~Ks [~h] ………………. ~Ks MT p By we see that because does not know that is false, it is not the case modus tollens, s h that knows that this conclusion need not necessarily be true, and that, p’. ‘s Showing on the contrary, knowledge possible, forms the basis of the epistemological tradition is of attempting to defeat the sceptic. A second tradition follows from the work of Edmund Gettier, who famously shows that knowledge is not simply justified true belief. He achieves this by describing some vignettes in which the asserts what turn out to be justified true protagonist ‘Smith’ beliefs thus apparently meeting the criteria for knowledge but which had in fact – – been based on faulty evidence. The first of these scenarios involves the logical conjunction of a true and a false belief about the results of a job interview (that the successful candidate will have ten coins in his pocket AND that Jones will get the job) to arrive at an apparently justified true belief (that the successful candidate will have ten coins in his pocket). This cannot be regarded as knowledge, however. Smith himself is appointed to the post, but the fact that he also has ten coins is mere epistemic luck, derived from an observation of and not his own. So Jones’s pocket-contents Smith has a justified true belief that but not, Gettier argues, a that p, knowledge p. Thus, justified true belief and knowledge are shown to be not the same thing. Despite their apparent triviality, Gettier counter-examples such as this have proved surprisingly difficult to defuse, and they have set off a philosophical cottage industry which attempts to achieve this by proposing definitions of knowledge. A ‘Gettier-proof’ construal of knowledge is sought along the lines of (JTB).G, where G is a requirement. Underlying both of the projects outlined above defeating the sceptic and – knowledge-claims is the intuition that knowledge is something we should – care about. It is seen as being important enough to make the effort of neutralising both the sceptic and Gettier be regarded as worthwhile. In common with Socrates, as educators we feel that knowledge has an extra value, over and above that of mere true belief, which we ought to prize. This feature of knowledge is something for which virtue epistemology might be reasonably expected to account, given (in at least some of
~Ks [~h] ………………. ~Ks p MT By modus tollens, we see that because s does not know that h is false, it is not the case that ‘s knows p’. Showing that this conclusion need not necessarily be true, and that, on the contrary, knowledge is possible, forms the basis of the epistemological tradition of attempting to defeat the sceptic. A second tradition follows from the work of Edmund Gettier, who famously shows that knowledge is not simply justified true belief. He achieves this by describing some vignettes in which the protagonist ‘Smith’ asserts what turn out to be justified true beliefs – thus apparently meeting the criteria for knowledge – but which had in fact been based on faulty evidence. The first of these scenarios involves the logical conjunction of a true and a false belief about the results of a job interview (that the successful candidate will have ten coins in his pocket AND that Jones will get the job) to arrive at an apparently justified true belief (that the successful candidate will have ten coins in his pocket). This cannot be regarded as knowledge, however. Smith himself is appointed to the post, but the fact that he also has ten coins is mere epistemic luck, derived from an observation of Jones’s pocket-contents and not his own. So Smith has a justified true belief that p, but not, Gettier argues, a knowledge that p. Thus, justified true belief and knowledge are shown to be not the same thing. Despite their apparent triviality, Gettier counter-examples such as this have proved surprisingly difficult to defuse, and they have set off a philosophical cottage industry which attempts to achieve this by proposing ‘Gettier-proof’ definitions of knowledge. A construal of knowledge is sought along the lines of (JTB).G, where G is a requirement. Underlying both of the projects outlined above – defeating the sceptic and knowledge-claims – is the intuition that knowledge is something we should care about. It is seen as being important enough to make the effort of neutralising both the sceptic and Gettier be regarded as worthwhile. In common with Socrates, as educators we feel that knowledge has an extra value, over and above that of mere true belief, which we ought to prize. This feature of knowledge is something for which virtue epistemology might be reasonably expected to account, given (in at least some of
PhD%20Sean%20FINALL%202011.docx