

Well if a valid deduction is enough to be deductively justified — neomac

I think the general view is that inference confers justification no more than it confers truth; rather, valid deduction is often expected to conserve justification and to conserve knowledge, just as it conserves truth. Since people may not make inferences they're entitled to, you have to add some clause, such as Gettier does, that the agent makes the valid inference. (Similarly, you don't automatically know everything entailed by what you know, but if you made all the inferences you're entitled to, you would.)

I agree with Srap Tasmaner. X's belief that C is true is not justified because P1 is false.

But you only take account of conclusive justification. The awkward bit in the Gettier cases is the possibility of partial justification.

If the cow that he doesn’t know about is the one that establishes the truth, then he didn’t know there was a cow in the field. — Ludwig V

Not sure I agree. I already worried over this a bit too, so I get the concern here.

I think the essence of this objection is to deny that the existential generalization actually takes place. If we leave aside justification for a moment, the idea is something like this:

(1) I believe that's Daisy out there.
(2) I know Daisy to be a cow.

In fact, I know a number of things about Daisy, so the presence of Daisy in the field entails the presence of a creature with any such feature. That is, the inference I'm prepared to make is that wherever Daisy is, an instance of Daisy's features is, including something being a cow. -- That is, I also accept that sometimes Daisy features are present without her, singly or in bunches, because other things are cows, other things are placid, other things ruminate, etc. (If our farmer prefers tropes to properties, all bets are off.)

I'm not immediately going to claim this is enough to justify the EG. I think first we take a detour through some obvious counterfactuals. We're trying to give due weight to the idea that the farmer only believes there's a cow in the field because he believes Daisy is, and he knows Daisy is a cow. That's to say, if he did not believe Daisy was in the field, he would not believe a cow was in the field.

But that sounds far too strong, at least because if it turns out to have been Clarabelle, the farmer will retreat to: I knew it was a cow and I thought it was Daisy. He might even be genuinely surprised and wonder how such a mistake happened: I could have sworn it was Daisy.

What I want to note here is that on discovering his mistake, the farmer will quite naturally itemize the Daisy features he correctly identified in search of the one he was mistaken about. All of which suggests his Daisy belief was -- contra my sympathies for a casual account of names -- in fact a sort of compound belief regarding those many descriptive features of Daisy. Maybe this is specific to cases of recognition, but the farmer's ready recasting of his belief as a compound suggests there's a list of criteria for recognizing Daisy and he was right about some of them, but not all. (Such lists look easy to Gettier-ize.)

And if all of that is right, then the EG was compound to begin with, even with only Daisy criteria in mind: there is something in the field that is a cow, and is placid, and ruminates, and has a nick on her left ear, and is pretty fat for this time of year, etc. And if that's right -- and even if that list is somehow taken as open-ended -- it can be split: there's something in the field that's a cow; there's something in the field that's placid; and so on.

Which, again, is why the farmer won't feel nearly such a fool if it turns out to be Clarabelle, even if he's very surprised, because he will still have gotten a lot right.

(I was going to head in a completely different direction, so I'll wait to see what people think of this before trotting out alternative analyses.)

There certainly seems to be a problem about the farmer’s belief that a piece of cloth is a cow. You seem to be assuming that in reporting the farmer’s beliefs, you need to use words that he would have done, and he certainly wouldn’t have said that a piece of cloth was in the field. — Ludwig V

I'm afraid I've been unclear.

I'm arguing against using words that the farmer would have used at the time, for he did not know that he believed a piece of cloth was a cow... pace Moore's paradox. Nevertheless, the farmer most certainly believed that a piece of cloth was a cow.

I'm further bringing to light that the farmer's belief does not entail belief that a cow is in the field. So, the farmer, if they inferred there was a cow in the field from their belief that a piece of cloth was a cow, made an invalid inference. The same is true of an author who claims the farmer concluded that a cow was in the field from belief that a piece of cloth was a cow.

My last post explained all the problems with attributing belief that could be true to the farmer - who had false belief. We know that. The farmer does not.

If the farmer claims to believe that a cow is in the field, they are wrong about the content of their own belief.( this may tie into things you've said) They are mistaken in their own report. That particular belief - the one reported by the farmer at the time - is one that could be true. The farmer's belief cannot. The farmer does not know that he believes a piece of cloth is a cow. He is mistaken about his own belief. Any author who then uses what the farmer would claim at that time is following the farmer off the cliff, so to speak. It's worse for the storyteller though, for we all know that the farmer does not know that they believe a piece of cloth is a cow. Using the farmer's self report as though it is accurate when it is not perpetuates the farmer's own mistake(repeat a belief that the farmer could not have) and prove oneself to have not learned the lesson from Moore.

Each and every case is an accounting malpractice.

That's the end of all the hoopla. That's it. It's that simple.

I would just add, though, that the causal connection may not always be sufficient for knowledge. Consider the fake barn scenario. In that case, the traveler in fake barn country does see an actual barn, so the appropriate causal connection is present. But he doesn't know it because he was lucky. The false lemma in this case is that he implicitly assumes that this region is like any other where fake barns are a rarity. — Andrew M

There are two issues that bother me about how seriously Gettier cases are treated. Firstly there is the very slippery notion of justification. I'll use the 'sheep in the field' example to illustrate my concerns.

If I see something in field that I think is a sheep, am I justified in believing it is a sheep if I don't take the trouble to move closer and examine it to see if it really is a sheep, or shout to make it move or whatever? It might not be what people ordinarily do, but is that any justification for failing to investigate, and for forming an insipid conception of justification itself?

Secondly, assuming that I am justified in believing there is a sheep in the field based on seeing the cloth, the claim is that that belief could be true or false, depending on whether there is or is not at least one unseen sheep in the field. If there is one unseen sheep, then my belief that there is a sheep in the field turns out to be true, and since it is justified (in this case by stipulation) the JTB model would have it that I therefore possess knowledge, which of course doesn't seem right at all.

However it seems to me that even if seeing the cloth is accepted as justification for believing there is a sheep in the field, it could only be justification for believing that the apparent "sheep" (the cloth) was in the field, not some other unseen sheep that just happened to be there unbeknownst to me. In other words my belief would not be a general 'there is a sheep somewhere in the field' but rather 'that is a sheep there in the field' and because "that" is a cloth, not a sheep, it is not a weird or troubling case of JTB, but rather a justified false belief. As I say above I would go further and say it is an unjustified false belief due to lack of proper investigation, because I have no business believing a cloth is a sheep, if I'm not close enough to it to be sure, or if I haven't seen it moving around and grazing like a sheep.

I've always been puzzled by how seriously the Gettier cases have been taken; I think they don't amount to jack shit.

I'm arguing against using words that the farmer would have used at the time, for he did not know that he believed a piece of cloth was a cow... pace Moore's paradox. Nevertheless, the farmer most certainly believed that a piece of cloth was a cow. — creativesoul

The farmer certainly did not believe that a piece of cloth was a cow; how could he, since he didn't know it was a piece of cloth, and if he had known it was a piece of cloth, then how could he believe it to be a cow? He believed (erroneously) that he was looking at a cow, when he was actually looking at a piece of cloth.

There is no puzzle there of the kind that you seem to be attempting to nurture by virtue (or vice) of ambiguous usage of language (that is by substituting what we might say about the farmer's belief for how he would put his belief into words, to arrive at an absurd paradox, "believing that a piece of cloth is a cow", that might engender the illusion that it is of some significance, when it really is not).

The problem is basic. The farmer believes that a piece of cloth is a sheep. That belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer, should they openly assert that they believe a sheep is in the field, would be asserting a belief that can be true. False belief cannot be true. The farmer's belief is false. "There is a sheep in the field" can be true. The farmer's belief cannot. The farmer's belief cannot be "there is a sheep in the field". The farmer is mistaken about their own belief, unbeknownst to themselves.

This all makes perfect sense when we keep in mind that we cannot knowingly hold false belief. The farmer believed that a piece of cloth was a sheep.

The farmer certainly did not believe that a piece of cloth was a cow; how could he, since he didn't know it was a piece of cloth, and if he had known it was a piece of cloth, then how could he believe it to be a cow? He believed (erroneously) that he was looking at a cow, when he was actually looking at a piece of cloth. — Janus

We cross posted. My last post did not take the above into consideration.

That particular farmer sees that particular piece of cloth in that particular field at that particular time, and mistakenly believes at that particular moment in time that that particular piece of cloth in that particular field is a cow or a sheep(which one does not matter).

Are you denying this?

There is no puzzle there of the kind that you seem to be attempting to nurture by virtue (or vice) of ambiguous usage of language (that is by substituting what we might say about the farmer's belief for how he would put his belief into words, to arrive at an absurd paradox, "believing that a piece of cloth is a cow", that might engender the illusion that it is of some significance, when it really is not). — Janus

It is humanly impossible to knowingly hold false belief. The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer reports a belief that can be true. The farmer is mistaken about his own belief.

Pace Moore...

We can know that a farmer believes that a piece of cloth is a cow or sheep even though the farmer cannot.

The rhetoric is trite.

valid deduction is often expected to conserve justification and to conserve knowledge, just as it conserves truth. — Srap Tasmaner

This is the case only if the premises are known to be true by X or justifiably believed to be true. My point is how to better understand justification wrt deduction as a study case.

The awkward bit in the Gettier cases is the possibility of partial justification. — Ludwig V

What does partial justification of a belief mean ? In case of a deduction (which I'm talking about to clarify the notion of justification, not to equate the 2 concepts), it could be when we believe premises to be true (and they are true!) but we do not know them to be true:
P1: If doctor X diagnoses a cancer, then there is a cancer
P2: doctor X diagnoses a cancer
C: there is a cancer
One could believe P1 to be true (P1 being the case) and yet not know it to be true.
But in this case again, the term justification wouldn't apply to just valid deductions, they would still need to be sound deductions.

If the farmer saw a cow, there is a specific cow that he saw. If the cow that he doesn’t know about is the one that establishes the truth, then he didn’t know there was a cow in the field. — Ludwig V

In this case, it's the cow that he saw that establishes his conclusion that there's a cow in the field. He is mistaken about which cow he saw, but that doesn't undermine his conclusion.

There's a sense in which we're constructing the argument from premises to conclusion. As long as we can provide a straight-forward argument that doesn't depend on false lemmas, then I think we're generally willing to grant the farmer knowledge.

I’m not happy with the causal theory of perception (though I’m not up to date with more recent ideas about it.) because what we see is so heavily dependent on interpretation, which doesn’t fit happily with causality. — Ludwig V

In the presented case, the farmer does misidentify the cow as Daisy, and so thinks that Daisy was the cause of his perception. But that doesn't present a problem for a causal explanation. It only means that people can sometimes be mistaken about what the causal factors are. In this case, the farmer's misinterpretation of what he saw didn't preclude him from knowing there was a cow in the field. And we know this because we can provide the correct causal explanation that demonstrates this (i.e., that he did see a cow).

Which, again, is why the farmer won't feel nearly such a fool if it turns out to be Clarabelle, even if he's very surprised, because he will still have gotten a lot right.

(I was going to head in a completely different direction, so I'll wait to see what people think of this before trotting out alternative analyses.) — Srap Tasmaner

Seems right to me.

If I see something in field that I think is a sheep, am I justified in believing it is a sheep if I don't take the trouble to move closer and examine it to see if it really is a sheep, or shout to make it move or whatever? It might not be what people ordinarily do, but is that any justification for failing to investigate, and for forming an insipid conception of justification itself? — Janus

I think as a general rule, if you "couldn't too easily be mistaken" (Williamson's phrase) then you are justified in believing it.

Whether that's the case in a particular sheep scenario depends on how well-placed you are. Justification is a pragmatic standard - it has to be both useful (not too easy to be mistaken) and obtainable (infallibility is not required).

However it seems to me that even if seeing the cloth is accepted as justification for believing there is a sheep in the field, it could only be justification for believing that the apparent "sheep" (the cloth) was in the field, not some other unseen sheep that just happened to be there unbeknownst to me. — Janus

That's right. So that's the "no false lemmas" solution to Gettier problems. The farmer justifiably and correctly believed there was a sheep in the field. But because his belief was based on the false lemma that he was seeing a sheep, he thus didn't know that there was a sheep in the field.

As I say above I would go further and say it is an unjustified false belief due to lack of proper investigation, because I have no business believing a cloth is a sheep, if I'm not close enough to it to be sure, or if I haven't seen it moving around and grazing like a sheep. — Janus

OK. But more thorough investigations can involve mistakes. For example, suppose the farmer thought he saw a sheep moving and grazing, but it was a goat (or a robot).

Gettier, bless his soul! :death: :flower:

Perhaps Gettier doesn't understand what logic is. Was he a logician too?

I believe he was. He does seem to have developed that sense of mischief that some logicians have. But there is some fun to be had, as well as the irritation.



It seems to me that some consensus is developing around No False Lemmas, and of course I agree with that. There are detailed points that could be made about each of your messages. But that would be too much work for me, and would likely make for a boring read, so I'll just make some general comments.

It has been suggested that NFL should be added to the definition, whether as a separate clause or a condition within another clause, probably J. I don’t think it is necessary to do that, because it is simply a result of getting straight about the logic of the existing rules.

It is tempting to think that when a flaw has been found in a bad argument, it is not necessary to pursue the matter further. But there is more than one problem with Gettier cases, and the expectation that they either meet the definition criteria or they do not is another one; the target proposition is always partly right and partly wrong. I think that recognizing this and allowing them (when and if they really exist) to sit in their own category is a perfectly reasonable position. Indeed, a special class has already been invented – “Gettier cases”. No more needs to be done.

My final point is this - The cases that we argue about take advantage of the context of telling a fictional story (which is a very complicated and paradoxical practice, if you think it through - far more complicated than telling lies) to put us in the curious situation of knowing something that is supposed to be unknown to anyone. Gettier cases rely on the various circumstances not being known to anyone, and so will in real life always exist unknown to anyone. As soon as they become known, they can be resolved, so I can’t see that they can be very important. Some people worry about this, but that's only because they can imagine something that's not known to anyone. That's not real life.

That particular farmer sees that particular piece of cloth in that particular field at that particular time, and mistakenly believes at that particular moment in time that that particular piece of cloth in that particular field is a cow or a sheep(which one does not matter).

Are you denying this? — creativesoul

Read what has already been written and ye shall be enlightened:

He believed (erroneously) that he was looking at a cow, when he was actually looking at a piece of cloth. — Janus

OK. But more thorough investigations can involve mistakes. For example, suppose the farmer thought he saw a sheep moving and grazing, but it was a goat (or a robot). — Andrew M

It's true that further investigations can involve mistakes. But if we are being strict about what we will accept as believable then we should investigate as far as, and in every more thorough way imaginable, and only commit to believing when all those possibilities are exhausted. It's also true that even then we can be mistaken, but at least our beliefs would then be properly justified.

We can always resort to entertaining something for pragmatic reasons without committing to belief if we realize that our investigations have not been or cannot be, for practical reasons, adequate. So, for example, I see something moving which I think is a sheep, but there is a boundary fence that prevents me from getting close enough to definitely confirm it.

That particular farmer sees that particular piece of cloth in that particular field at that particular time, and mistakenly believes at that particular moment in time that that particular piece of cloth in that particular field is a cow or a sheep(which one does not matter).

Are you denying this?
— creativesoul

Read what has already been written and ye shall be enlightened:

He believed (erroneously) that he was looking at a cow, when he was actually looking at a piece of cloth.
— Janus — Janus

So, he was looking at a piece of cloth, believed that he was looking at a cow, but did not believe that that piece of cloth was a cow?

:roll:

I believe he was. He does seem to have developed that sense of mischief that some logicians have. But there is some fun to be had, as well as the irritation. — Ludwig V

Then in all likelihood he knew what he was talking about. Gettier problems are real! Does Gettier's observation extend to mathematics as well? That would be interesting to say the least.

Of course, as I already said, he mistook a piece of cloth for a cow. That's obvious, but so what? Of course he didn't think "that piece of cloth is a cow", but again, it's obvious and so what? Finally, of course someone cannot consciously believe something they believe to be true to be false, but again, so what? All these are uncontroversially, and hence trivially, true; they don't need to be pointed out, and I don't know what you are aiming to demonstrate by highlighting them.

It is tempting to think that when a flaw has been found in a bad argument, it is not necessary to pursue the matter further. But there is more than one problem with Gettier cases, and the expectation that they either meet the definition criteria or they do not is another one; the target proposition is always partly right and partly wrong. — Ludwig V

The target proposition is always false, one of which the believer cannot possibly be justified in believing. The target proposition is always an accounting malpractice of S's belief.

Shedding light on that pulls the rug out from under the entire project.

Which problem escapes this?

I suggest you read my posts in this thread. I'm not interested in continuing discussion with you, given the recent history.

OK, I've read them and haven't found what I've asked for, but if you don't want to continue discussing it that's fine with me.

P1: If doctor X diagnoses a cancer, then there is a cancer
P2: doctor X diagnoses a cancer
C: there is a cancer
One could believe P1 to be true (P1 being the case) and yet not know it to be true.
But in this case again, the term justification wouldn't apply to just valid deductions, they would still need to be sound deductions. — neomac

If you were justified in believing P1 and P2 obtains then the conclusion would be justified, but P1 might be false if unbeknownst to you there were, along with the many cases where Doctor X correctly diagnosed cancer and on the basis of which you took yourself to be justified in believing P1, there were a few cases where she incorrectly diagnosed cancer. How to determine whether you were or were not "really" justified in believing P1 then?

Let’s distinguish two intellectual tasks: the first one is to assess whether JTB is an acceptable definition for the notion of “knowledge”. I think that deductive reasoning offers a study case to clarify the alternatives wrt the notion of “justification”: if “justification” amounts to “sound deduction” then knowledge=JTB is still plausible (this view is in line with the NFL assumption). If “justification” amounts to “valid deduction” then knowledge=JTB is not plausible (this view is not in line with the NFL assumption).
The second task is to assess knowledge/justification claims, namely beliefs about one’s knowledge/justification. This task must be handled in accordance with the definition we have given for “knowledge” or “justification”: so e.g. knowledge claims express knowledge if they are JTB, if we have established that knowledge=JTB.
There is something else however that might interfere with our understanding of both tasks: the trivial acknowledgement that any claims, including knowledge/justification claims (which discriminate between what is knowledge/justification and what not) are fallible may induce us to question the nature or the very possibility of knowledge/justification as such. Here is the problem of skepticism which we can address, but currently I find it off topic for this thread.

assess whether JTB is an acceptable definition for the notion of “knowledge — neomac

Let's ...

I hear it's a 2.5k year old definition attributed to Socrates, no less. :chin: