The Gettier Problem - Essay Example

? The Gettier Problem Thesis: The premise has to be true for the examples of Gettier problems; otherwise they would also be probable and will have a possibility of being nullified by Justified True Belief (JTB). According to Gettier, if someone is justified in believing something then that thing must be true. Or in other words, to able to believe in something one must have enough ‘reason’ or the evidence must be true. Gettier’s argument says that it is possible that a person believes in something that is justified as well as wrong at the same time. One flaw is that Gettier’s argument can lead us to cynicism because it is evident from our everyday lives that it is hardly the case when something is justified by satisfactory evidence that fulfills all philosophical rules of relevant evidence. Gettier wrote his 1963 paper refuting the ‘Justified true Belief’ JTB. If Gettier’s paper is considered true than JTB nullifies but the following example exposes cracks in Gettier’s paper. S knows that P if and only if; S believes P P is true S is justified in believing P And P causes S to believe in P This example excludes the example of Gettier. And doesn’t believe in something as a given fact, for instance if there is a group of people and one person out of the group happens to be Brazilian, the above example cannot give me the position to state that I know that someone out of this group is a Brazilian since this fact will not be my cause for knowing. In his paper, is justified true belief knowledge of 1963, Edmund Gettier raised a problem which he argued and viewed in the traditional knowledge theory. Many attempts by a number of epistemologists have failed, for example, Thomas Paxson and Keith Lehrer put across a theory, which utilized the defeasibility argument to attempt solving the Gettier problem (Lehrer and Paxon 225- 237). In my opinion, Gettier’s problems possibly cannot be beaten of defeated on the basis of principles because in order to understand these problems one has to consider the premise of these problems as true, as it will explained later in this paper that Gettier only plays with the justification and the truth. And it is evident that there is a very fine line between the justification and the truth. Moreover, there is always a certain level of truth to be accepted by a prudent person. For instance, if we all agree to the fact that a billiard ball is round, the question is, is it really round in shape? Students of physics might know that when things are observed at molecular levels, the shapes and boundaries of objects are very different from what they were previously considered. So a billiard ball might not be exactly round at a very fine microscopic or atomic level. Similarly if we Gettier’s problems are considered a law or considered sufficient enough to define knowledge then the shape of the earth can be figured out by a bowling ball. For instance it is a common observation that a bowling ball is considered heavy and it is common sense that earth is holding all forests, water, land and mountains, and is also a very heavy object. Now the bowling ball is round in shape, therefore we can conclude that the earth is also round in shape. I believe that it satisfies Gettier’s problem but this is infect a terrible logic, there is no relevance between the two objects. If only such premises are considered then earth would be shaped like a washing machine because a washing machine is heavy too. One of the many objectives of epistemologists is to come up with a theory of knowledge that specifies the necessary conditions for knowledge. Traditionally, scientists have only agreed to three of these conditions, and they include p is true, s believes in p, and s has a justification to believe in p. according to the theories, if the theories satisfied the conditions then one could say that s knows p. but then Gettier came along with his arguments. In his arguments, he proposed to counterarguments to the traditional conditions, where the theory meets or satisfies the three former conditions with the exception that s did not know p (Gettier 121- 23). Edmund Gettier’s paper rejected the previously held belief and definition of knowledge, recognized as the ‘Justified True Belief’ (JTB). It simply means that if something is true and can be justified is knowledge. Gettier gave his propositions to find the loopholes in the definition of knowledge. He gave two examples to clarify. His first example to reject JTB was of a farmer and his cow. A farmer had one cow that was very dear to him. He wanted to make sure that it was alright. He went to the farm and looked in the farmland from the gate and saw the black and white cow in trees. He came back and told his servant that the cow was in the farm in the trees. Later when the employee went to check the cow, the cow was in a different part of the farm and there was a black and white paper stuck in the tree. He realized that it is impossible to look at the cow from the gate of the farm as the cow was in a different part of the farm but the trees and that black and white paper were visible from the gate. In order to solve or criticize Gettier’s problems, it would be better to know his other example which rejects JTB. In his counter example to JTB, Gettier gives the following example; Smith has applied for a job. But he has a justified claim that ‘Jones will get the job’. Moreover Smith also has a justified belief that ‘Jones has ten coins in his pocket’, therefore he concludes that ‘the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket’. But contrary to his 1st proposition, Smith doesn’t get the job, instead John gets it but surprisingly he also has ten coins in his pocket (which he didn’t know before). According to Gettier, this doesn’t qualify as knowledge despite being justified. Similarly Gettier’s second case; Smith has a justified true belief that ‘Jones owns a Ford’. Therefore by conjunction principle, Smith concludes that ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona”. Smith has no knowledge of Brown’s location. But as it turns out, Jones doesn’t own a Ford but out of sheer luck, Brown is Barcelona. Just like the previous example, Smith has a justified true belief and the result turns out to be correct but it doesn’t satisfy the requirements of the definition of knowledge. In my opinion, all Gettier like problems can be resolved by denying or neglecting the Justified Falsehood principal. For instance in the ten coins case, Gettier blurs a very fine line between the truth and justification. The principle of knowledge that Gettier applies to his cases should be applied to the whole case and not only to the particulars or the premise. For instance, if someone cannot ever be vindicated in having a false belief, then he simply cannot be justified completely in believing the person who gets the job and has ten coins in his pocket. This might seem very logical in a glance but as it turns out, by accepting Justified Falsehood the knowledge (according to the criterion of Gettier) becomes too limited. This can be explained by two cases; the ‘usual’ and the ‘unusual’ case. First the usual case; a boy is sitting is his room and his sister comes in his room asks him to prove that his legs are in fact attached to his body. The boy has enough evidence to prove that his legs are definitely attached to his body by kicking, jumping, running etc. But this only justifies when the premise is considered true that the person sitting in the room is in fact a boy (a complete human being). This was the usual case. Now considering the unusual case in which there is not a boy (a complete human) sitting in a room but in fact just a brain in a container and this brain is asked to prove that the legs are attached to its body. Now the brain has no body but it is only fed with the visuals of legs. It would probably do the same thing to prove that the legs are attached to its ‘body’ but in this unusual case the belief or knowledge is wrong. That is why the Justification of falsehood proves or justifies that the legs are attached to the body. On the other hand, if Justified Falsehood (JF) is denied then it is also refuted that we cannot prove that the legs are attached to the body. This is the sameness of evidence principle. But to be able to critique the Gettier’s problems, and to support the thesis of this paper, Sameness of Evidence SE will be held true and acceptable. So in that case both of the above usual and unusual cases become true otherwise even the boy cannot prove that the legs are attached to his body (because the evidence in both cases is the same). Another way to refute the Gettier problem is by rejecting the Justified Deduction (JD) principle. According to JD; If S is justified in believing P, P brings about Q and S deduces from P in accepting Q, then S is justified in believing in Q. The difference between this logic or experiment and the previous ‘usual’ and ‘unusual’ cases is that this procedure rejects Sameness of Evidence principle. Going back to the Gettier’s case where ‘Smith got the job and also had ten coins in his pocket’, that incorporates Accidental True Belief (ATB). It was a chance and it come out true accidently. It is only common sense that despite the fact or for the sake of argument, we accept that it wasn’t knowledge begs the question that is it universal? We all know if it were true that Smith had coins and got the job was a coincidence but this might probably won’t happen again, at least not consecutively (sheer probability). On the contrary, considering it to JTB and therefore labeling the conclusion ‘the person who will get the job has ten coins’ with ‘knowledge’ doesn’t make it universal either. This brings us back to the initial argument that probably there is no definite or certain knowledge. There are spectrums, or there is almost always a margin for error. Another way to look at the same problem is analyzing the criteria of justification. What is it that makes it sufficient for something to be justified? In my opinion it is better to consider justification as validation for truth. Consider case I ‘Jones will get the job’, here justification implies the truth and it is better to consider it this way then going for the alternative but the main point is that justification is the distinction between Accidental True Beliefs (ATB) and Justified True Beliefs (JTB). All justified beliefs probably are true but all true beliefs are not always justified. Considering this dimension, the belief that ‘Jones will get the job’ is false because it was unjustified (Jones didn’t get the job, Smith did). Now following from this logic, the statement that ‘The person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket’ is Accidental True Belief (ATB) because the initial proposition was unjustified and that is what the conclusions that come out of this unjustified premise of belief are also unjustified and therefore false, but they might otherwise be true. For instance, if it is considered justified that ‘Jones will get the job’ (despite being false), then this leaves us with false proposition and based on this false premise ‘The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket’ becomes a true conclusion which is based on a false premise. But can a logical conclusion be justified if it is derived from one or more false premises? For the sake of this debate let’s consider that the answer to the above is ‘yes’. Then every premise or proposition will be counted as justified and we can fall into a big logical loop. For instance; Premise 1; Christopher Columbus was an elephant Premise 2; all elephants have trunks Conclusion; Columbus had a trunk Considering this logic it makes no difference that the initial promise is demonstrably true or false, the conclusion that ‘Columbus had a trunk’ is sufficient and justified only because it follows from a premise (regardless of being true or false). This gives strength to the original definition of Justified True Belief and therefore weakens the Gettier problem. Hence Gettier problems can only be considered true if their premises are true, otherwise they can be nullified on the basis Justified True Belief (JTB). Works Cited Gettier, Edmund. "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis 23 (1963): 121-23. Print. Lehrer, Keith and Thomas D. Paxon, Jr. "Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief." The Journal of Philosophy, 66.8 (1969), 225-237. Print. "Gettier Problem Response « Sonicsuns at Random." Sonicsuns at Random. 23 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2011. . Read More