Flashcards
The Analysis of Knowledge
Cards in this deck (16)
- 1Give an example to support the claim that the third of the JTB conditions is necessary.A person who is led to believe a true mathematical result by means of an invalid proof does not know the result is true. (Ayer)
- 2What, according to Ayer, is knowledge? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions?Knowing is "having the right to be sure".
The conditions are:
1. What one is said to know is true
2. One is sure of it
3. One has the right to be sure (which may be earned in various ways) - 3Why is it fallacious to think that, if it is a necessary condition for something's being known that it is true, then we can only know necessary truths?Rests on the mistaken assumption that knowing is an infallible state of mind.
- 4Ayer distinguishes two debates about knowledge. What are they and what analogy does he use?1. The terminological debate about when to use the word "knowledge"
2. The substantial debate about knowledge (e.g. the scepticism debate)
The former is like agreeing on a candidate's marks but disagreeing about what honours to bestow upon them. The latter is like disagreeing about the marks. - 5Why does Ayer stress that there is no reason to elevate the status of a priori claims in the debate about what constitutes knowledge?A priori claims may be necessary, and a posteriori claims contingent, but this does not make the former certain. There is the possibility of error with respect to any claim.
Note: Given this fact, it is possible to make legitimate claims to knowledge even when they violate one of the conditions. The claim is satisfied only if it meets the conditions, but it may be legitimate as long as it has the appropriate backing. - 6What is the purpose of the Gettier cases?To show that the JTB conditions are not jointly sufficient for knowledge.
(I.e. Gettier is trying to present cases where the JTB conditions are satisfied, but that are not cases of knowledge.) - 7What is the first Gettier case?Smith and Jones both apply for the same job. Smith has strong evidence that Jones will get the job, and that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. So he deduces that "the person who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket". In fact, Smith gets the job, and by co-incidence, he too has 10 coins in his pocket...
- 8Give a couple more examples of Gettier cases. What advantages do these have over the cases actually presented by Gettier?The Real Barn
The time on the stopped clock
In these two cases, the belief in the true proposition is not justified by any false evidence. (So this might address Armstrong/Meyers and Stern) - 9Alvin Goldman attempts to get around the Gettier cases by adding a requirement to the traditional account of knowledge. What requirement does he add? Explain this in the context of (i) memory, (ii) inference.That there be a causal connection between S's knowing p and p's being true (which is clearly absent in the Gettier cases).
(i) S remembers a fact if the cause of S's belief at time t1 is S's belief at some earlier time t0.
(ii) S can be said to know a proposition by inference only when S's believing p is connected to p by a causal chain. (e.g. inference would lead to knowledge that a volcano erupted only if the solidified lava came from the volcano, and not if it was put there at some later time.) - 10In addition to there *being* a causal connection between p and S's believing p, what other necessary condition does Goldman insist on? Give an example to illustrate why he does this.That S can accurately reconstruct the causal chain from p to the belief.
Consider a misprint of a date in a newspaper, that S misreads. S ends up with a true belief that is causally connected to the thing believed, but not in the way S believes it to be. - 11Does Goldman require that, in order for S to know p, the fact that p must be the cause for S's belief that p? Why/why not?He does not—this would preclude knowledge of any facts about the future. Goldman just requires that there be a causal connection, and this could just be a common cause for the belief and the fact.
- 12Explain the difference between giving (i) the meaning (ii) the truth conditions (iii) the verification conditions for knowledge. What does Goldman take himself to be giving with his causal account?The truth conditions
- 13How does Michael Clark attempt to get around Gettier's analysis? How does Keith Lehrer object?Clark: for S to know that p, each of S's grounds for knowing p must be true, as well as the grounds for the grounds etc.
Lehrer: this analysis is too strong. It rules out certain claims to knowledge that clearly are cases of knowledge. (Can you give an example?) - 14How does D.M. Armstrong respond to Gettier? How does this differ from the response given by Meyers and Stern?Gettier cases all hinge on false evidence being used to justify the believed proposition.
Armstrong: one proposition, p, can justify another, h, only if p is known to be true.
(Meyers and Stern demand only that p be true.) - 15What objections can be raised against the causal theory of knowledge?1. How can it account for mathematical and ethical knowledge?
(2. Problems of verifiability) - 16Provide an example that seems to contradict the claim that belief is a necessary condition for knowledge.Patients with blindsight have no conscious visual perception, but can, when asked, make fairly reliable "guesses".
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- The "justified, true belief" account of knowledge; Ayer; Gettier cases; causal theories of knowledge.
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