The definition of knowledge

The definition of knowledge in philosophy a level.

Ability Knowledge

This is the knowledge of learning a new skill, gained by experience. E.g. learning how to ride a bike.

Acquaintance Knowledge

This is knowledge of other people, typically familiar to us in our lives. E.g. family and friends

Propositional Knowledge

This is knowledge of truth claims about the world. E.g. water boils at 100 degrees Celsius. Propositional knowledge is the type of knowledge referred to when talking about the definition of knowledge.

The tripartite definition

This is a definition of knowledge created by Plato (428-348) and it states that knowledge is justified true belief (JTB).

Necessary and Sufficient conditions

Necessary conditions are conditions that have to be met for a definition for example, a bachelor is an unmarried man. For the tripartite knowledge, JTB is absolutely necessary

Whereas sufficient conditions are conditions that meet the required conditions for something in the simplest amount of terms. For tripartite knowledge, JBT is sufficient

This is most famously represented in ‘if X then Y’

Conditional Statements

A conditional statement asserts that if the first statement is true, then the second statement must also be true. If the second statement is fake, then the first one must be too.

Issues with tripartite: Necessity

It can be argued that the conditions of the tripartite view are not individually necessary. It can be argued that knowledge is just true belief without justification or a justified truth without the belief.

The necessity of Justrification

Can knowledge be a true belief without justification? A scenario that displays this the racist juror who believes in the guilt of the juror based on the colour of their skin (they are guilty) but did the juror knew this? This does not count as knowledge. so, justification via evidence is needed for knowledge.

The necessity of truth

This is knowing a proposition without it being true, this sounds counterintuitive but if there are scenarios where we know p without the truth condition, then the JTB definition of knowledge is false. An example of this scenario is newtons physics as Einstein has proves them to be false but Newtonian equations are still used in engineering and they produce viable results.

The necessity of belief

Can something be justified and true without believing in it, sounds counterintuitive however there are two arguments in favour of it. The first is the weakest and it states that we sometimes we know things without believing them. For example, Susan is doing an exam and she is very nervous and has no confidence in her answers. She gets some of the answers right so even if she doesn’t believe, she knows.

The stronger argument is that knowledge was never a form of belief.

Defending JTB from the necessity of belief

Either Susan did not know the answer so she cannot produce a justification for it or Susan did belief the answer but this belief was unconscious.

For the stronger argument (knowledge was never a form of belief) we turn to Williamson who said that knowledge is not a type of belief. He used the perception of a tea cup and the hallucination of a cup of tea to illustrate this. You only see the cup of teat on the table if it is really there an factive. Hallucinating a cup of tea is completely different and in a completely different mental state. Therefore knowing is factive, belief is not factive.

Gettier on JTB

Gettier had an issue with JTB as a definition of knowledge and wanted to probe you can have a justified true belief without knowledge. He first states that deductive arguments preserve justification, if you are justified to deduce p from q then you are justified to also believe in p. Secondly, he gives two counterexamples to the tripartite view. The story of Smith and Jones.

JTB+ no false lemmas

The solution to Gettier’s argument against the tripartite view is to modify it so that knowledge is justified true belief with no false lemmas. A false lemma is a false premise said as if it was the truth. However, this definition can be criticised with the example of Henry from barn county as he has JTB+FL but he does not have knowledge.

Reliabilism

This is a definition for knowledge which sated that it is a true belief arrived to by a reliable cognitive process. The reliable cognitive process replaces the justification aspect of the tripartite view because in Gettier’s examples, justification comes by accident or it is insufficient.

P is true

Your believe in p

Your belief is caused by a reliable cognitive process

Reliabilism on henry in barn county

Reliabilism is not proved wrong by henry in barn county because it accepts that henry does know what he is looking at the only real barn because his belief is caused by a very real reliable cognitive process, his vision. This makes henry’s claim true. But again, this is onlt by accident.

Sophisticated reliabilism

This a more complex definition of reliabilism that provided solutions to those faced in scenarios like henry in barn county. It goes like this:

P is true

You believe in P

Your belief in P is caused by a reliable cognitive process

You are able to discriminate between ‘relevant possibilities’ in an actual scenario

Reliability as tracking the truth

This was a definition for reliabilism created by Robert Nozick. You know P if:

P is true

You believe in P

In the situation you are in ,or in similar situations, if P were not true, you would not believe in P

In the situation you are in ,or in similar situations, if P were true, then you would believe P

Tracking the truth as a solution to barn county

Henry knows that he is looking at a barn, because if it wasn’t a barn he was looking at he wouldn’t believe that is was. But in Barn County, Henry does not know he is looking at a barn, because he would believe it were a barn even if it were a façade . So in normal cases Henry knows that there is a barn by sight, but in Barn county he doesn’t. 

In the situation he is in, if ‘seeing a barn’ were not true then Henry would not believe that there was a barn in this or any similar situation (in county’s where there are predominantly false examples of objects with only one genuine example).

Epistemic definition of knowledge

This is the definition of knowledge through the lenses of virtue ethics. The definition of knowledge is a true belief brought about by an intellectual virtuous person (K= V+T+B)

triple a rating- Ernest Sosa

An individuals accurate knowing (epistemic skill) results from intellectual virtues. To help understand this, they compare knowing to cases of athletes preforming an athletic task. Sosa’s example is an archer shooting an arrow. There are three key elements to make an accurate shot.

Accuracy is whether the arrow hits the target, this can be developed as a skill or it can come about as an accident when the wind blows it into the target. Even unskilled archers hit targets sometimes.

Adroitness is how skilfully it was shot. An adroit shot is a skilful one but it does not hit the target every time, a large gust of wing can blow it out the way.

Aptness is the shot hits the target because it was adroit (skilful). An apt shot is one that is accurate, it is accurate because it was adroit.

Analysing skill performance- Knowledge

An accurate belief is one this is true

An adroit belief is one that is formed by an intellectual virtue (deductive reasoning, etc)

An apt belief is one this is true because of intellectual virtue.