#gettier problems

Writes a three page article demonstrating that the classical account of knowledge as justified true belief is untenable

Refuses to elaborate further

Secures tenure

Leaves

whyiamsoclever:

What is the benchmark for a relevant gap in knowledge? I presume you aren't claiming omniscience as a prerequisite for knowledge.

Also, is knowledge of the completeness of your knowledge required to be justified in your otherwise true belief?

A relevant gap in knowledge is a way of speaking. It isn’t like a unit of measure or a gap of size, e.g., a canyon. A relevant gap was, to my mind, demonstrated in the examples I gave. Assuming all things remain equal, which is to say, assuming there’s no change in what I previously knew or no gap in my knowledge, i.e., ignorance, on my part, I can claim to know that x. I can say that I know that there’s milk in my fridge as I write this. If I am unknowingly burgled or if I failed to account for milk drinking ghosts, what I previously knew no longer applies. To put it another way, at time a I was correct to say that I knew there was milk in my fridge; now, at time b, I am incorrect iff I was ignorant of a pertinent fact, e.g., milk drinking ghosts, or if something happened to the gallon of milk at some point between time a and time b. 

Given this, it should be clear that I’m not presuming omniscience as a prerequisite for knowledge. Furthermore, I am not suggesting infallibility, for when speaking of esoteric truths, it is likelier that there are gaps in our knowledge for a plethora of reasons; we are, in these cases, ignorant but not due to any fault of our own. Think about that which scientists haven’t figured out or answers philosophers have yet to find. We are, for instance, ignorant about the evolution of the universe, its size, and, in particular, dark matter and dark energy. We are ignorant, some philosophers hold, of the hard problem of consciousness. Despite the progress of cognitive science and neuroscience, we still cannot explain why we have phenomenal consciousness.

These gaps are due to the fact that our tools aren’t advanced enough. Perhaps we’ve yet to ask relevant questions. Maybe we have failed to connect the dots correctly. In the case of physics, we either put too much stock in the ontological status of time or we are missing a fifth force of nature, which would help to, for instance, unify quantum mechanics and general relativity. 

With this in mind, as it concerns esoteric truths, the most one can say is that it is probably true that x. One can speak in Bayesian terms per se. In some cases, esoteric truths do reach a state of completeness. The Earth is spherical. Despite centuries of debate and outright repulsion to this truth, the Earth orbits the Sun and not the other way around. The age of the Earth is settled. The evolution of species is settled. Mendellian laws are settled. 

Here’s a very possible thought experiment. Imagine that a hypervelocity star passes between the orbits of Earth and Mars. In the process, it snatches all of the inner planets, Earth included, out of the solar system. Though the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun is a settled, noncontroversial truth at this point in time, a relevant change can make this truth false at another point in time. Once again, ceteris paribus the Earth orbits the Sun; this item of knowledge is both justified and true. Obviously, a hypervelocity star snatching all of the inner planets out of the solar system is a radical change; yet it is very possible. 

Given this, completeness isn’t always required because in the absence of completeness, Bayesian reasoning does well. Omniscience is most certainly not required. In the examples I gave, both of the milk in my fridge and of the woman mistaking her husband’s brother for her husband, my definition holds true. It doesn’t take omniscience to claim to know that the person on your couch is a person that lives with you. If it turns out that you’re wrong, it’s due to a relevant change: your uncle dropped by for a surprise visit while you were at work. That, put simply, is a gap in your knowledge. It is also a change in what you know to be composition of your household from day to day. Your uncle isn’t always there. Your father, on the other hand, is.

Gettier Problems point to the only things that can prove our knowledge wrong. In this sense, such problems are viciously circular. No one, despite a relevant change(s), continues to claim that they know that x. If I now claim to know that there’s milk in my fridge, it’s because that statement holds true at this point in time. Should I go into my fridge and empty the gallon into a glass, I will no longer hold to my original claim. The new claim, given this pertinent change, is that I know there’s no milk in my fridge.

Lastly, I realize now that Gettier Problems have more in common with trolley problems than most people would realize. Both of them put too much stock in trivial dilemmas that are, for the most part, utterly inapplicable to everyday life. I’m pretty sure no one has ever watched a runaway train approach five workers on a track all while faced with the choice of either pulling a lever that’ll, in turn, kill a lone worker on the opposite track or pushing a fat man onto the tracks for sake of saving the five workers. 

This Simple Philosophical Puzzle Shows How Difficult It Is to Know Something

By Brian Gallagher

In the 1960s, the American philosopher Edmund Gettier devised a thought experiment that has become known as a “Gettier case.” It shows that something’s “off” about the way we understand knowledge. This ordeal is called the “Gettier problem,” and 50 years later, philosophers are still arguing about it. Jennifer Nagel, a philosopher of mind at the University of Toronto, sums up its appeal. “The resilience of the Gettier problem,” she says, “suggests that it is difficult (if not impossible) to develop any explicit reductive theory of knowledge.”  

What is knowledge? Well, thinkers for thousands of years had more or less taken one definition for granted: Knowledge is “justified true belief.” The reasoning seemed solid: Just believing something that happens to be true doesn’t necessarily make it knowledge. If your friend says to you that she knows what you ate last night (say it’s veggie pizza), and happens to be right after guessing, that doesn’t mean she knew. That was just a lucky guess—a mere true belief. Your friend would know, though, if she said veggie pizza because she saw you eat it—that’s the “justification” part. Your friend, in that case, would have good reason to believe you ate it.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Gettier’s famous paper, Fred Dretske explains what we should have learned from it.

This is the golden – the fiftieth – anniversary of Edmund Gettier’s remarkable paper on why knowledge isn’t justified true belief. It seems like an appropriate time, therefore, to evaluate what we have learned – or should have learned – from his elegant counterexamples.

(via Gettier Problems | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

We’re now on Week 2 in Introduction to Philosophy, in which we’re being asked to consider “What is Knowledge?” as well as explore the concept of Gettier Problems.