Knowledge: Chapter 3

What is A.J Ayer's article about?

- According to Ayer, knowing is having the right to be sure; and in his The Problem of Knowledge, he maintains that we have the right to be sure in cases of self-evidence, truths directly warranted by experience, and when we have valid deductions based claims which we have the right to be sure about. -He rejects a view held by many which contends that knowledge requires certainty (and, thus, the logical impossibility of error).

What is the assassination counterexample to the JTB+NFL accounts?

- Jill reads a true newspaper account that a certain dictator was assassinated. The reporter is known to be entirely trustworthy, and he was himself an eyewitness. But the victim's associates, wishing to forestall panic, have issued a television announcement saying (falsely) that the assassination attempt failed and that the intended victim is alive. Nearly everyone has heard the television announcement and believes it. However, by a fluke, Jill misses it and continues to believe that the victim is dead. - Jill is not "Gettiered" in the classic sense: her reasoning does not depend on inferences from any false beliefs.

What is the rejection of the Strong Denial of belief and an example of it?

- The view that if somebody knows something to be true, then it is entailed that he does not believe that thing to be true - Example: It has been pointed out that when a speaker knows that p, and desires to be candid in his speech, it would be inappropriate for him to say that he believes that p is the case.

What is the rejection of the Weak Denial of the belief condition and give an example of it?

- This position asserts that, although knowledge does not exclude belief, cases of knowledge without belief are possible. - A woman appears to know that her explorer-husband has perished. She has been given proofs, and she verbally acknowledges their force. Yet she does and say things which would be naturally interpreted as expressions that he is still alive. She holds contradictory beliefs , one of the beliefs satisfying the further condition for knowledge

What is justification?

-Justification is an objective matter, not subjective. Justification is not simply the feeling of confidence. -One can believe that one is justified and be wrong about being justified, just as one might believe that one has a winning lottery ticket (or a losing one, for that matter) while being wrong about that.

What are the two assumptions made by Gettier about justification?

1. He says that one can be justified in believing something that's false. Justification is no guarantee that one's belief is true. 2. He assumes that inference - whether deductive or inductive - "transmits justification".

What are the two "gettier-styled" counterexamples to the JTB+NFL account?

1. The Assassination counterexample 2. The Fake Barn Country counterexample

What is an example of the rejection of the strong assertion of the belief-condition?

An examinee gives fumbling, unconfident, but always correct answers to a series of questions. He is not sure that his answers are the true ones.

Who created the 4 respective positions to the Belief-condition?

D.M Armstrong

What is the similarity between both counterexamples to the JTB+NFL accounts.

Each of our protagonists' routes to belief are impeccable — neither bases their belief on a false assumption. It's not credible to claim that Jill has falsely assumed that no propaganda reports have been issued nor that Edward has falsely assumed that he's not driving through an area dotted with fake barns! Such possibilities never enter their minds.

What is the Fake Barn Country counterexample to the JTB+NFL accounts?

Edward is driving through the country and notices many rustic barns dotting the landscape. Glancing at one, he thinks to himself, 'that's sure a nice old barn'. And indeed it is. But little does he know, it's the only barn in the vicinity. The rest are papier-mâché mockups put up by the residents of Fake Barn County designed to increase real estate prices.

What is an example of the Causal Theory of Knowledge?

Example: My knowledge that there is beer in my glass is causally connected to my having poured beer into the glass, my having tasted the beer, and my state of mild intoxication

Knowledge-how? Knowledge-that? Talk about it.

Gilbert Ryle defended the importance of the distinction against arguments that "know-how" is reducible to propositional knowledge (to knowledge-that), a view he called Intellectualism. The idea here is just that knowing how to do something — e.g., play chess — is nothing more or less than knowing a series of true propositions about that subject — in the case of chess, how the pieces move, how the game is won, and so on. On this view, knowledge- how isn't really different from knowledge-that.

What did Edmund Gettier offer that radically changed the course of epistemology?

He offered two decisive counter examples to the thesis that knowledge is justified true belief. In other words, there are cases in where JTB conditions are met, but the subject imagined lacks knowledge.

What are the similarities between both of the Gettier cases?

In both cases Smith believes something and extends his belief via a valid inference.

What is the causal theory of knowledge?

It states that in order for knowledge to exist, one must have a belief about something true, and that belief must have a causal relation with the truth.

What is epistemology?

It's the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is justified true belief.

Why is knowledge prized higher than correct opinion?

Knowledge is prized higher than correct opinion because knowledge is true belief that is tied down to some reason while correct opinion is simply true belief.

What does D.M Armstrong say about knowledge?

Knowledge traditionally entails true belief, but true belief does not entail knowledge. Knowledge is true belief plus some justification in the form of reasons or evidence. But that evidence must itself be knowledge, which in turn must be justified, leading to a regress. (Knowledge=True Belief but True Belief=Knowledge?)

Who created the No False Lemma argument?

Michael Clark

What was one idea that Ryle favored and what is a downside of it?

Ryle favored the idea that links know-how to ability. In other words you only know how to do something if you have the ability to do it. Example: Intellectualists point out in reply that know-how can't simply be an ability — knowing how to do X does not always entail that one is able to X. When Kobe is injured or infirm, he lacks the ability to hit a turnaround jump shot, but clearly still knows how to do so.

What are the two basic questions about knowledge?

1. Who are the subjects of knowledge (the knowers)? 2. What are the objects of knowledge (the things known)?

What is Edmund Gettier's first case?

Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. And suppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition: (d) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket. Smith's evidence for (d) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end be selected, and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones's pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (d) entails: (e) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (d) to (e), and accepts (e) on the grounds of (d), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (e) is true. But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And, also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket.

What does the "No False Lemmas" condition say?

The 'no false lemmas' condition says that for something to count as knowledge it must be the case that you did not infer it from anything false. (A lemma is a claim part way through an argument.)

What is the Justified True Belief Analysis of knowledge?

The JTB theory says that each of the conditions (a), (b), (c) is necessary for S to know that P and that they are jointly sufficient

What is the difference between knowledge and true belief?

The difference between knowledge and merely true belief is in our "ability to give an account" — that is, in having some justification for our belief.

What is Edmund Gettier's second case?

The second case deals with a ford. Reread pg 23 for more details.