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Gettier's problem

Elio Gabalus
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Posted 10/17/06 - 11:10 AM: Subject: Gettier's problem	#1
a:=Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket. b:=The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Above are well known sentences from first Gettier's problem. Gettier's reasoning assumes classical definition of thruth [truth from God's perspective]. Smith knows that b, acording Gettier, because all three condions are satisfited. I think that Smith has no justification for b. So he doesn't know. Why? 'Jones is the man who will get the job' is falseh[having accepted above definition of truth]. Simply, God knows that Jones ISN'T the man who will get the job; so it's false. However b is true, but we can't say that conclusion is true if it was infered from false premises. What do you think about?
I'm waiting for Godot...

Elio Gabalus
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Posted 10/17/06 - 11:23 AM:	#2
Funy, I've just seen other side of the problem and my possible mistake. In his case I should remove this post but I leave it. Smith has justification for b. Sentence b is objectively true [ it happened by chance]. Even if a is false, Smith still has justification for b. The rule that transfer the truth[from premises to conclusion] has nothing to do here. All we need here is the rule which transfers justification. In the other hand, if Smith had known that a is false, he would never infered b. I'm waiting for your suggestions what is the solution. : Edited by Elio Gabalus on 10/17/06 - 11:08 PM
I'm waiting for Godot...

Boondock Saint
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Posted 10/18/06 - 09:11 AM:	#3
I do have a solution for this, but I'll have to go back and locate a copy of the paper. In the mean time, I would suggest using a clearer illustration of E. Gettier's problem with the Traditional Analysis of Knowledge (id est, knowledge is justified true belief) as it is found in Feldman's "Epistemology": Smith is driving down a country road in his car Smith sees a sheep in a passing paddock and concludes: "I know there is a sheep in that paddock" What Smith saw, however, was in fact a sheep-like statue designed solely for the purpose of decieving passers-by. Further, as it turns out, there is a sheep in the paddock, but it happens to hiding behind a tree and not noticable to Smith. Now notice: Smith sees the sheep-statue and believes it to be a sheep. Smith can justify his belief that it is a sheep. Smiths claim about a sheep in the paddock is only incidentally true, by virtue of the fact that a real sheep is present, and he simply isn't aware of it. The problem here is that Smiths assertion that "I know there is a sheep in that paddock" is quite accurate. We are, however, disinclined to accept that Smith actually has knowledge in this case - it seems counter-intuitive - despite the claim having satisfied the conditions of justification, truth, and held belief. The purpose of E. Gettiers' paper was to establish that if we accept the traditional analysis of knowledge as our guide, then we will inexorably arrive at instances of accidental knowledge.
[M]y purpose here is not to teach the method that everyone ought to follow in order to conduct his reason well, but merely to show how I have tried to conduct my own. - Descartes

Elio Gabalus
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Posted 10/18/06 - 09:49 AM:	#4
I find Feldman's example as better. I'm not going to defend classical definition of knowledge. I only suggest that Gettier's examples are insuficient to refute this definition on knowledge.
I'm waiting for Godot...

Boondock Saint
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 10/18/06 - 03:17 PM:	#5
Elio Gabalus wrote: I find Feldman's example as better. I'm not going to defend classical definition of knowledge. I only suggest that Gettier's examples are insuficient to refute this definition on knowledge. I don't expect you'd be the only one; I myself tend toward a particular explanation owing to A. Goldman. Shrug But since we have this thread, you may as well tell me what your contention with E. Gettiers' position is.
[M]y purpose here is not to teach the method that everyone ought to follow in order to conduct his reason well, but merely to show how I have tried to conduct my own. - Descartes

redfarmer
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Posted 10/24/06 - 10:29 AM:	#6
I like Pollock's answer to Gettier myself and his use of defeaters. A defeater is a proposition which renders invalid the proposition being proposed. A simple example: suppose we had been in a room all day with no windows. I tell you it hasn't rained all day because it was sunny when we came in. However, when we leave and go out side, it is poring down rain. The rain is the defeater showing I was not justified in believing it had not rained all day. My insufficient knowledge was due to the fact that I had no way to see the outside. Now, the defeater in Gettier's case is the fact that Jones did not get the job. In this case, there could be an infinite number of people who have ten coins in their pockets. The fact that one of them happened to get the job does not justify the proposition. In logical notation: Jx↔Cx Jj Cj where: Jx = X will get the job Cx = X has ten coins in his pocket j = Jones Now to me it appears if Gettier has set up a biconditional since he believes the fact that the man who actually got the job really had 10 coins in his pocket justifies his belief that Jones got the job. I think the proposition would be better expressed as a conditional: Jx→Cx In this case, the reasoning holds in both cases. We cannot obtain justified belief in the case that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket because this would be affirming the consequent. The proposition is false because Jones does not actually get the job and we do not have justified belief. This is our defeater. Edited by redfarmer on 10/24/06 - 12:04 PM
"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones." -- St. Theresa

FishFace
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Posted 11/04/06 - 04:52 PM:	#7
What do you all think of the "Presence of Relevant Falsehood" counterclaim? If anyone doesn't know, it states that for there to be knowledge, there must be no false belief 'p' on which the belief being considered depends. Thus: (let Bq = Believes that q, Kq = Knows that q) Premises:- p -> q Bp :. Bq q Argument: ~p -> ~Kq (Hope I've written that all properly.) Thus, for the sheep in the field, If the observer correctly believed that the statue was not a sheep, he would not have held his belief that there was a sheep in the field. This that the statue was a sheep, then, is a "relevant falsehood," and there is no knowledge. I'm very interested in this, since JTB is the topic of one of my essays I must submit next week to Oxford University!

MC.Pearce
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Posted 11/05/06 - 07:26 AM:	#8
Boondock Saint: We are, however, disinclined to accept that Smith actually has knowledge in this case - it seems counter-intuitive - despite the claim having satisfied the conditions of justification, truth, and held belief. The purpose of E. Gettiers' paper was to establish that if we accept the traditional analysis of knowledge as our guide, then we will inexorably arrive at instances of accidental knowledge. I can't see how introducing accidental or incidental knowledge helps at all. Accident undermines justification. This seems like an attempt to explain away something which is really quite damaging. Nor does there seem any clear way of distinguishing actual-JTB from accidental-JTB. The criterion is whether the JTB produced seems (in retrospect) to be counter-intuitive. Leaving it up to individual discretion is quite a wishy-washy way of demarcating knowledge from pseudo-knowledge.
"Now, brothers, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?" - 1 Corinthians 14

redfarmer
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Posted 11/05/06 - 03:12 PM:	#9
FishFace wrote: (let Bq = Believes that q, Kq = Knows that q) Premises:- p -> q Bp :. Bq q Argument: ~p -> ~Kq (Hope I've written that all properly.) Thus, for the sheep in the field, If the observer correctly believed that the statue was not a sheep, he would not have held his belief that there was a sheep in the field. This that the statue was a sheep, then, is a "relevant falsehood," and there is no knowledge. I'm very interested in this, since JTB is the topic of one of my essays I must submit next week to Oxford University! I'm confused by the format of your logic. You have a predicate being negated leading to atatement in a conditional. What I'm assuming you meant is: (p)(~Bp→~Kp) Is this what you mean?
"More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones." -- St. Theresa

FishFace
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Posted 11/05/06 - 03:48 PM:	#10
redfarmer wrote: I'm confused by the format of your logic. You have a predicate being negated leading to atatement in a conditional. What I'm assuming you meant is: (p)(~Bp→~Kp) Is this what you mean? Sorry, I've never encountered that kind of expression - as I say, I'm a bit of a "newbie" to symbolic logic. Namely, I don't know how to read (r)(s) (where r is p above, and s is `~Bp -> ~Kp`) What I'm trying to say is "If p is not true, one does not know that q" (Given the premises as above.) I don't know whether this might help, but I'll try a slightly different method: ( ((((p -> q) ^ Bp) ^ Bq) ^ q) -> (~p -> ~Kq) ) ( If (p implies q) and (believes that p) and (believes that q) ) then ( if not p then not know that q ) Again, this is just how I'd write it with my rudimentary grasp of symbolic logic. Using the Premise/Argument format may have been a bad idea, but I don't think that's what you're saying, is it? I'd be much obliged if you could write this out symbolically and correctly, and even more obliged if you could tell me why that's how it is, and why what I wrote isn't! (Assuming [a] that the above is possible to write symbolically, and [b] that explaining doesn't require several pages of groundwork!) Thanks in advance! Edited by FishFace on 11/05/06 - 04:01 PM

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