The Possibility of Someone Knowing Something Merely Based on Luck - Essay Example

EPISTEMOLOGY: CAN IT EVER BE A MATTER OF LUCK THAT ONE KNOWS SOMETHING Introduction Epistemology has remained one of the most learned and researched areas of philosophy as a subject that looks at the nature, source and limits of knowledge.1 Even though propositional knowledge can easily be said to be the most studied area of epistemology, it has actually been found based on recent discoveries of the nature of knowledge that there is more to knowledge than propositional knowledge. This therefore brings to fore the issue of types of knowledge, where three major types of knowledge can be found. This paper will therefore focus on knowledge from a more epistemological perspective by touching on the three major types of knowledge known as propositional knowledge, acquaintance knowledge, and know-how.2 Later in the paper, there will be an attempt to justify the possible of someone knowing something as a matter of luck. For this side of the argument, there will be more focus on the nature of propositional knowledge and the Gettier problem as a way of understanding the relationship that exists between knowing something and knowledge. Knowledge as propositional knowledge As has been stated under the introduction, there are several types of knowledge but in the current context, knowledge is explained to mean propositional knowledge. This brief section is therefore dedicated to explaining propositional knowledge and the basis under which propositional qualifies from a philosophical perspective to represent knowledge in general. Propositional knowledge has been explained to be the knowledge of facts, and the knowledge that such and such is the case.3 By implication, propositional knowledge is a conclusive form of knowing, where the result of a person’s idea about an issue, once the idea is correct and based on fact constitutes knowledge. Propositional knowledge has however been said not to make room for guesses, assumptions and luck, as a person’s knowledge of a fact does must be based on true belief.4 For example if a person guesses the time of the day correctly, such as the person says the time may be 5:30 and indeed the time is 5:30, this will not necessarily mean the person has knowledge of the time. Unless there is basis by which the person can justify the possession of true belief that can be authenticated that the pronouncement of time was not based on lucky guess or wishful thinking. On the basis of what has been said already and as will be explained in more detail later, propositional knowledge qualifies to represent knowledge in general as it requires major justifications and evidence of a person’s stance to claim that the person indeed has knowledge.5 The concept of epistemic luck Even though it has been the types of knowledge explained above seem not to support luck as being the manifestation of knowledge, the concept of epistemic luck has been discussed very comprehensively in a number of philosophical literatures to argue that luck could actually have a place in knowing.6 Philosophers who agree to the existence of epistemic luck have said that it is a generic notion which describes any way by which a person can accidentally, coincidentally or fortuitously have true belief.7 When true belief of any kind is said to happen as a result of accident, coincidence or fallacious reasoning, it is said that it is only by luck that a person has true belief.8 An example of epistemic luck can be given as a person who in an examination makes a lucky guess that the answer to a question in a multiple choice question is “D” and indeed “D” happens to be the correct answer. Wishful thinking has also been said to be a means by which a person could form a true belief. For example, even after the weather forecast that there will be a heavy downpour, once could still use wishful thinking to state that it will not rain. Once it does not rain, the person can be said to have had true belief but this true belief is only based on wishful thinking. Before the 21st century, most epistemologists held the idea that epistemic luck is incompatible with knowledge through what they called the incompatibility thesis. Plato is known to be one philosopher who argues that epistemic luck is incompatible with knowledge. In the sections that follow, there is a more detailed scrutiny of the issue to know if indeed there is compatibility between epistemic luck and knowledge and that it may be a matter of luck that one knows something. Plato’s justified true belief as an analysis of knowledge Plato defined knowledge as justified true belief (JTB). In this, it can be said that knowledge requires of truth, belief and justification.9 On the basis of this, Plato creates the understanding that justification, truth, and belief are jointly sufficient and individually necessary to form knowledge. The basis for this assertion is that Plato seem to require that for there to be knowledge, one must at some point in time have either justification, truth, belief, or all the three of these. By understanding the analysis of propositional knowledge, it should be possible to tell whether or not it is possible for someone to know something by luck. This is because the nature of propositional knowledge which is also referred to as the standard condition of knowledge has been said to explain what it means for someone to know something.10 Belief Belief is said to be the first nature of propositional knowledge, which is based on the observation that knowledge is a mental state.11 That is, unlike know-how, belief makes propositional knowledge a concept that begins from the mind and must therefore not necessarily be proven with a physical manifestation. Based on belief, it can be said that things that are not thought about cannot be known. This is because knowledge exists in the mind and so thinking must take place before knowledge can be produced.12 Relating the first nature of propositional knowledge, one may ask if people who exhibit wishful and fortuitous thinking as part of epistemic luck and get right answers cannot be said to truly know something. This is because such people exhibit this first nature of propositional knowledge, which is belief. This is because whether thinking happens among these people in a wishful way or fortuitously, it exemplifies a mental state. Even though this question may sound convincing to say that epistemic luck is knowledge, it has been counter-argued that belief is a specific kind of mental state and so people exhibiting belief must not have any forms of doubt like those engaged in epistemic luck do.13 Truth The second analysis of propositional knowledge therefore deals with truth.14 This nature of propositional knowledge seeks to argue that knowledge should be the result of increased stock of true beliefs whiles minimising false beliefs.15 On the premise of truth, one would say that beliefs that are developed with the purpose of deceiving others such as the use of false propaganda cannot be said to amount to knowledge. In fact, where knowledge is gained by another person about an issue on which there is false propaganda, the knowledge helps to discover the truth and thus thwarts the false propaganda as belief that does not necessarily mean knowledge. With this premise also, epistemic luck hardly fits as being a form of knowledge as it may not have truth backing it. Justification Again, where a person with epistemic luck wants to make claim for having knowledge because the person has developed belief in a set of system, such a person would be required to prove that the said belief is a factual belief. This is where the issue of justification come in. Justification has been said to be the nature of propositional knowledge which requires that not just true belief must be in place to constitute knowledge but that the true belief must be developed in the right way.16 A typical way by which true belief can be said to have been arrived by the use of a right way is when there is sound reasoning and solid evidence that backs the true belief. Certainly, this can be a premise under which epistemic luck cannot be said to be compatible with knowledge. This is because with epistemic luck, the justification of true belief is always absent, leaving the only basis for any argument to be lucky guess or wishful thinking.17 The Gettier cases and how it refuses epistemic luck as constituting knowledge Based on the three nature of propositional knowledge discussed above, epistemologists devised what became known as the justified true belief (JTB). The definition of Plato to knowledge as being JTB however has major limitations when it is taken from the context of luck. This is because it has been explained that if JTB is made the only basis for knowledge, then it will be possible for someone to know something or have knowledge based on luck.18 For example if a broken scientific instrument such as a clock tells someone that the time is 2 o’clock and not regarding the fact that the clock is broken, if it happens that the time of the day is actually 2 o’clock, then the person calling out the time at that particularly moment will be said to have JTB and thus knowledge. Meanwhile, it was only by luck that the person could tell that the time was 2 o’clock. Based on this limitation, Edmund Gettier came built on Plato’s definition and by extension JTB in 1963 with two examples that showed argued that someone may have JTB but no knowledge, especially when luck plays a role in the belief of the person, which turns out to be true.19 There are two conditions that help to understand the Gettier problem better, which have been discussed below. The No-Defeaters Condition The no-defeaters condition argues that whiles a person is producing any form of information or conclusion it should not be possible to have an argument that defeats the person’s true belief.20 Indeed even outside epistemic luck, a person may make a claim about something, thinking he has true belief. But as soon as it is possible to raise an argument that disputes or defeats the true belief of the arguer, knowledge refuses to be created. In relation to the Gettier case 1 which involved Jones and Smith applying for a job, Russell developed the stopped watch example. In that example, the person who called out the time did not know the clock was broken but only had a lucky guess due to the fact that the broken time’s reading was the same as the time of the day. Based on this, it can be said that if this person was asked if the clock was broken, the person might say no. In the mind of such a person, he has JTB. However this JTB can be said to have been based on luck. The luck is due to the fact that the watch stopped at the exact time of the day that the person was asked about the time. Based on this Gettier case 1, as soon as it is pointed to the person that even though the time of the day is 4:40 the clock is broken, that person’s JTB becomes defeated. In such a circumstance Gettier refuses to accept such JTB based on luck as being knowledge due to the fact that the basis of JTB has been defeated. The No-False-Belief Condition In the Gettier case 2, Smith believes that “either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona” because Smith has evidence that Jones has all the time owned a car, and all the time a Ford, in which Jones gave Smith a ride. In this premise, there could be different conditions that may apply. The first is that (a) Jones owns a Ford but Brown does not live in Barcelona, and second (b) Jones rented the Ford but Brown lives in Barcelona. Using this second case, it will be noted that the absence of justification does not give sufficient condition for someone knowing a given proposition. This is because the propositions (a) and (b) were only partially true and so there had to be no-false belief based on luck what so ever for Smith to justifiably state that either “Jones rented a Ford and Brown lives in Barcelona” or that “Jones owns a Ford and Brown does not live in Barcelona”. Using the Gettier case 2, the second condition of no-false-belief tends to take the position that in order to constitute knowledge, a belief must be both true and justified. By implication, having true belief alone is not sufficient to make claim of knowledge when such true belief cannot be justified. The reason for this assertion is that when true belief is not justified, it could be that such belief is considered in the eyes of the person reasoning to be true may only be a false belief.21 A typical example that can be used to explore no-false-belief condition is a person who sees a broken clock reading 4:40 but does not notice the clock was broken and thus tells another person that the time is 4:40. If it happens that lo and behold at the time of giving the information the time was indeed 4:40, such a person may think that the information given was based on true belief because there was the clock reading 4:40 but the person did not know the clock was broken. In such a circumstance, epistemic luck might have occurred by the no-false belief condition says that knowledge has not occurred in this case. The simple reason is that the person only believed a false belief. Conclusion This paper investigated the possibility of someone knowing something merely based on luck. To do this, three types of knowledge which are propositional knowledge, acquaintance knowledge and know-how were explored. The fundamental argument that has been developed from each of these is that knowledge requires something more than lucky guess and that thing is evidence of proof. Meanwhile hardly can a person making a lucky guess prove his conclusion. The three types of knowledge therefore reject the thinking that someone may know something out of luck. The epistemic luck was however used to explain that people who only make guesses may indeed know something as far as the end or conclusion they draw turns out to be true. An example of this is someone who makes a lucky guess in a multiple choice question and gets the answer right. Meanwhile using both the nature of propositional knowledge and the Gettier problem, the understanding that has been developed further is that truth alone is not sufficient to create knowledge. To conclude therefore, it will be said that out of luck, someone may make a claim that is true but this does not amount to knowing something. This is because such truth that results from luck cannot be said to be an evidential part of the person and that when challenged, or in another situation, the person may produce a different answer. It is therefore important that a person has all of belief, truth and justification to have knowledge. References Alston W P, William, Epistemic Justification: Essays in the Theory of Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1989. Armstrong D, Belief, Truth, and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1973. Chisholm R, “The Place of Epistemic Justification.” Philosophical Topics 14, 1986, pp. 85-92. Dancy J and E Sosa, A Companion to Epistemology. Oxford: Blackwell. 1993. Gettier E, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis, 23, 1963, pp. 121-123. Lehrer K, Theory of Knowledge (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview. 2000. Pollock J and J Cruz, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 1999. Pritchard D, “Virtue Epistemology and Epistemic Luck.” Metaphilosophy 34, 2006, 106-30. Sosa E, A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2007. Sosa E, Ernest, “Skepticism and Contextualism.” Philosophical Issues, 10, 2000, pp. 1-18. Vahid H, “Knowledge and Varieties of Epistemic Luck.” Dialectica 55, 2001, pp. 351-362. Vogel J, “The New Relevant Alternatives Theory.” Philosophical Perspectives, 13, 1999, 155-80. 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