Knowledge and justified true belief

Prior to Edmund Gettier, philosophers believed that knowledge was equivalent to reassert true sentiment. Since Plato, it had generally been agreed among philosophers that there are three criteria of marriage offeral knowledge, individually necessity and collectively sufficient (Pryor, 2005 Cushing, 2000). Before the Gettier philosophy, the following JTB Analysis (justification, truth, and belief) formed the basis of the theory of knowledgeS knows that P iff P is true (truth measuring)S believe that P (belief criterion)S is warrant in accept P (justification criterion)A classic simulation of the above proposition would be the one by Carl Ginet on falsify barns. A someone is driving through rural Pennsylvania where there are a lot of fake barns mere wooden fronts that look handle barns from the road. The psyche driving through is not aware of this and has no reason to suspect it. As the person looks off to his or her right, and sees something that looks like a barn, an d then(prenominal) that person believes, Thats a barn. As a matter of fact, it is a barn, as it is one of the few barns in the region which is not a fake. moreover then that person would just be lucky. If he or she had looked at a fake barn instead, then he or she would have believed that it was a barn (Pryor, 2005).In this case then it would seem that the persons belief that he or she drove by a barn is justified or reasonable simply because it looks like a barn and the person was not informed that the region was full of fake barns. Then in this case, the persons belief is also true. But then the question is if that person knows that he or she is driving by a barn (Pryor, 2005).It seems then that justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge. It is this theory that Edmund Gettier is criticizing.ExpositionGettiers main objection is to the claim that justified true belief is sufficient for knowledge. He presented prototypes in which the subject has a justified true belief which intuitively cuckolds to count as knowledge (Pryor, 2005). He does not question whether the three criterion are each infallible. Rather, what Gather provides is that these propositions are not jointly sufficient. In other words, Gettier provides that we can justifiably believe the true proposition P notwithstanding not necessarily know P (Cushing, 2000).In his philosophy, Gettier (1963) makes two important points. First, the proposition wherein S is justified in believing P is a necessary condition of Ss knowing that P is open to the possibility that a person is justified in believing a proposition that is in fact false.The second point is that for some(prenominal) proposition P, if S is justified in believing P, and P entails Q, and S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a consequent of this deduction, then S is justified in believing Q (Gettier, 1963). Stated differently, these two points represent two assumptions 1) it is possible for someone to be justified in believing s omething false and 2) if S is justified in believing P and P entails Q, then S is justified in believing Q (Cushing, 2000).A classic Gettier example to illustrate these two points or assumptions would be the one about the cut through car. Suppose a person called Smith has a justified belief that someone in his office features a Ford. It is also true, as a matter of fact, that someone in the office does indeed own a Ford. However, Smiths evidence for his belief concerns Jones, from his office, who as it turns out does not own a Ford. Smiths belief that someone in the office owns a Ford is true because someone else in the office owns a Ford (not Jones).The person who in fact owns a Ford is actually, for example, called Brown. Yet all of Smiths evidence concerns Jones, and not Brown, so it seems that intuitively, Smith doesnt know that someone in his office owns a Ford. It would seem then that Smith doesnt know, even off though Smith has a justified belief that someone owns a Ford, and as it turns out, this belief happens to be true (Pryor, 2005).From the above example, it would seem that Smith has a justified belief in a true proposition (in that someone in his office owns a Ford), but this is not to say that he has knowledge of that proposition (since the owner of the Ford is Brown, not Jones, as Smith thought). What Gettier (1963) thus tells is that even if the three criterion composed of truth, belief, and justification are individually necessary for knowledge, they are not jointly sufficient (Cushing, 2000). This has been widely called as the Gettier Problem (Pryor, 2005 Cushing, 2000 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006).Thus, the JTB Analysis, previously mentioned as the existing proposition prior to the Gettier problem, does not raise a sufficient condition for someones knowing a given proposition (Gettier, 1963). In the example given on the Ford, the Gettier problem arises because of the proposition that a person knows that someone owns a Ford b ased on evidence that falls short of certainty. If knowledge requires absolutely certain evidence, then the person Smith in the Ford example would not be in a position to know that someone owns a Ford . His (Smiths) evidence later on all was not absolutely certain or infallible because he was mistaken as to who owned the Ford (Pryor, 2005). take for granted that Gettiers philosophy is correct, then a possible solution to the Gettier problem then would be that knowledge is justified true belief where the reasoning on which a persons belief is based on does not proceed through any false steps or falsehood (Pryor, 2005). However, the Gettier examples need not involve any inference, so there may be cases of justified true belief in which the subject fails to have knowledge although the Ss belief that P is not inferred from any falsehood.The lesson from the Gettier problem then is that the justification condition by itself cannot ensure that belief that is true cannot be mistakenly iden tified as knowledge. plane a justified belief (which is belief based on good evidence), can be true because of luck (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006), such as the example on the Ford car wherein Smiths belief that someone owns a car is true in the sense that someone (Brown) does indeed own a car, but Smiths justified belief or good evidence as to the someone who owns the Ford actually pertains to someone else (Jones).Assuming that Gettier is correct, a possible option for working out an account of what knowledge is. Knowledge is justified true belief absent luck or chance. Gettiers fourth condition to knowledge (on the absence of falsehood) is not necessary as his cases indicate that a person can still hold on to a true belief based on luck or accident. The third criterion in the JTB Analysis, on justification, itself requires that luck be excluded (Sudduth, 2005). Thus, justified true belief may be sufficient for knowledge only if you eliminate luck or accident.Conclusi onAccording to Gettier (1963), justified true belief can fail to constitute knowledge. Justified true belief may not be sufficient for knowledge, and he further tells us that the three criterion of truth, belief, and justification are not jointly sufficient. Gettier proposes a third condition, that true belief should not be based on any falsehood. However, his philosophy involves the elements of luck or accident which allows the subject to hold on to a true belief. Thus, it would seem that justified true belief may be sufficient for knowledge providing luck or accident are eliminated from the justification criterion.REFERENCECushing, Simon. (2000). Edmund Gettier Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? University of Michigan-Flint. Retrieved November 1, 2006 fromGettier, Edmund L. (1963). Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? Analysis 23 121-123. transcribed into hypertext by Andrew Chrucky, September 13, 1997. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from http//www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.htmlPryo r, Jim. (Spring 2004). Theory of Knowledge The Gettier Problem. Princeton University. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from http//www.jimpryor.net/teaching/courses/epist/notes/gettier.htmlSudduth, Michael. (2005). Justification and the Gettier Problem. Dr. Michael Sudduths Philosophy Courses Webpage. Retrieved November 1, 2006The Analysis of Knowledge. (January 16, 2006). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from http//plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/