My problem with the Gettier Problem.

[Mouthwash]

The Gettier problem is intended to challenge the definition of knowledge as being 'justified true belief.' To wit: John walks into a bar. Before he can order, the barista confuses him for a regular and chirps "I know what you want." By coincidence, John ends up with exactly the drink he desired.

The barista clearly believed her customer desired that drink, and she also had justification, since she took John to be a different customer. It was indeed a true fact. All this seems to meet the definition of knowledge I gave, but relies on a complete deception. You may recognize this as being a problem with zero practical meaning- believing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something a six-year old would comprehend every bit as well as these philosophers.

My question is- what is the point of a precise definition of knowledge in the first place? You can talk about truth; you can talk about justification; you can talk about the nature of belief, but where does this 'knowledge' come in? Clearly it is a useful concept in everyday affairs, but even then it only refers to a state of the physical world: our awareness of the truth. It isn't an epistemological concept at all.

 

[Perfection]

I don't get how you don't see "knowledge" as an epistemological concept.

As I see it it gets to the heart of epistemology. How do we as humans access truth? I think "knowledge" is important as it conveys a link between belief and truth.

 

[Verbose]

The Gettier problem is intended to challenge the definition of knowledge as being 'justified true belief.' To wit: John walks into a bar. Before he can order, the barista confuses him for a regular and chirps "I know what you want." By coincidence, John ends up with exactly the drink he desired.

The barista clearly believed her customer desired that drink, and she also had justification, since she took John to be a different customer. It was indeed a true fact. So, it does seem to meet the definition of knowledge I gave, but relies on a complete deception. You may recognize this as being a problem with zero practical meaning- believing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something a six-year old would comprehend every bit as well as these philosophers.

My question is- what is the point of a precise definition of knowledge in the first place? You can talk about truth; you can talk about justification; you can talk about the nature of belief, but where does this 'knowledge' come in? Clearly it is a useful concept in everyday affairs, but even then it only refers to a state of the physical world: our awareness of the truth. It isn't an epistemological concept at all.

Looks like something C.S. Peirce might have come up with as en example of "abduction" — as the trichotomic complement to deduction and induction — or "guessing", more or less. Abduction is pretty common. Though Peirce insisted all abductions must be inductively verified. Which also seems to be the case in the example (the feller did get the exact dring he wanted).

 

[Kyriakos]

The Gettier problem is intended to challenge the definition of knowledge as being 'justified true belief.' To wit: John walks into a bar. Before he can order, the barista confuses him for a regular and chirps "I know what you want." By coincidence, John ends up with exactly the drink he desired.

The barista clearly believed her customer desired that drink, and she also had justification, since she took John to be a different customer. It was indeed a true fact. So, it does seem to meet the definition of knowledge I gave, but relies on a complete deception. You may recognize this as being a problem with zero practical meaning- believing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something a six-year old would comprehend every bit as well as these philosophers.

My question is- what is the point of a precise definition of knowledge in the first place? You can talk about truth; you can talk about justification; you can talk about the nature of belief, but where does this 'knowledge' come in? Clearly it is a useful concept in everyday affairs, but even then it only refers to a state of the physical world: our awareness of the truth. It isn't an epistemological concept at all.

The truth is not independent of ability to observe or sense. For you the computer screen has a shape. It won't for an ant. The ant may experience it as a longish walking plane. A being without even sense of magnitudes won't even pick up shapes or mass in the first place.

Knowledge is dependent on fields being based on axioms and bounded up in some way. If a human jumps from the window he will fall. That is knowledge. What if there was no high-rise at all?

Anyway, try to claim that two dots in the horizon are dots. From another POV they may be lines. Or polygons. Maybe they are really huge stars. And those stars might be dots to some other observer who is near them.

And if you ask what knowledge is mentally, it is another hard-coded important category in organising thoughts. The category itself is important.

 

[Mouthwash]

I don't get how you don't see "knowledge" as an epistemological concept.

As I see it it gets to the heart of epistemology. How do we as humans access truth? I think "knowledge" is important as it conveys a link between belief and truth.

I would argue that any possible avenue to this is already covered by justification, truth, and belief as respective concepts. Can you give a counterexample?

The truth is not independent of ability to observe or sense. For you the computer screen has a shape. It won't for an ant. The ant may experience it as a longish walking plane. A being without even sense of magnitudes won't even pick up shapes or mass in the first place.

Knowledge is dependent on fields being based on axioms and bounded up in some way. If a human jumps from the window he will fall. That is knowledge. What if there was no high-rise at all?

Anyway, try to claim that two dots in the horizon are dots. From another POV they may be lines. Or polygons. Maybe they are really huge stars. And those stars might be dots to some other observer who is near them.

This is entirely wrong. The fact that our experiences are subjective does not dismiss the possibility of something 'out there', that is fixed and fundamentally true.

And if you ask what knowledge is mentally, it is another hard-coded important category in organising thoughts.

Which is useful to a cognitive scientist, not a philosopher.

The category itself is important.

To what?

 

[BvBPL]

The Gettier problem is intended to challenge the definition of knowledge as being 'justified true belief.' To wit: John walks into a bar. Before he can order, the barista confuses him for a regular and chirps "I know what you want." By coincidence, John ends up with exactly the drink he desired.

The barista clearly believed her customer desired that drink, and she also had justification, since she took John to be a different customer. It was indeed a true fact. All this seems to meet the definition of knowledge I gave, but relies on a complete deception. You may recognize this as being a problem with zero practical meaning- believing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something a six-year old would comprehend every bit as well as these philosophers.

My question is- what is the point of a precise definition of knowledge in the first place? You can talk about truth; you can talk about justification; you can talk about the nature of belief, but where does this 'knowledge' come in? Clearly it is a useful concept in everyday affairs, but even then it only refers to a state of the physical world: our awareness of the truth. It isn't an epistemological concept at all.

I think the problem described offends us because, psychologically, we like to be certain. We like to imagine that our observations are certain and accurate because it is upon those observations that we build our beliefs, habits, and lives.

Consider that myths of thunderbirds and the like were developed as a means to explain otherwise inexplicable natural phenomenon. Those myths demonstrate that we have a deep-seated need to develop explanations for our world. Equally, we fight avidly to maintain our beliefs once they are set.

We like to think we know what's really going on. When it is obvious that we do not then it is offensive to our need for certainty. I'm uncertain if there's a deeper reason beyond saying that this is simply how the human mind is set up.

That said, I suggest that people who keep an open mind, that is those who place a lower value on certainty, might be more successful, at least in some roles and tasks. If that's the case then the problem doesn't exist for those people, or is lessened for those people. Some people simply don't worry about John's drink and are able to satisfy themselves with the knowledge that the waitress acted w/ John's best interests at heart or that John got what he wanted.

 

[Kyriakos]

I would argue that any possible avenue to this is already covered by justification, truth, and belief as respective concepts. Can you give a counterexample?



This is entirely wrong. The fact that our experiences are subjective does not dismiss the possibility of something 'out there', that is fixed and fundamentally true.



Which is useful to a cognitive scientist, not a philosopher.



To what?

Eh, ok...

Actually this is nothing new. 'Absolute' truth, or stable truth etc, is an ancient concept. So is truth tied to observer's abilities and senses/thought. I liked the 'this is entirely wrong', though, you surely are on the right path, much like a miner for iron who thinks the mountain contains gold instead.

 

[Flying Pig]

The Gettier problem is intended to challenge the definition of knowledge as being 'justified true belief.' To wit: John walks into a bar. Before he can order, the barista confuses him for a regular and chirps "I know what you want." By coincidence, John ends up with exactly the drink he desired.

The barista clearly believed her customer desired that drink, and she also had justification, since she took John to be a different customer. It was indeed a true fact. All this seems to meet the definition of knowledge I gave, but relies on a complete deception. You may recognize this as being a problem with zero practical meaning- believing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something a six-year old would comprehend every bit as well as these philosophers.

My question is- what is the point of a precise definition of knowledge in the first place? You can talk about truth; you can talk about justification; you can talk about the nature of belief, but where does this 'knowledge' come in? Clearly it is a useful concept in everyday affairs, but even then it only refers to a state of the physical world: our awareness of the truth. It isn't an epistemological concept at all.

Robert Nozick came up with a reasonable explanation - in order to say 'S knows P', the following need to be true:

P is true
S believes that P
If it were the case that (not-P), S would not believe that P
If it were the case that P, S would believe that P

In this case, the third condition is broken - if the customer did not in fact want (say) a cup of tea, the barista would still have believed that he did because she assumed that he was the regular. It also breaks the fourth in a weaker sense, because her belief as to the customer's drinks preference is totally unaffected by his actual preference.

As for the practical relevance of this - it's certainly useful when considering any future statements she makes! If she did indeed 'know' (via Nozick's conditions) that the customer wanted tea, then she's obviously got some particularly good way of predicting orders, which would (if nothing else) make her a valuable employee who might perhaps deserve a pay rise.

 

[Lohrenswald]

Well Mouthwash, how justified was the barista in thinking that John was another customer (even a regular at that)?

 

[Mouthwash]

Eh, ok...

Actually this is nothing new. 'Absolute' truth, or stable truth etc, is an ancient concept. So is truth tied to observer's abilities and senses/thought. I liked the 'this is entirely wrong', though, you surely are on the right path, much like a miner for iron who thinks the mountain contains gold instead.

I do believe you made the assertion that truth is completely subjective, and I pointed out that it was baseless.

Robert Nozick came up with a reasonable explanation - in order to say 'S knows P', the following need to be true:

In this case, the third condition is broken - if the customer did not in fact want (say) a cup of tea, the barista would still have believed that he did because she assumed that he was the regular. It also breaks the fourth in a weaker sense, because her belief as to the customer's drinks preference is totally unaffected by his actual preference.

Yes, if you redefine your criteria to the point of being tautological, you can indeed appear to solve the problem. That doesn't make knowledge anything more than what I defined it as: awareness of the truth.

As for the practical relevance of this - it's certainly useful when considering any future statements she makes! If she did indeed 'know' (via Nozick's conditions) that the customer wanted tea, then she's obviously got some particularly good way of predicting orders, which would (if nothing else) make her a valuable employee who might perhaps deserve a pay rise.

Sure, if someone's beliefs consistently match reality, one might suspect that they will continue to do so. Justification, belief and truth are all useful ideas in understanding why. But I don't see how to use 'knowledge' as anything more than a word.

 

[Flying Pig]

It's awareness of the truth, but on good grounds - hence the barista, who is aware of the truth - she believes 'John wants tea', which is true - does not know that John wants tea. To use a more classic example, it could well be argued that the Second Coming could happen tomorrow, but the vicar would not be justified in saying 'I knew this would happen', because he would have believed that it would happen whether or not it was going to.

Or am I missing something?

Sure, if someone's beliefs consistently match reality, one might suspect that they will continue to do so. Justification, belief and truth are all useful ideas in understanding why. But I don't see how to use 'knowledge' as anything more than a word.

That's not the same, though - why are you bringing consistency into this? You're arguing for reasoning from induction, while I was simply looking into the single belief itself - no consistency or other examples required.

 

[Mouthwash]

It's awareness of the truth, but on good grounds - hence the barista, who is aware of the truth - she believes 'John wants tea', which is true - does not know that John wants tea. Or am I missing something?

I'm questioning the point of any such idea as 'knowledge' in epistemology. By corollary, I'm also questioning the point of the Gettier problem. I am becoming rather concerned for contemporary epistemology, all the more so as this thread progresses.

That's not the same, though - why are you bringing consistency into this? You're arguing for reasoning from induction, while I was simply looking into the single belief itself - no consistency or other examples required.

But why? It's a tautology, it isn't useful to anything.

 

[Kyriakos]

^"completely subjective" is the other ambiguous facet of "absolutely true". In general you cannot have an examination of truth if not in a system whose base is not part of the examination. Ie in geometry you can prove a theorem as long as the basic axioms of the type of geometry are taken as set and not to be proven themselves. You may think that it still is true that something there is true, but then you are looking at truth of truth itself, not any statement or examination being true. And if you look for truth of truth itself you are something like a dot trying to theorise it could be a myriad intersecting lines in a plane it observes as a dot, ie a theory, but without axioms it is again inherently un-provable.

On the other hand, if you have a set field with axioms, you then can prove stuff there. You also can examine what proving stuff there means. But you cannot examine what proving stuff means in all such fields along with their expansions, cause such a set would be unbounded, therefore not observable. You may also want to look a bit into set theory and why no set system can contain the entirety of sets, unless it starts as watered-down by axioms.

 

[Mouthwash]

^"completely subjective" is the other ambiguous facet of "absolutely true". In general you cannot have an examination of truth if not in a system whose base is not part of the examination. Ie in geometry you can prove a theorem as long as the basic axioms of the type of geometry are taken as set and not to be proven themselves. You may think that it still is true that something there is true, but then you are looking at truth of truth itself, not any statement or examination being true. And if you look for truth of truth itself you are something like a dot trying to theorise it could be a myriad intersecting lines in a plane it observes as a dot, ie a theory, but without axioms it is again inherently un-provable.

On the other hand, if you have a set field with axioms, you then can prove stuff there. You also can examine what proving stuff there means. But you cannot examine what proving stuff means in all such fields along with their expansions, cause such a set would be unbounded, therefore not observable. You may also want to look a bit into set theory and why no set system can contain the entirety of sets, unless it starts as watered-down by axioms.

You are conflating provability and truth. And your original argument, verbatim, was: "The truth is not independent of ability to observe or sense."

 

[Kyriakos]

Ok, so my original argument is in tautology with the original argument of a projection of yours of myself and my posts. Is this then about truth or truth of conflating projection with the other person's arguments?

Btw, rhetoric art is said to begin with sophists, which in turn were paid philosophers.

To help a bit: 'truth' is not a notion in a non-bounded system. If you haven't noticed we are humans, and truth is a notion of ours. If a truth of absolute type exists, why would that be in any way part of our own system of thinking or indeed any of our experiences or senses? What would be part of our system would not be the absolute such truth, but the notion of an absolute truth. Those things are not in tautology either.

If you use absolute to juxtapose to relative, then at least use both of them in the same field, which for us is one of non-absolute states and objects, ie for us object X is not object X but objectXforus.

 

[Mise]

Mouthwash, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that, in the Barrista's case, it doesn't matter that she didn't really "know" what John wanted to drink. All that mattered is that she was justified in acting on the basis of what she believed to be true. If the purpose of "knowledge" is to determine how we can reasonably act (i.e. what epistemology might say we can do with "knowledge" that we can't do with "not knowledge"), then JTB is sufficient for this purpose. And the results bore this out: John got the right drink, nobody got hurt, everyone's happy. So on this particular example, there doesn't appear to be any problem.

So what you're asking, if I understand you correctly, is if anyone can offer any examples where something obviously bad might happen as a result of acting on JTB alone, rather than a de-Gettierised version of JTB (perhaps Nozick's version). Is that right?

If so then I can't think of any. I suppose that's why JTB worked as a definition for thousands of years.

EDIT: Okay, counterargument. If JTB is knowledge, then "right for wrong reasons" is also knowledge. In this case, the process of gaining knowledge (i.e. the intellectually rigorous method of analysis you use to gain knowledge) will be different -- less stringent -- than if only de-Gettierised JTB was knowledge. Put another way, your method of truth discovery would be weaker, as it is more permissive than under a de-G'd version of JTB. So the epistemological question of what is "knowledge" -- as distinct from JTB -- is important, since "how do we gain knowledge?" is within the scope of epistemology, and since that question will have a different answer depending on whether de-Getterising your JTB is important or not.

 

[Mouthwash]

Ok, so my original argument is in tautology with the original argument of a projection of yours of myself and my posts. Is this then about truth or truth of conflating projection with the other person's arguments?

Btw, rhetoric art is said to begin with sophists, which in turn were paid philosophers.

To help a bit: 'truth' is not a notion in a non-bounded system. If you haven't noticed we are humans, and truth is a notion of ours. If a truth of absolute type exists, why would that be in any way part of our own system of thinking or indeed any of our experiences or senses? What would be part of our system would not be the absolute such truth, but the notion of an absolute truth. Those things are not in tautology either.

If you use absolute to juxtapose to relative, then at least use both of them in the same field, which for us is one of non-absolute states and objects, ie for us object X is not object X but objectXforus.

And your notion of "relativism" originates from the same place, is that correct? Then I don't see why it deserves special status over the idea of a fixed reality outside of our heads.

Mouthwash, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that, in the Barrista's case, it doesn't matter that she didn't really "know" what John wanted to drink. All that mattered is that she was justified in acting on the basis of what she believed to be true. If the purpose of "knowledge" is to determine how we can reasonably act (i.e. what epistemology might say we can do with "knowledge" that we can't do with "not knowledge"), then JTB is sufficient for this purpose. And the results bore this out: John got the right drink, nobody got hurt, everyone's happy. So on this particular example, there doesn't appear to be any problem.

So what you're asking, if I understand you correctly, is if anyone can offer any examples where something obviously bad might happen as a result of acting on JTB alone, rather than a de-Gettierised version of JTB (perhaps Nozick's version). Is that right?

If so then I can't think of any. I suppose that's why JTB worked as a definition for thousands of years.

EDIT: Okay, counterargument. If JTB is knowledge, then "right for wrong reasons" is also knowledge. In this case, the process of gaining knowledge (i.e. the intellectually rigorous method of analysis you use to gain knowledge) will be different -- less stringent -- than if only de-Gettierised JTB was knowledge. Put another way, your method of truth discovery would be weaker, as it is more permissive than under a de-G'd version of JTB. So the epistemological question of what is "knowledge" -- as distinct from JTB -- is important, since "how do we gain knowledge?" is within the scope of epistemology, and since that question will have a different answer depending on whether de-Getterising your JTB is important or not.

I'm afraid I do not follow this. You can't put it in better English?

 

[Kyriakos]

And your notion of "relativism" originates from the same place, is that correct? Then I don't see why it deserves special status over the idea of a fixed reality outside of our heads.

The major (and crucial) difference between the two is that 'relative to human' is already inherently and logically tied to 'human', while 'fixed absolute truth regardless of human' isn't.
Eg, for a human it is true that if he picks up a rock and leaves it from some height, the rock will fall. Indeed, but you already have the human observed objects, places, and qualities such as volume and movement. Those are not needing to be there for any/all kinds of (non-human) observer.

 

[Perfection]

Maybe are intuitions about "knowledge" are more simulation based then preposition based. A person is said to know something if his model matches the true system (and he has good reason to adopt said model).

 

[Agent327]

The Gettier problem is intended to challenge the definition of knowledge as being 'justified true belief.' To wit: John walks into a bar. Before he can order, the barista confuses him for a regular and chirps "I know what you want." By coincidence, John ends up with exactly the drink he desired.

The barista clearly believed her customer desired that drink, and she also had justification, since she took John to be a different customer. It was indeed a true fact. All this seems to meet the definition of knowledge I gave, but relies on a complete deception. You may recognize this as being a problem with zero practical meaning- believing the right thing for the wrong reasons is something a six-year old would comprehend every bit as well as these philosophers.

My question is- what is the point of a precise definition of knowledge in the first place? You can talk about truth; you can talk about justification; you can talk about the nature of belief, but where does this 'knowledge' come in? Clearly it is a useful concept in everyday affairs, but even then it only refers to a state of the physical world: our awareness of the truth. It isn't an epistemological concept at all.

I'm not sure why you didn't ask your question on the Ask A Theologian thread.

Anywho

If you haven't noticed we are humans

shows a knowledge of us being humans. How do we know this? Because we are defined as human.

That was a simple example showing knowledge is based on definitions. Which (to my mind at least) shows knowledge needs to be defined precisely as well. Now there are two types of knowledge: scientific knowledge and religious knowledge and they rely on different definitions, both claiming truth. (Again: without a clear defintion neither knowledge would lead anywhere.)

"Now I know for a fact that..." is a statement. Is it based on any (solid) knowledge? Without any additional information we have no way of knowing. (Again: importance of definition.)

And I'm sure Plotinus can provide you with a much more eloquent answer.