Gettier Problem Research Articles

Knowledge Ascriptions * By JESSICA BROWN and MIKKEL GERKEN

Some contemporary theorists of knowledge adopt a meta-linguistic approach, focusing their attention on questions about knowledge attributions (or ascriptions). Brown and Gerken�s volume comprises state-of-the-art contributions to this literature, and will be essential reading for researchers in this area. Many have assumed an intimate connection between questions about the nature of knowledge and questions about knowledge attributions (and denials). Several of the present contributors continue in this vein: Jessica Brown (Ch. 2) defends the epistemological relevance of �linguistic considerations and thought-experiment judgements� (32), Ephraim Glick (Ch. 6) equates questions about knowledge-how and questions about attributions of knowledge-how, and Angel Pinillos (Ch. 9) appeals to �ordinary people�s attributions of knowledge� as evidence that �knowledge is an interest-relative notion� (192). Although Brown is right to note that judgements about thought experiments are not linguistic intuitions, many theorists now think of thought experiments as teaching us not about knowledge but about knowledge attributions � about how we think and talk about knowledge. Jennifer Nagel (Ch. 8) discusses an intriguing puzzle arising from the fact that naive experimental subjects are equally inclined to deny knowledge in Gettier cases and in �skeptical pressure� cases; sophisticated anti-sceptical epistemologists would like to agree with the folk in the first case, but not in the second. Nagel�s solution to this puzzle is instructive when it comes to the question of what empirical psychology (and �

GETTIERIZED KNOBE EFFECTS

AbstractWe report experimental results showing that participants are more likely to attribute knowledge in familiar Gettier cases when the would-be knowers are performing actions that are negative in some way (e.g. harmful, blameworthy, norm-violating) than when they are performing positive or neutral actions. Our experiments bring together important elements from the Gettier case literature in epistemology and the Knobe effect literature in experimental philosophy and reveal new insights into folk patterns of knowledge attribution.

Williamson on Gettier Cases in Epistemic Logic and the Knowledge Norm for Rational Belief: A Reply to a Reply to a Reply

Williamson on Gettier Cases in Epistemic Logic and the Knowledge Norm for Rational Belief: A Reply to a Reply to a Reply

Fallibilism and the value of knowledge

This paper defends the epistemological doctrine of fallibilism from recent objections. In “The Myth of Knowledge” Laurence BonJour argues that we should reject fallibilism for two main reasons: first, there is no adequate way to specify what level of justification is required for fallible knowledge; second, we cannot explain why any level of justification that is less than fully conclusive should have the significance that makes knowledge valuable. I will reply to these challenges in a way that allows me to make progress on a number of important issues in contemporary epistemology: epistemic value, the functional roles of knowledge attributions, experimental epistemology, skepticism, the Gettier problem, and the lottery paradox. My argument is motivated by appealing to various insights derived from the method of ‘practical explication’, particularly the idea that a central purpose of the concept of knowledge is to flag reliable informants. My conclusion is that various practical and theoretical considerations derived from the method of practical explication support the fallibilist conception of knowledge.

Taking ‘know’ for an answer: A reply to Nagel, San Juan, and Mar

Nagel, San Juan, and Mar report an experiment investigating lay attributions of knowledge, belief, and justification. They suggest that, in keeping with the expectations of philosophers, but contra recent empirical findings [Starmans, C. & Friedman, O. (2012). The folk conception of knowledge. Cognition, 124, 272–283], laypeople consistently deny knowledge in Gettier cases, regardless of whether the beliefs are based on ‘apparent’ or ‘authentic’ evidence. In this reply, we point out that Nagel et al. employed a questioning method that biased participants to deny knowledge. Moreover, careful examination of participants’ responses reveals that they attributed knowledge in Gettier cases. We also note that Nagel et al. misconstrue the distinction between ‘apparent’ and ‘authentic’ evidence, and use scenarios that do not feature the structure that characterizes most Gettier cases. We conclude that NS&M’s findings are fully compatible with the claim that laypeople attribute knowledge in Gettier cases in general, but are significantly less likely to attribute knowledge when a belief is generated based on apparent evidence.

Knowledge: Value on the Cheap

We argue that the so-called ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Value Problems for knowledge are more easily solved than is widely appreciated. Pritchard, for instance, has suggested that only virtue-theoretic accounts have any hopes of adequately addressing these problems. By contrast, we argue that accounts of knowledge that are sensitive to the Gettier problem are able to overcome these challenges. To a first approximation, the Primary Value Problem is that of understanding how the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than does the property of being true. The Secondary Value Problem is one of understanding how, for instance, the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than does the property of being jointly true and justified. We argue that attending to the fact that beliefs are continuing states reveals that there is no difficulty in appreciating how knowledge might ordinarily have more epistemic value than mere true belief or mere justified true belief. We also explore in what ways ordinary cases of knowledge might be of distinctive epistemic value. In the end, our proposal resembles the original Platonic suggestion in the Meno that knowledge is valuable because knowledge is somehow tied to the good of truth.

‘Unlucky’ Gettier Cases

This article argues that justified true beliefs in Gettier cases often are not true due to luck. I offer two ‘unlucky’ Gettier cases, and it's easy enough to generate more. Hence even attaching a broad ‘anti-luck’ codicil to the tripartite account of knowledge leaves the Gettier problem intact. Also, two related questions are addressed. First, if epistemic luck isn't distinctive of Gettier cases, what is? Second, what do Gettier cases reveal about knowledge?

Safety, Sensitivity and “Distant” Epistemic Luck

AbstractProminent instances of anti‐luck epistemology, in particular sensitivity and safety accounts of knowledge, introduce a modal condition on the pertinent belief in terms of closeness or similarity of possible worlds. Very roughly speaking, a belief must continue to be true in close possibilities in order to qualify as knowledge. Such closeness‐accounts derive much support from their (alleged) ability to eliminate standard instances of epistemic luck as they appear in prominent Gettier‐type examples. The article argues that there are new Gettier‐type examples which are grounded in “distant” epistemic luck. It is demonstrated that sensitivity and safety theories cannot handle such examples.

Extended cognition and epistemic luck

When extended cognition is extended into mainstream epistemology, an awkward tension arises when considering cases of environmental epistemic luck. Surprisingly, it is not at all clear how the mainstream verdict that agents lack knowledge in cases of environmental luck can be reconciled with principles central to extended cognition.

Lay denial of knowledge for justified true beliefs

Intuitively, there is a difference between knowledge and mere belief. Contemporary philosophical work on the nature of this difference has focused on scenarios known as “Gettier cases.” Designed as counterexamples to the classical theory that knowledge is justified true belief, these cases feature agents who arrive at true beliefs in ways which seem reasonable or justified, while nevertheless seeming to lack knowledge. Prior empirical investigation of these cases has raised questions about whether lay people generally share philosophers’ intuitions about these cases, or whether lay intuitions vary depending on individual factors (e.g. ethnicity) or factors related to specific types of Gettier cases (e.g. cases that include apparent evidence). We report an experiment on lay attributions of knowledge and justification for a wide range of Gettier Cases and for a related class of controversial cases known as Skeptical Pressure cases, which are also thought by philosophers to elicit intuitive denials of knowledge. Although participants rated true beliefs in Gettier and Skeptical Pressure cases as being justified, they were significantly less likely to attribute knowledge for these cases than for matched True Belief cases. This pattern of response was consistent across different variations of Gettier cases and did not vary by ethnicity or gender, although attributions of justification were found to be positively related to measures of empathy. These findings therefore suggest that across demographic groups, laypeople share similar epistemic concepts with philosophers, recognizing a difference between knowledge and justified true belief.

UNDERSTANDING, GRASPING AND LUCK

AbstractRecently, it has been debated as to whether understanding is a species of explanatory knowledge. Those who deny this claim frequently argue that understanding, unlike knowledge, can be lucky. In this paper I argue that current arguments do not support this alleged compatibility between understanding and epistemic luck. First, I argue that understanding requires reliable explanatory evaluation, yet the putative examples of lucky understanding underspecify the extent to which subjects possess this ability. In the course of defending this claim, I also provide a new account of the kind of ‘grasping’ taken to be central to understanding. Second, I show that putative examples of lucky understanding unwittingly deploy a kind of luck that is compatible with knowledge. Finally, appealing to a number of works on explanation and its attendant epistemology, I argue that alleged instances of lucky understanding that overcome these two obstacles will invariably violate certain norms of explanatory inquiry – our paradigmatic understanding-oriented practice. By contrast, knowledge of the same information is immune to these criticisms. Consequently, if understanding is environmentally lucky, it is always inferior to the understanding that a corresponding case of knowledge would provide.

Manifest Failure Failure: The Gettier Problem Revived

If the history of the Gettier Problem has taught us anything, it is to be skeptical regarding purported solutions. Nevertheless, in “Manifest Failure: The Gettier Problem Solved” (2011), that is precisely what John Turri offers us. For nearly fifty years, epistemologists have been chasing a solution for the Gettier Problem but with little to no success. If Turri is right, if he has actually solved the Gettier Problem, then he has done something that is absolutely groundbreaking and really quite remarkable. Regrettably, however, while Turri’s account is both intuitive and elegant—improving upon many seminal projects within contemporary epistemology—I argue in this paper that any success against Gettier counterexamples it affords is merely fleeting. Straightforwardly, this is done in two sections. In §1, I briefly sketch Turri’s proposed solution to the Gettier Problem. Then, in §2, I level a counterexample against it. Unfortunately for Turri and his solution, in this paper we will see history repeat itself.

Williamson on Gettier Cases and Epistemic Logic

Timothy Williamson has fruitfully exploited formal resources to shed considerable light on the nature of knowledge. In the paper under examination, Williamson turns his attention to Gettier cases, showing how they can be motivated formally. At the same time, he disparages the kind of justification he thinks gives rise to these cases. He favors instead his own notion of justification for which Gettier cases cannot arise. We take issue both with his disparagement of the kind of justification that figures in Gettier cases and the specifics of the formal motivation.

Response to Cohen, Comesaña, Goodman, Nagel, and Weatherson on Gettier Cases in Epistemic Logic

ABSTRACT The five commentators on my paper ‘Gettier Cases in Epistemic Logic’ (GCEL) demonstrate how fruitful the topic can be. Especially in Brian Weatherson's contribution, and to some extent in those of Jennifer Nagel and Jeremy Goodman, much of the material constitutes valuable development and refinement of ideas in GCEL, rather than criticism. In response, I draw some threads together, and answer objections, mainly those in the papers by Stewart Cohen and Juan Comesaña and by Goodman.

On the Validity and Invalidity of the Same Evidence Principle: Marxism’s Answer to Sceptical Problems and the Gettier Problem

On the Validity and Invalidity of the Same Evidence Principle: Marxism’s Answer to Sceptical Problems and the Gettier Problem

Gettier Cases in Epistemic Logic

The possibility of justified true belief without knowledge is normally motivated by informally classified examples. This paper shows that it can also be motivated more formally, by a natural class of epistemic models in which both knowledge and justified belief (in the relevant sense) are represented. The models involve a distinction between appearance and reality. Gettier cases arise because the agent's ignorance increases as the gap between appearance and reality widens. The models also exhibit an epistemic asymmetry between good and bad cases that sceptics seem to ignore or deny.

Motivating Williamson's Model Gettier Cases

Williamson has a strikingly economical way of showing how justified true belief can fail to constitute knowledge: he models a class of Gettier cases by means of two simple constraints. His constraints can be shown to rely on some unstated assumptions about the relationship between reality and appearance. These assumptions are epistemologically non-trivial but can be defended as plausible idealizations of our actual predicament, in part because they align well with empirical work on the metacognitive dimension of experience.

Gettier made ESEE

Previous research in experimental philosophy has suggested that moral judgments can influence the ordinary application of a number of different concepts, including attributions of knowledge. But should epistemologists care? The present set of studies demonstrate that this basic effect can be extended to overturn intuitions in some of the most theoretically central thought experiments in contemporary epistemology: Gettier cases. Furthermore, experiment 3 shows that this effect is unlikely to be mediated by a simple desire to blame, suggesting that a correct psychological account of ordinary knowledge attribution may include moral judgment.

Dialectic of the aesthetic in Adorno’s critique of Kierkegaard

The main purpose of this paper is to clarify the category of the aesthetic in context of Adorno?s critique of the philosophy of S?ren Kierkegaard. Adorno?s principal thesis is that Kierkegaard?s famous doctrine of existence and his individualism contain an implicit ontology, despite the fact that he intends to overcome objective ontology of absolute idealism. However, this reversal is hidden from Kierkegaard, and can only be deciphered in the posthumous history of his work. Adorno?s method is critique of ideology synthetised with Benjamin?s rather esoteric theory of allegory. His intent is twofold: not only to expose the abstract character of Kierkegaard?s doctrine of ?objectless? inwardness, but to decipher an implicit historical truth of his philosophy, the social relations of bourgeois society. In the course of his argument, Adorno shows that Kierkegaard?s philosophy comes closest to its truth not in the realm of religious experience and faith, as Kierkegaard himself believed, but in the sphere of melancholy and aesthetic semblance. The category of the aesthetic plays an important role in Adorno?s later philosophy of art, as well as his critique of knowledge in general.

Chrétien de Troyes's Gettier Problem: Cligès , Lines 2048-89

Irony has often been used to describe the poetics of Chretien de Troyes's Arthurian romance Cliges. The two were forever linked by the subtitle of P. Haidu's seminal 1967 dissertation Aesthetic Distance in Chretien de Troyes: Irony and Comedy in Cliges and Perceval, and ever since, critics have found irony throughout the text. There is a passage in Cliges at lines 2048-89, however, that presents an irony that critics (including Haidu), translators, and scribes have missed. It comes a third of the way through the romance and is doubled by a more usual, less disturbing ironic moment of mistaken identity in which a few characters mourn their not-actually-dead lord and companions. But underlying that typical irony, which challenges what we can know based on illusion, we can disinter a deeper irony that challenges what we can know even when we are not mistaken. Alexander, future father to the text's eponymous hero, has just defeated the rebellious Count Angres. But there is a problem: he and his men are trapped within the castle walls by the remaining rebels outside. Not all of Alexander's Greek cohort are with him, and those still on the battlefield make what they think is a deathly discovery: The Greeks who were still outside [the castle] knew nothing of [Alexander's victory]. In the morning, after the battle was over, they found their companions' shields lying among the dead and wrongly presumed them to have been slain. When they recognized their lord's shield, the Greeks were in such anguish over his loss that they fell in a faint upon his shield, proclaiming that they had lived too long. Cornix and Nerius fainted, and on recovering regretted they were still alive. From Torin's and Acoriondes' eyes there flowed a torrent of tears down over their breasts; their lives and their happiness seem detestable to them. And more than all the others, Parmenides tore at his hair and pulled it out. These five grieved more deeply for their lord than can be imagined. But their grief was groundless: instead of Alexander, whom they thought they were bearing off, they had another. The other shields, which they thought marked the bodies of their companions, likewise caused them great sorrow. They wept and fell in a faint upon them; but they were deceived by these shields, too, for only one of their companions, [Lenolis], had been slain. They might rightly have borne off his body, had they known; but they were in as much distress for these others as for him. So they took them all and bore them away, though they were mistaken about all but one. The shields made them take appearance for reality, like a man who dreams and takes a lie for the truth. By the shields they were deceived. (lines 2048-89; Kibler 148) (1) The Greeks might not be the only ones confused here, for we too may wonder just who is dead and who alive. Such uncertainty is central, I think, to the meaning of this passage, which establishes an irony whose bite goes deeper than expected. Confusion arises because the structure of this passage is what modern philosophers call a Problem. This is no mere case of mistaken identity or of some disjunctive irony in which the reader knows more than the characters. While such elements are present, Chretien's Gettier problem is a uniquely troubling instance of irony in an otherwise thoroughly ironic text, revealing more than a gap between the reader's knowledge and the characters' knowledge. Indeed, readers (be they translators, editors, etc.) get stumped by this passage. The problem is that the irony here is not just generally epistemological, but perversely skeptical; it does not just involve false reports based on illusion (which is the focus of Haidu's analysis (2)), but challenges whether we know something even when based on true reports and correct perception. In 1963, E. L. Gettier produced a mere two-and-a-half-page article that, according to the hyperbole of legend, overturned some twenty-three hundred years of epistemology. …