Epistemology- what is knowledge?

What is propositional knowledge?

Is knowing something is the case/ about knowing facts. It can be expressed in language.

E.g 2+2=4

What is practical/ ability knowledge?

Knowing how to do something. It involves a kill or capability to perform a certain kind of task.

E.g riding a bike.

What is knowledge of acquaintance?

Knowledge through direct experiences of that think.

E.g knowing somebody because we have met them.

What is a necessary condition?

It is something you need in order to have the thing in questions.

E.g water is an individually necessary for rain but water alone does not guarantee rain and so is not a sufficient condition or rain. If there are a group of conditions which, taken together are to ensure something, we say that they are jointly necessary for that thing.

What are sufficient conditions?

Sufficient conditions, when met, mean that you will always have the thing in questions.

E.g being an aunt is an individually sufficient condition for having relatives, it is not a necessary condition as someone can have relatives without being an Aunt.

Being a man and never being married are jointly sufficient.

What’s an example of a condition being both necessary and jointly?

Having never been married and being a man makes someone a bachelor.

Finish: S knows that P only if…

1) P is true

2) S believes that P

3) S is justified in believing that P

What are propositions?

The meaning behind a declarative sentence.

Declarative statement ‘It is the case that..’/ is a statement.

What is the correspondence theory of truth?

A proposition is TRUE if it matches, or corresponds, to the FACTS of the world.

A proposition is FALSE if it doesn’t match, or correspond to, the FACTS of the world.

The FACTS of the world are the way the world is. They are themselves neither true nor false.

What’s a belief?

A belief is a proposition we accept as true.

Beliefs can be true or falso.

What is a justification?

The justification of a belief is what one offers as a reason or evidence to accept the belief.

What’s an experience?

Impressions in our mind such as sense impressions, or hallucinations, or internal impressions.

What is reason?

Reasons is the intellectual, rational, logical faculty (ability) of our mind by which we can make logical inferences.

What is a priori knowledge?

What can you have?

Knowledge which is not known by experiences, but instead by reason alone. It is justified by intuition and/or deduction.

For example : ‘all bachelors are unmarries’

A priori truth or a priori falsehood.

What is a posteriori knowledge?

Knowledge which is known by experience. It is known by: informally checking using the 5 senses, doing a scientific experiment, survey/ reading or learning about the experience from others.

For example: there is a bottle of milk in my fridge.

What are Zagzebskis pitfalls to avoid when giving definitions?

Definitions should not be:

1. Circular- should not include the term being defined

2. Obscure- the terms in any definition should not be more obscure than the original term

3. Negative- shouldn’t define it in terms of what it is not

4. Ad hoc- the definition should no be specific to meeting a particular problem.

A CON

What does Zagzebski believe

Treat knowledge as if it has a real essence (a real underlying cause that makes something the way it is e.g H20 is the real essence of water, unlike something like a weed which does not have something specific that makes it the way it is) and attempt to find the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge to attempt to find a real definition for it.

What’s the difference between beliefs and knowledge? (Plate)

Beliefs are unstable, misleading evidence can change a belief, they are not always held on to.

Knowledge is robust and isn’t changed by misleading evidence, it is stable.

Can you state and explain all four pieces of advice that Linda Zagzebski gives for finding a definition of knowledge?

1) We should seek a real definition. 2) We should attempt to find the necessary and sufficient conditions. 3) Possible more than one definition (some definitions may include the cause of that thing, others may not). 4) Pitfalls to avoid (ACON)

What is the tripartite view?

Propositional knowledge is defined as justified true belief.

1) S is justified in believing that P,

2) P is true and

3) S believes that P

Justification, truth and belief are individually necessary for knowledge. Justification, truth and belief are jointly sufficient for knowledge.

What’s an example of potential knowledge without belief?

What are counter arguments to this?

Writing down the correct answer in an exam from memory of learning it but being nervous and so unconfident, therefore believing that your answer was incorrect. Or ‘guessing’ the correct answer in a quiz (not having remembered learning it and being uncertain despite knowing).

Counter argument: The belief is unconscious or tactic. He doesn’t know the answer. The Republic- Plato: Knowledge and belief are very different mental states as knowledge is infallible whereas belief is fallible. Knowledge goes beyond belief.

What’s an argument for belief being necessary for knowledge?

‘I do not believe I will win, I know I will win’ - this suggests that the knowledge does not require a belief. The Republic by Plato argues that knowledge and belief are incompatible as knowledge in infallible whereas belief is fallible, knowledge goes beyond belief.

Response: Knowledge and belief do not need to be different faculties. Second knowledge and belief do not always need to be about different things. What is known is always true, Plato attempts to explain that we can only know things that do not change. However, this is not true, we can talk about truth at a time or in a context.

What’s an argument in favour of belief being necessary for knowledge?

‘It is raining’

Can you have knowledge without truth example.

Cavewoman believes that the Earth is flat- evidence: the Earth looks flat and nothing falls off of it, she has both belief and justification.

According to the correspondence theory, she does not have knowledge as her claim doesn’t match reality (is false).

However, the coherence theory of truth she would be said to know that the world is flat as her belief is one of the ‘web of beliefs’ that society holds to be true, which is internally coherent with the beliefs supporting one another.

Does knowledge always have to be justified?

An unjustified or poorly justified belief id not knowledge, the justification may not be the true, underlying reason but instead due to a different reason, the belief following on from the justification was just a lucky guess, this is not knowledge. Knoweldge has to be justified.

However, knowledge may not always have to be justification. Somebody may be continually able to get a correct answer, e.g what day of the week a date is on despite not having reasoning.

What do the Gettier cases questions?

Whether justification, truth and belief are sufficient for knowledge.

Describe example 1- Smith and Jones.

Smith and Jones are both going for a job interview. The interviewer has told Smith that Jones will get the job (justified) and Jones has seen that Smith has 10 coins in his pockets (justified). From this, Smith deduces that the man who has 10 coins in his pocket will get the job (belief). Jones ends up getting the job and by coincidence, Jones also has 10 coins in his pocket, the man with 10 coins in his pocket gets the job (truth). Most people would claim that Jones didn’t have knowledge that he would get the job despite him having JTB due to the involvement of luck.

What is Gettiers Brown in Barcelona example?

Smith has a justified belief that ‘Jones owns a Ford car’, however this is false. Due to this belief, Smith believes that either ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona’, this is a JTB. It turns out that Jones doesn’t own a Ford and that Brown is in fact in Barcelona, therefore Smith supposedly had knowledge of Brown being in Barcelona as he had JTB. Luck was involved and our intuition tells us that knowledge does not involve luck.

What is the/ a ‘Fake Barn’ case?

Someone is unknowing driving through fake- barn county, they look up and see a barn, causing him to believe that ‘there is a big red barn by the road’, this barn is the only real barn in the county. Therefore, he has JTB despite it being lucky.

What’s the difference between fake barn cases and Gettier cases?

Gettier cases involve double kick (J unluckily not applying and B luckily true).

Fake barn cases- the J is correct but it is luckily true due to a wider comet y that the person is unaware of.

What is a lemma?

A lemmas is a belief held to be true and used to justify a piece of knowledge. The theory adds an external element.

How does no false lemmas define knowledge?

K = J + T + B + N

N-s’s justification of their belief in p involves no false lemmas.

How does no false lemmas apply to both of the Gettier cases/

Smith and Jones- 2) Jones will get the job is a false lemmas which smith bases his belief off of, although his overarching belief was true, it was reached by inferring from false lemmas/ a falsehood.

Brown in Barcelona- the false lemmas was that Jones owns a Ford. This belief was incorrect so any beliefs leading on from this do not count as knowledge.

What’s an addition to the no false lemmas theory?

No essential false assumptions- a tactic or hidden assumption counting as a false lemmas. E.g broken clock.

How does the no false lemmas theory apply to the fake barn example?

It would argue that Barney had knowledge as there are no false lemmas or false assumptions. His knowledge was somewhat lucky.

What is reliabilism?

K= R + T + B

Knowledge is true belief that is formed/ produced via a reliable process. The reliability of a source is the level of regularity in which the source gives the truth.

There is no clear/ defined way of knowing something is reliable, it is up for debate. Reliable sources may include: basic mental arithmetic, close observation, trusted sources. Unreliable sources: complex mental arithmetic, wishful thinking and guessing.

What does it mean that the justification condition is replaced by reliably formed? What’s a strength of this?

Reliable process are process which are highly likely to result in true belief. It adds an external elements, explains how animals have knowledge (as they can’t justify their beliefs).

How does reliabilism respond to Brown in Barcelona through redefining the process?

What’s an issue of redefining the process?

The redefining process argues that Jones didn’t have knowledge as Jones formed this disjunctive/ Brown being in Barcelona by inferring from a false belief, this is not a reliable cognitive process and so Jones didn’t have knowledge of the disjunctive being true.

Raises a concern as to how general or specific should we be when describing a belief-forming process, if we specify the process too much it will either by 100% reliable or 0% reliable as all cases are unique, whereas if it’s too general the theory cannot cope with exceptions.

How do reliability patch up reliabilism using ‘no relevant alternatives’? How does it respond to fake barns county?

We should only count a process as reliable if it can distinguish between the truth and other relevant possibilities. Twins example.

Fake barn county: Barney cannot distinguish between seeing a real barn and a fake barn (a relative alternative), therefore Barney didn’t know that there was a barn there.

What’s another criticism to reliabilsm relating to circularity?

Our knowledge of truth is defined in terms of reliability, and reliability is defined in terms of our knowledge of truth.

What’s the difference between justifications and reliable processes?

Justifications are internal to the believer and they require conscious though. A reliable cognitive process doesn’t require conscious thought. E.g John- dates.

What are advantages with replacing J with R?

John has knowledge of the days that dates are.

R provides an account for how animals have knowledge e.g through their senses unlike JTB.

Cognitive science- ‘external’ accounts of neurological process that lead to true belief.

What is a criticisms to replacing J with R. (BIV)

What is the definition of infallibilism?

K = I + T + B

S knows that P if and only if: 1)S if infallible in their belief that p 2) p is true 3) S believed that P

It is not possible that s’s belief in P is false. Knowledge consists of things that we cannot rationally doubt e. 2 + 2 = 4

Belief and knowledge are different things.

How does infalliblism respond to Gettier and Fake Barn cases

None of them count as knowledge as none are infallible in their belief.

What do some infallibilists believe about the relationship between knowledge and belief?

Belief and knowledge should be distinguished, knowledge is not some kind of belief

What are criticisms of infallabilism?

What is the definition of virtue epistemology’s account for knowledge? What is epistemic virtue?

Knowledge is a true belief where the truth of the belief is due to epistemic virtue. An intellectual virtue is an intellectual quality that aids you gaining knowledge, such as the quality of not jumping to conclusions, or the quality of tending to use reliable process.

What is Sosa’s triple A rating?

1) Accuracy (a belief is true). 2) Adroitness (an adroit belief is one formed by an intellectual virtue). 3) Aptness (an apt belief is a belief that is true because it was formed with intellectual virtue). Sosa says that knowledge is apt belief.

How does virtue epistemology apply to Smith and Jones.

The belief was accurate (true) and adroit (formed by epistemic virtue) but not apt. (Not accurate due to it being adroit) and therefore Smith didn’t have knowledge.

How does virtue epistemology apply to the Fake Barns case?

It passes the triple A rating. However, Sosa said that Barney had animal knowledge, he did not have an awareness of how apt the belief was.