#gettier

Terra Australis Incognita of course being an imagined southern continwnt that would balance out the land masses in the nirthern hemisphere, arguably more matching Antarctica than Australia which would be named after it. It was thought to be temperate and rather large, of course (though we can ignore that for a moment).

Naturally it is a possible example as it was:

Strongly believed enough to end up in maps.

Justified by a completely and wildly incorrect set of assumptions. (That the earth must be balanced in its distribution of land.)

Is corrext by sheer luck.

every. single. philosopher alive at that time read that three page paper and gave out a collective "oh shit" when they realised that they're gonna have to make a new definition of knowledge cause Edmund had just spat all over the literally ancient definition

now it's nearly 70 years later and the ladies (epistemologists) are still fighting the debate about the definition of knowledge is still going because Gettier decided to destroy what had previously been the most agreed-upon piece of philosophy i have ever seen in less than 4 pages and then mic-drop outta there

"I've slammed Descartes like three times in this essay already..."

"I always imagine Hume coming in on a skateboard, wearing sunglasses."

"I was explaining intuition and deduction thesis to my mum and now she hates Descartes."

"I actually liked Aristotle until he said that only white, male philosophers can flourish."

"... the evil demon, a.k.a. Mr. Phillippou, ..." [an ex-philosophy teacher of our school]

The teacher: "left-handed people are superior. I tried to force my kids to be left-handed when they were learning to write..."

"Descartes pisses me the fuck off."

"... G. E. Moore, a.k.a. G. E. Awful, ..."

"I love error theory. It just says that everyone is wrong all the time."

"What's that guy in the Gettier example with the barns called?" "Barney." "No, no, it's Henry." "Wait, Henry? I thought it was Harry!"

"I always remember that name because my great aunt named her pet rabbit 'Carruthers'."

"But the concept of infinity doesn't make sense!" "Well, according to Georg Cantor's set theory, it does." "What even is set theory, then?" "Don't even go there. You don't need to know, so just don't ask."

"Onto and Teleo are okay, but I just can't with Cosmo. Don't even get me started on Aquinas' ways..."

"Eschatological verification is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. No offence to Hick or anything..."

"Do you think Richard Hare's friends ever called him 'Dick Hair'?"

"I don't understand how some people can even doubt qualia..."

"P-zombies freak me out."

Edmund Gettier, epistemolojide temel alınan klasik bilgi anlayışının yetersizliğini savunmuştur. Klasik bilgi anlayışında, bir öznenin bir önermeyi bilebilmesi için 3 koşul aranmaktadır. Bunlar doğruluk, inanç ve inancın haklı kılınmasıdır. Bu nedenle özne, önce önermenin yapısal olarak doğru olduğunu bilmeli, deneysellik ve  altyapı olarak ona inanmalı ve bu inancını da temellendirebilmeliydi (gerekçelendirmek).

Gettier, bu 3 koşulun bilgiyi elde edebilmek için yeterli olmadığını karşıt örneklerle savunmuştur ve “Gerekçelendirilmiş Doğru İnanç Bilgi midir?” makalesinde Gettier Problemini sunmuştur. Gerekçelendirilmiş olan bir inanç, doğru bir bilgiye dönüşür mü diyen Gettier, makalesinde bazı örnekler de kullanmıştır. İşte bunlarda birisi;

-İki kişi (Smith ve Jones) aynı işe başvurur. İşin patronu, James kişisini işe almayı düşündüğünü Smith’e söyler ve Smith kişisi, James’n cebinde on tane bozukluk olduğunu saydığı için bilmektedir. Elindeki bu iki doğru önermeyle  "cebinde on tane bozukluk olan kişi işe alınacaktır" sonucuna varır. Bu sayede bu inancı sağlam bir şekilde gerekçelendirilmiştir ve doğru da çıkmaktadır ancak Smith kişisinin "bildiği" şekilde değil... İşe alınan kişi Smith olmuştur ve Smith'in cebinde de on adet bozukluk vardır. Görüldüğü gibi Smith'in işe alınmasının aslında cebindeki bozukluklarla bir alakası olmamasına rağmen o buna inanmıştır ve gerçekten de işe alınınca bu doğru çıkmıştır.

Gettier cases

(Pictured: It’s 1961. A man stands in front of his Ford Mustang. Wait. Do I know it’s his?)

What counts as knowledge?

For a long time, in the field of epistemology, it was commonly held that true beliefs, accompanied by relevant justification, constitute knowledge. That is, if I believe something to be true, it is true, and I can justify why, then I possess knowledge.

~ Knowledge = Justified True Belief (JTB) ~

But what counts as justification is up to debate. With zero justification I open up my claim to epistemic luck: be correct by chance. Say, I might believe I know which side a flipped coin will land on because (my justification is) tails never fails; however, the coin showing tails doesn’t render me omniscient about flipped coins.

Generally, justification requires evidence bases, causal explanations, memories, logic—something (inside or outside our minds) which gives reason to believe. For example, I am justified in believing that Ljubljana is the capital of the Slovenia because I’ve been there and I’ve researched it.

However, in a famously short paper, Edmund Gettier (1963) came up with counterexamples to derail JTB. The following is ‘Case II’.

(i) There is strong evidence that Jones owns a Ford: a witness, Smith, remembers seeing him in it; Smith was even offered a ride; Smith also validly infers these events from his written calendar. Therefore, Smith holds a justifiable belief.

(ii) Smith has another friend, Brown, of whose whereabouts he is totally ignorant. Smith guesses Boston, Barcelona, or Brest-Litovsk.

(iii) Smith now has a go at constructing arguments on these beliefs. Consider this one: Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona, which is justified in virtue of entailing (i) despite (ii) being a complete guess.

It turns out, though, that (ii) is right: Brown is in Barcelona! However—plot twist—Smith’s Ford is a rental car! Drama. What can we say?

Well, despite (i) being justified and despite (ii) being correct Smith didn’t know either, causing (iii) to collapse. JTB fails: its conditions were insufficient for knowledge.

Other examples

Bertrand Russell was aware of JTB’s issues long before Gettier’s formulations. Russell used a broken watch as an example. In one instance, when Alice checks the watch, the watch displays the ‘correct time’ (2 o’clock) at 14:00. However, unbeknownst to Alice, the watch stopped at 02:00. Therefore, even though Alice has justification for believing it to be 14:00 and even though she is right, she didn’t know it to be the case. 

A doctor makes a diagnosis of X based on evidence; but, as the disease develops, it reveals itself to be Y. Still, the doctor’s initial diagnosis represents a justified true belief.

Robbert Brandom used chicken-sexers to exemplify the problem. Chicken-sexers palpably identify which sex chickens are—and do so reliably—but they have no idea how they do it. Can they claim they know how, given their high accuracy?

Reference

"For Sinbad himself may have fallen by good luck on a true description, and wrong reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zig-zags, we now and then arrive just where we ought to be."