There are no Justified True Beliefs in Gettier Cases

Abstract

According to the standard interpretation of Gettier cases, they can be used to form significant challenges to the tradition of defining knowledge as justified true beliefs (hereafter “JTB”). This position naturally assumes that varieties of target beliefs involved in typical Gettier cases are all JTBs, namely, unified beliefs which are simultaneously justified and true. But I do not think this is true. Conversely, every target belief in typical Gettier cases should be cashed out as one or more beliefs, none of which is a genuine JTB. In short, there is no JTB in Gettier’s JTB-hostile vignettes at all. Hence, no matter whether the JTB account of knowledge is correct or not, Gettier cases are not really relevant to it. In addition, although I agree to Mizrahi’s (Logos Episteme 7(1):31–44, 2016) general observation that face-values of target beliefs cannot be taken for granted in all Gettier cases, I have made a further claim that there is no cross-board methodology to disambiguate the target beliefs in all Gettier cases.