what is knowledge? - knowledge and skeptiscism

what is ability knowledge? ‘how’

• knowing how to perform certain tasks

• doesn’t require an understanding

• doesn’t require the person to be concious of what they know

• doesn’t require them to be able to articulate what they know

• cannot be directly communicated from person to person

what is aquaintence knowledge? ‘of’

• when i come into contact with something and am made aware of it

• doesn’t require you to be able to articulate what you know

• cannot be expressed verbally

• cannot communicate from person to person

what is propositional knowledge? ‘that’

• factual knowledge

• can be expressed lingustically

• can be communicated from person to person

• involves believeing the proposition is true

how does Zagzebski define knowledge?

B - be brief
A - not ad hoc (made to solve a problem)
C - not circular
O - not obscure
N - not negative

what is a necessary condition and a sufficient condition?

necessary - a n condition for X is a condition which must be true for X to be true

sufficient - a s condition (or set of jointly sufficient conditions) for X is a condition/s which if it is true, means that X is true

what is the tripartite view? - JTB

• for someone to be in possesion of knowledge, the knowledge must meet the three conditions, justified, true and believed

• true - what they believe corresponds to a truth in reality

• believed - must be taken to be true by the knower

• justified - must be good reason why the person believes it

what is JTB expressed logically?

S knows that p if and only if S belives p, S is justified in believing p, and p is true

explain the problem for JTB - the conditions are not individually necessary (is it possible to have knowledge without these conditions?) - examining the belief condition

• mutually incompatible, if you have one you cannot have the other

• plato’s ‘republic’ - knowledge is infalliable and belief is fallible

• to have a belief is to be uncertain about the object of that belief, whereas knowledge requires certainty

• we may say ‘I don’t believe i’ll win, I know i’ll win’ - this suggests belief cannot be necessary for knowledge

response that belief is necessary for knowledge

• to believe something is to think it’s true

• it is willingness to assent a proposition

• so long as i assent to something i can be said to believe it

• knowledge requires people to believe it, without humans there can be no knowledge

• therefore, belief is necessary for knowledge, for I must assent to something to be said to know it

examining the truth condition for JTB

• people in the past knew things that turned out to be untrue

• example - people knew the earth was flat, but this turned out to be false

• therefore, truth is not a necessary condition for knowledge

response that truth is a necessary condition for knowledge

• when someone says they know something that turns out to be untrue, it is not knowledge, just a well justified belief

• no matter how well justified a belief is, it cannot be knowledge if it is false, since for a proposition to be known it is required to have some cognitive contact with reality

• even if you had good evidence the world was flat, it doesn’t correspond with reality, so is untrue

examining the justification condition for knowledge

• we may be said to have intuition or just to know things without justification, for example ‘I know i’ll roll a six’, and you do, it’s knowledge without justification

reason why justification is necessary for knowledge

• without justification you’re just making an unsupported assertion which by luck happens to be true

• having beliefs that turn out to be true despite you having no good justification for believing them is not the same as having knowledge

• example - the xenophobic judge who believes a man is guilty of a crime because he is scottish, he does turn out to be guilty, the judge had a true belief, but not knowledge, as he had no good justification