What is Knowledge?

1. Ability knowledge - knowing how to complete an activity (e.g. riding a bike)

2. Being in "cognitive contact with reality"

a) Acquaintance knowledge - involves direct contact with a noun/pronoun (e.g. 'Eiffel Tower', 'sister', 'what I'm thinking')

b) Propositional knowledge - declaring an direct/indirect relation with some part of reality

Can be true or false.

Only true propositions describe reality (knowledge as relation between a subject and some part of reality; "cognitive contact with reality").

In ordinary life, may seek to define knowledge in order to recognise instances of knowledge how to possess it (practical purpose).

To understand concepts such as Knowledge, Truth, Evidence, Belief (theoretical purpose).

Knowledge is generally perceived as a good, whether as a means to an end (practical), or an end in itself (theoretical). To possess it is praiseworthy; perhaps as to seek justification of a true belief is a difficult pursuit, and to hold a jusified belief true is matter of principle.

Explanation - a concept broken down into other concepts (e.g. "a bachelor is an unmarried man")

"Real definition" - identifies the "nature" of a thing, independent from the term (e.g. "water is H2O")

Unification with language - "cupholder"

Since Plato, philosophers have tried to provide definitions of some concept 'C' by identifying necessary and sufficient conditions for 'C'.

Conditions are related to conditional statements: "if x, then y", relating the truth of two propositions (e.g. "it is raining" and "I am getting wet"). This example is a conceptual definition.

Antecedent - "if it is raining" (sufficient)

Consequent - "then I am getting wet" (necessary)

The truth value of antecedent and consequent are conditionally related.

Same with "real definitions"

"If x is water, then x is H20" and "If x is H20, then x is water"

Necessary and sufficient conditions

Knowledge of true propositions is "cognitive contact with reality".

"That p" is a necessary conditions for knowledge "that p".

There are true propositions that we don't know, therefore "that p" is not a sufficient condition for knowledge "that p".

General claims are true without exception/qualification, offering necessary and sufficient conditions.

"A triangle has 3 sides"

Yet...

"If A is unmarried, then A is a bachelor"

Find evidence of a counterexample, e.g. "a spinster".

Not every definition attempts to be a general claim (true without exception/qualification), rather, for a practical purpose are non-theoretical.

Non-circular (non-tautological)

Positive when possible

"Real definition" (informative)

Describes esoteric conceptual terms in terms of accessible colloquial concepts

Societal disagreement over concept "knowledge"

Differing degrees of generosity and stringency regarding conditions of knowledge (e.g. non-acquaintance knowledge vs Descartes' method of doubt)

A priori truths (abstract reasoning) vs A posteriori teleology (empirical evidence)

From Plato's dialogue Theaetetus...

Three conditionals ... JTB proposition = K

("I know p if, and only if p is a...")

Justified

True

Belief

[necessary and sufficient conditions]

Known with certainty as opposed to true belief.

Involves "cognitive contact with reality", as can only know what is true.

"Cognitive contact" involves a person's "taking p to be true"; such assent comprises belief.

May be true, but not justified (circumstantial luck).

Uncertain as opposed to justified truth.

Reason/evidence to accept the truth of a belief.

Possible to have a false justified belief (scientific canon of emerging evidence).

If not a necessary condition...

Saying that knowledge is "true belief" or to 'believe truly" fails to capture "goodness" of knowledge through cognitivism over justification (praiseworthy as an intellectual pursuit).

Knowledge without JTB.

JTB without Knowledge.

"True belief" may be necessary and sufficient for knowledge.

Reliable information that a "true belief" is likely to correspond to reality, though not certain, is sufficient for practical purposes, yet JTB is neccessary for theoretical purposes of definintion.

However, "true belief" fails to capture the "goodness" of knowledge, as can be held in both good/bad ways. Certainty's role in theoretical defintion is important, suggesting that it is necessary for knowledge; therefore justification is necessary.

However, TB + ? doesn't necessitate that ? = J. Another concept may be neccessary for Knowledge.

Also, JTB may not be jointly sufficient for Knowledge, instead defined as JTB + ?.

"Reality" is an issue in metaphsyics, and consequently, so is "truth". Relativism about truth exists.

In an everyday sense, it is difficult to conceive of knowledge without "truth", as "justified beliefs" can be true/false, therefore not certainly reflective of reality, hence of knowledge in "cognitive contact with reality".

An issue of whether inductive/contingent synthetic truths are a sufficient version of truth, due to lack of certainty. 

Certain analytic/necessary truths are limited, hence if K = JB + (a/n)T, little can be known.

Conceptual vs empirical knowledge distinction (relations of ideas, matters of fact).

Relativism over truth

Societal consensus determines truth, based upon empirical science "of the day" (new historicist reflections), which changes as opinions change. However truth is a constant, hence human accessibility to truth is impossible as temporal, contingent beings (as opposed to God's ET-simultaneous omniscience regarding necessary truths). This assumes objective truths exist.

To say that knowledge over truth is impossible until eschtological verification, or that objective truth is a non-entity, retreats from relativism to scepticism. To allow that we could be mistaken over truth implies that non-relative truth exists.

Psychological self-deceit (e.g. the school boy who knows an answer, but doesn't believe that his belief is JT) implies that JT is sufficient for knowledge. Yet this confuses belief that "triangles have 3 sides" is wrong with belief that he possess knowledge.

Belief needn't be conscious. Though the school boy isn't consiously commited to his knowledge, he holds an unconscious "tacit" belief, hence belief is a necessary condtion for knowledge.

In the Republic, Plato says that K is never B, as they involve different "faculties", taking different "objects". Instead, he connects K, T and reality.

1. Knowledge is infallible. "Cognitive contact with reality" [Zagzebski] involves certainty.

2. Knowledege is only of what is "real", as opposed to what exists in the imagination alone. Ignorance relates to "nothingness", as an object is of no concern at all, as if it doesn't exist.

If there is a mediator between reality and nothingness, the same can be said for knowledge and ignorance. This is belief (irreducible to either K or I, as have different "objects").

Reality may be divided into the "sensible" (detected through the senses) and the "intelligible" (discovered through the intellect). 

Belief relates to the "sensible" (contingency), and knowledge to the "intelligible" (necessary) (aposteriori/apriori distinction).

Objection to Plato

K and B need not be different faculties, even is K is necessary/certain and belief is contingent/uncertain. This is not resultant of different "powers" as K is necessarily JTB (non-falsifiable), whereas belief may be true/false (falsifiable).

Further, Plato seems to have confused a property of K (objective truth is non-relative/doesn't change) with a property about the object of K (that it is non-relative).

JTB are insufficient conditions.

Deductive argument preserves justification, e.g. "Socrates is a man", "All men are mortal", "Therefore, Socrates is mortal".

He posits 2 hypothetical thought experiments...

1. "Smith and Jones are applying for a job. Smith has been told by his employer that Jones will get the job, hence he believes it. He observes that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. Smith gets the job, and incidentally, has 10 coins in his pocket, unbeknownst to him.

Both beliefs are justified, as inferred deductively (synthetic justification through empirical evidence).

Smith's proposition that "the man who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket" is JTB, but Smith inferred his belief "that Jones will get the job" from a false belief "that Jones, with 10 coins in his pocket, will get the job, based upon word-of-mouth justification".

What makes his belief true has come apart from what justifies it, hence there is no conection between the two.

2. Smith believes that Jones owns a Ford, as ever since acquaintance, Jones has driven a Ford. Smith considers where Brown is, and abstractly, choses "Barcelona" at random. He then deduces that "either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona". In fact, Jones does not own, but rents a Ford and Brown is in Barcelona.

An either/or claim is a disjunction.

Smith's proposition that "either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true, but we would be reluctant to say that he has knowledge of the fact, as his belief is inferred from a false belief. Again, belief and justfication have come apart; justification of the true belief is unrelated.

The expulsion of "false lemmas" clarifies the composition of justification.

Smith inferred his belief that "the man with 10 coins in his pocket will get the job" and "either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona" from a false belief.

A lemma is an assumption part-way through an argument, e.g. that "Jones will get the job".

This condition doesn't deal with the coming apart of J and B, only the examples given.

Further Gettier cases involve JTBN with no K, e.g. a case based upon induction, as quoted by Zagzebski...

Dr Jones has evidence that her patient is suffering from virus X, e.g. symptoms and lab tests are consistent with this diagnosis and no other. However, the patient's symptoms are in fact caused by virus Y.  By chance, Smith has just caught virus X, yet symptoms have not yet shown.

Jones belief is justified, based upon asposteriori evidence.

This justified belief is true (the patient has, although has only just contracted, virus X)

Yet the evidence from which she infers her belief has is unrelated to the fact that Smith has virus X, as well as virus Y. There are also "no false lemmas" (condition N is fulfilled), as all evidence is true (Smith manifests symptoms and the lasb results are accurate) but, crucially, the diagnosis is false. Dr Jones did not infer her belief from a false belief, but from misconjuncted evidence. Here, JTBN is still not K.

ITB = K

"Infallible certainty" must replace "Truth"

If a belief is not certain, it is not justified. This makes Gettier cases impossible.

What is "good" about knowledge may be reducible to its "infallibility".

The "feeling" of certainty

Feelings of certainty are subjective, psycological experiences; a feeling of convinction. This is unhelpful, as do not concern conceptual necessity.

Amounts to scepticism

It is rare that J of B rules out the possibility of error; Infallibilism entails that we can have very little knowledge (of analytic truths). 

Infallibilism rests on a logical error; "If I know that p, I can't be mistaken about p".

The term "can't" can mean both...

a) impossible for one to know "that p" and be mistaken "that p" (about whether are mistaken)

-- "It can't be the case that if I know that p, I am mistaken that p"

b) impossible to be mistaken "that p" (about whether possible to be mistaken)

-- "If I know that p, I can't possibly be mistaken that p"

This is the fallacy of equivocation. Infallibilism assumes that one can not possible be mistaken, yet there are many cases in which perception/memory is fallible. This cannot be inferred from the contingent truth that "I am not mistaken", as this assumed logical impossibility, taking "that p" as a necessary truth.

To accept infallibilism, an independant justification is needed to prove "that p" is logically necessary.

Justification is not a necessary condition for knowledge.

Instead, a reliable cognitive process produces a high percentage of true beliefs, e.g. perception, memory and testimony. 

Children and animals can be said to possess K, as a sophisticated psycology (to process "justification") is unnecessary to form true beliefs through reliable cognitive process.

Reliabilism understand K as a "natrual good", desirable (evolutionarily beneficial) but not "praiseworthy" (i.e. "having good eye sight" is not comendable in terms of autonomous acquisition).

Alvin Goldman's article 'Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge' includes the "Fake Barn" Gettier-style thought experiment.

Henry is driving through 'Barn County', which include many 'barn facades', built to look like real barns when seen from the road. As he drives along, Henry percieves those barn facades as real barns (a false belief). Once, Henry asserts the propostion that "that is a real barn" in conjunction with the only real barn in the county (true belief). Henry's true belief is produced by a reliable cognitive process (i.e. vision), however we would be reluctant to consider it knowledge, since it is RTB only in one "lucky" instance.

This suggests that RTB is insufficient for K.

Further, Jones' proposition that Smith has virus X is produced by a reliable cognitive process, yet it is unrelated to the fact that Smith has virus X, due to this evidence being caused by virus Y. The reliable process has produced a true belief, however K is unfounded.

The Tripartite View and Reliabilism share a similar format: K = TB+Q

Knowledge = True Belief + a third condition (Q) that is closely connected with truth, but indepedent from it (i.e. J or being the product of a RCP)

Zagzebski states that as long as the third condition (Q) is independent from truth, Gettier cases can be formed to reinforce the gap between the two to show that TB+Q is insufficient for K.

Such "double luck" involves both 'bad luck' (Henry believes, of a farcade in Barn County, that there is a barn) and 'good luck' (Henry happens to identify the only real barn in Barn County).

Q may be that a belief is "non-accidentally" true, yet this is vague and negative, and is also not "independent from truth", as only "related to it".

Q must consequent why knowledge is "good" in a way that "true belief" is not.

TB+(arising from)AIV = K

"That p" is a "true belief arising from acts of intellectual virtue".

• Knowledge is a form of achievement for which one deserves credit, hence is a state of "virtue".
• Knowledege is not a process, unlike in RTB, but a matter of the state of a person, and the activity that enables the formulation of "true beliefs"
• if understood indepedently from truth, is subject to Zagzebski's previous objection that "Q must be indepedent, yet related to truth"

Knowledge is a practical and theoretical good, desirable and praiseworthy in some conditional (evolutionarily utilitous) and unconditional sense (good in itself).

Zagzebski develops her account of "intellectual virtue" from Aristotelian Virtue Theory (Ethics). 

A virtue is a "state of a peson that is good by way of helping the person acheive some good purpose or goal", "moral virtues" such as generosity and kindness, aim at "moral goods", such as wellbeing. "Intellectual virtues" aim at "intellectual goods", such as, and especially, "truth".

a)  A virtue motivates us to pursue what is good, i.e. intellectual virtues (such as, "openmindedness") motivate one to discover truth in order to be in "cognitive contact with reality".

b) A virtue enables us to be successful, i.e. the ability to "reliably", and successfully, form "true beliefs".

Intellectual virtue is not inconsistent with false beliefs (though not "as intellectually good" as the acquisition of truth non-accidentally, as built upon related, rational grounds) in occasional instances, rather a intellectually virtuous person is overriddingly "disposed" to form true beliefs. This is true of "moral goods", which are maximal only when "intentionally good" and with "good conseqeunces", hence comprising "acts of moral virtue".

Acts of intellectual virtue can include not only intellectually demanding actions, such as engaging in complex reasonning, but also relatively automatic, unconscious ones, such as looking or remembering, says Zagzebski.

In these latter cases, the motivation to aqcuire a true belief isn't immeadiately obvious, but inferred.