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I don't get it. I read case I, and I don't see how Jones is 'justified' in believing (e), since his belief is based on a false premise derived from hearsay. But

I don't get it. I read case I, and I don't see how Jones is 'justified' in believing (e), since his belief is based on a false premise derived from hearsay. But maybe I'm missing some technicality in the meaning of 'justified.' In any case, "justified true belief" seems like a flimsy basis for epistemology, since we have no independent oracle to ask whether our beliefs are true. So this definition doesn't seem to do anything to help us separate knowledge from non-knowledge.

fdhfdjkfhdkj 5y ago
Where is Jones in the thought experiment Case I. He attempting to conclude ideas without external influence. There is always external influence
fmoralesc 5y ago
One assumption there is that testimony can provide you with justification. We are told by the article that Edmund Gettier has died earlier this year, and we seem to be justified in believing that. In that case, let's assume, justification and truth matches. But this isn't the case always. You may see that the color of the wall is red, for example, and may feel prima facie justified in believing that the wall is red. But it may be the case that, unknown to you, there is a red light projected over the wall, which is actually cream color. In an absolute sense, you are wrong, but your belief is still justified. 'Justified' and 'true' are used for different purposes.
- allturtles 5y ago
  Okay, I buy that, you can have a justified belief that isn't true, if justification is itself subjective/probabilistic rather than deductive. Then this paper argues that you can have a justified belief that is true, but still isn't knowledge. Why? Because the justification is faulty. Well sure, since we've admitted in the first place that justifications can be faulty. So why would you ever assume that they invariably lead to knowledge? Had the concept of believing right thing for the wrong reasons not been invented in the 1960s? I just can't get myself into a mindset where this is a revelatory finding, but maybe I'm too steeped in a bayesian worldview.
  - fmoralesc 5y ago
    The problem is that if your definition of knowledge requires only three conditions (belief, truth and justification), then it has counterexamples, namely, the Gettier cases. So we need to either revise our concept of justification (for example, make it so that a knowledge-apt belief is justified only if it is for the right reasons -- but then, how to account for justified but false beliefs?), look for ways to supplement the analysis with additional conditions (for example, that the conditions are satisfied in a robust ways counterfactually), or reject the idea that knowledge can be analyzed altogether. To make it more concrete how this sort of thing can get complicated quickly, consider your own explanation of the case. As I take it, you think that the issue is that "the justification is faulty". But how is it faulty, besides not being true (remember, we have reasons to want justification to not imply truth)? And also, there are Gettier-like cases where we cannot say that justification is faulty or where we can't find false premises (for example, cases where it seems like the problem is that the individuals in questions are not in an appropriate environment, see [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem#False_premises_and_generalized_Gettier-style_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem#False_premises...)).
    - allturtles 5y ago
      Thanks for engaging in the conversation. When I say "the justification is faulty" I just mean it's not deductively air-tight, therefore we can't assume that it leads to truth. In this sense, pretty much all justifications are 'faulty.' The thing I'm struggling with here, ultimately, is truth. All of these problems rely on some outside, oracular knowledge of what is true, (e.g. in the example you linked there really is a cow/sheep in the field, or Mark is really hiding under the desk). But we have no such oracle to refer to, so trying to ground knowledge in truth seems like a lost cause in the first place. All we can have is more or less certain beliefs.
      - 13415 5y ago
        Sure, from a present perspective on epistemology this may make sense, since we now know all the troubles and faulty attempts to decide proper justifications from incorrect ones after Gettier's paper. However, back then the idea to define knowledge using JTB was on the table. The knowledge as justified true belief view is about a definition of knowledge, not a learning method or how to gain knowledge. Many authors would even have rejected the idea of graded belief entirely and said you either believe something or don't (many still do). Since you accept the notion of truth (otherwise you couldn't be a Bayesian), you'd have to explain why you reject the realist conception of knowledge inherent to the JTB view. Gettier's paper is one attack on it, arguing for graded belief representations is another type of attack on it. In this context it is worth noting that graded belief and categorical belief are very hard to reconcile because they have different logical properties [1]. It's known as Locke's Thesis and quite a vexing problem. That being said, I share your intuitions. The factivity of knowledge has created more problems in epistemology than the notion of knowledge was supposed to solve. The German word Erkenntnis in Erkenntnistheorie has a meaning closer to learning theory. AFAIK there is no good equivalent to this in English. [1] http://fitelson.org/coherence/hawthorne.pdf http://fitelson.org/coherence/hawthorne.pdf
prvc 5y ago
You're trying to smuggle the "truth" criterion back into the "justification". Any standard of justification that depends on truth is impractical (to say the least) to meet, creates conceptual confusion, and, if applied to the definition of knowledge in this case, makes the "truth" criterion redundant.
- allturtles 5y ago
  Not so. I was applying a strict definition of justified, where justified means "logically necessary." Others have clarified elsewhere in this conversation that this in't the intent. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I already think the truth criterion is redundant, since if you can determine whether your knowledge is true, you don't need to worry about justifying it or believing it.

fdhfdjkfhdkj 5y ago

Where is Jones in the thought experiment Case I. He attempting to conclude ideas without external influence. There is always external influence

fmoralesc 5y ago

One assumption there is that testimony can provide you with justification. We are told by the article that Edmund Gettier has died earlier this year, and we seem to be justified in believing that. In that case, let's assume, justification and truth matches. But this isn't the case always. You may see that the color of the wall is red, for example, and may feel prima facie justified in believing that the wall is red. But it may be the case that, unknown to you, there is a red light projected over the wall, which is actually cream color. In an absolute sense, you are wrong, but your belief is still justified. 'Justified' and 'true' are used for different purposes.

allturtles 5y ago
Okay, I buy that, you can have a justified belief that isn't true, if justification is itself subjective/probabilistic rather than deductive. Then this paper argues that you can have a justified belief that is true, but still isn't knowledge. Why? Because the justification is faulty. Well sure, since we've admitted in the first place that justifications can be faulty. So why would you ever assume that they invariably lead to knowledge? Had the concept of believing right thing for the wrong reasons not been invented in the 1960s? I just can't get myself into a mindset where this is a revelatory finding, but maybe I'm too steeped in a bayesian worldview.
- fmoralesc 5y ago
  The problem is that if your definition of knowledge requires only three conditions (belief, truth and justification), then it has counterexamples, namely, the Gettier cases. So we need to either revise our concept of justification (for example, make it so that a knowledge-apt belief is justified only if it is for the right reasons -- but then, how to account for justified but false beliefs?), look for ways to supplement the analysis with additional conditions (for example, that the conditions are satisfied in a robust ways counterfactually), or reject the idea that knowledge can be analyzed altogether. To make it more concrete how this sort of thing can get complicated quickly, consider your own explanation of the case. As I take it, you think that the issue is that "the justification is faulty". But how is it faulty, besides not being true (remember, we have reasons to want justification to not imply truth)? And also, there are Gettier-like cases where we cannot say that justification is faulty or where we can't find false premises (for example, cases where it seems like the problem is that the individuals in questions are not in an appropriate environment, see [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem#False_premises_and_generalized_Gettier-style_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem#False_premises...)).
  - allturtles 5y ago
    Thanks for engaging in the conversation. When I say "the justification is faulty" I just mean it's not deductively air-tight, therefore we can't assume that it leads to truth. In this sense, pretty much all justifications are 'faulty.' The thing I'm struggling with here, ultimately, is truth. All of these problems rely on some outside, oracular knowledge of what is true, (e.g. in the example you linked there really is a cow/sheep in the field, or Mark is really hiding under the desk). But we have no such oracle to refer to, so trying to ground knowledge in truth seems like a lost cause in the first place. All we can have is more or less certain beliefs.
    - 13415 5y ago
      Sure, from a present perspective on epistemology this may make sense, since we now know all the troubles and faulty attempts to decide proper justifications from incorrect ones after Gettier's paper. However, back then the idea to define knowledge using JTB was on the table. The knowledge as justified true belief view is about a definition of knowledge, not a learning method or how to gain knowledge. Many authors would even have rejected the idea of graded belief entirely and said you either believe something or don't (many still do). Since you accept the notion of truth (otherwise you couldn't be a Bayesian), you'd have to explain why you reject the realist conception of knowledge inherent to the JTB view. Gettier's paper is one attack on it, arguing for graded belief representations is another type of attack on it. In this context it is worth noting that graded belief and categorical belief are very hard to reconcile because they have different logical properties [1]. It's known as Locke's Thesis and quite a vexing problem. That being said, I share your intuitions. The factivity of knowledge has created more problems in epistemology than the notion of knowledge was supposed to solve. The German word Erkenntnis in Erkenntnistheorie has a meaning closer to learning theory. AFAIK there is no good equivalent to this in English. [1] http://fitelson.org/coherence/hawthorne.pdf http://fitelson.org/coherence/hawthorne.pdf

prvc 5y ago

You're trying to smuggle the "truth" criterion back into the "justification". Any standard of justification that depends on truth is impractical (to say the least) to meet, creates conceptual confusion, and, if applied to the definition of knowledge in this case, makes the "truth" criterion redundant.

allturtles 5y ago
Not so. I was applying a strict definition of justified, where justified means "logically necessary." Others have clarified elsewhere in this conversation that this in't the intent. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I already think the truth criterion is redundant, since if you can determine whether your knowledge is true, you don't need to worry about justifying it or believing it.