Paste your essay in here…Is it possible for a person to have a justified true belief that Durham has a castle whilst failing to know that Durham has a castle?
The Platonic definition of knowledge is ‘justified true belief’, and whilst this definition has been challenged widely by philosophers since Edmund Gettier published his paper “Is Justified true belief knowledge?” in 1963, it has been the subject of much debate even before then.
In order to come to the conclusion that knowledge is a justified true belief, there are many arguments
According to the Platonic definition, A person has knowledge if three conditions are met. Firstly, to know if Durham has a castle, one must believe that Durham has a castle. Secondly, this belief has to correspond to reality and it is therefore true. Thirdly, a person can be said to have knowledge about Durham having a castle if their belief is justified with some sort of evidence. These conditions are apparent in the tripartite analysis or definition of knowledge and they are individually necessary for knowledge and are jointly sufficient for knowledge. However, Gettier argued that justification, truth and belief were not sufficient conditions for knowledge. In this case, let us suppose that a person has strong evidence for the following proposition:
a) Steven has a campus card.
A student has evidence to believe that Steven has a campus card. The person has evidence to believe that Steven has a campus card, since he has seen Steven use this card at various points on the campus. Steven has also told the person that he has a campus card. Let us also suppose that the student who has evidence to believe that castle exists, but has no evidence of the whereabouts of any, formulates the following propositions:
b) Either Steven has a campus card, or Las Vegas has a castle.
c) Either Steven has a campus card, or Durham has a castle.
d) Either Steven has a campus card, or Ulaan Baator has a castle.
The person has accepted propositions b), c) and d) on the basis of a) since these propositions are all entailed by a) and therefore has inferred b), c) and d) from the proposition of which he has strong evidence for. The person has no idea where the there is a Castle is but is justified in believing each of the above propositions.
But let us further imagine that Steven does not have a campus card, and he has a card which allows him to access areas of the university as he works for the government. Moreover, let us envisage that the place mentioned in proposition c), Durham, does actually have a castle. If these two conditions hold, then the person does not know that c) is true despite that it is true and he believes that c) is true and he is justified in believing c) is true.
In this Gettier case example, the person in question has justified true belief that Durham has a castle but not knowledge of this. In response to Gettier, many philosophers such as Roderick Chisholm came up with their own similar cases. Chisholm’s the sheep in the field case also proved that justified true belief cannot be knowledge. Manipulating Chisholm’s case, we could have the following scenario:
A person is looking at Durham from a viewpoint, and sees something that looks exactly like a castle. Naturally, one would believe that there is a castle in Durham since you believe you have seen it. However, it turns out that the object you see is actually a cathedral. With that said, there is also a castle in Durham, obscured from your vision by the cathedral and by the natural contours of the city. Here, you have a justified true belief that there is a castle in Durham but you have no direct evidence of its existence.
Alvin Goldman gives credit to Carl Ginet in his book, where he gives us another interesting example of a Gettier case, which I will adapt for the purposes of this essay. Suppose you are driving through Durham, with the area unbeknownst to you, the locals have constructed papier-mache castles in order to celebrate the anniversary of the construction of the only real castle. The fake castles are unrecognisable from the real castle from this distance, and with your eyesight being normal and reliable, you form the belief that ‘that’s a fine barn’. You happen to be referring to the one real castle in the whole city. Had you looked at the local’s masterpieces you would have had a false belief. Your belief, is justified and true but you do not have knowledge.
In the previous examples, we claim there is justification for the beliefs, however, a response to many Gettier problems is that one ought to strengthen the justification condition. Infallibilists believe that the justification part of knowledge must mean that all our beliefs are infallible, in other words, they can’t be wrong. In Descartes’ Meditations, he decided to remove all his false beliefs to understand the world. His only infallible belief was “Cogito ergo Sum”, I think therefore I am, since it is impossible to refute this even if the demon was able to deceive him. I do acknowledge that there are strengths to this argument, since none of the Gettier cases or counter examples would pass as knowledge since they all fundamentally rely on an element of luck. With that said, infalibilism implies that knowledge is now very hard to obtain as it is impossible to have a belief with no aspect of doubt. If justification is acquired via testimony, the source can be question vigoursly or if it is acquired perceptively then the ability of your senses is brought under scrutiny. Therefore, we allow knowledge not to be infallible.
An alternative response to our constructed Gettier case would be to add a no false lemma condition. This would mean that knowledge would became a justified, true belief that has not been formed from any false propositions. This would combat our first example, since we accepted c) based on the false belief of a). However, in our second example, you have formed a true belief that Durham has a castle, and this is sufficiently justified your perceptual belief. But you not know Durham has a castle, despite the fact there is one. This Gettier counterexample is a case of justified true belief but it doesn’t involve inference from an initial false belief. Thus, a false lemma condition cannot discount this example.
After looking at two criticisms of Gettier cases which require richer notions of justification, I will analyse another argument that defends the justified true belief theory. This argument is accredited to John Turri in his journal article John Turri in his journal article Synthese. This argument suggests that a ‘bad’ equivalent of Gettier subjects “Know Q, and these bad counterparts know Q only if Gettier subjects know Q, so Gettier subjects know Q”. We will now use this argument in our second example.
You have an evil twin who is sadistic and a pyromaniac. He has the sole purpose of destroying a castle and he drives around England to find one. After finding a castle he blows it up. He thinks “what a fine castle I have just blown up”.
Your evil twin knew that he was destroying a castle when he blew it up. In order for him to know this, he had to had have known it was a castle that he was aiming at. So, he did know it was a castle. Your twin happened to be in Durham and destroyed the barn that you were looking at earlier the same day. Still, he knew he was destroying a castle. So, he knew it was a castle. It’s reasonable to suppose that if your evil twin knew it was a castle then you knew it was castle. This assumption can be made since both you and your evil twin have exactly the same evidence, which you use in the same way. If its sufficient for your twin to know, then it’s sufficient for you also. Some critics have tried to challenge this case by saying your pyromaniac brother didn’t actually “know” he was destroying a castle, we imply that he intentionally blew up a castle but this doesn’t entail that he knew it was a castle. However, this statement can be dismissed since the actual act of your brother knowing that he was destroying a castle implicitly entails his knowing that it’s a castle.