the tripartite view

Question 1

what is the tripartite view of knowledge (3 marks)

Answer 1

The tripartite view of knowledge is a definition of propositional knowledge

It is as follows:

S knows that p, iff
1. S believe that p
2. p is true
3. S is justified in believing that p

these conditions are separately necessary and jointly sufficient

Question 2

the two ways to respond to the JTB account of knowledge

Answer 2

1. one or more of the conditions are not necessary
2. the conditions are not jointly sufficient

Question 3

is justification necessary

Answer 3

young children and animals have knowledge but they can not justify it
but they still know things

Question 4

explain the view that truth is not a necessary condition for knowledge (5 marks)

Answer 4

If truth is not necessary for knowledge, then it means that there must be at least one example of knowledge without truth. Some have argued that such examples do exist. For example, following the 2016 US election, some people said that they knew Clinton would win despite the fact that this was false because Trump won. If we take such claims at face value, then they are examples of knowledge without truth, so truth must not be a necessary condition for knowledge.

Question 5

is belief necessary

Answer 5

• if a person (Duncan) is in an exams and has no confidence in any of his answers however he gets all the answers right because he remembers what he learned in lessons
• one response is that Duncan doesn’t know because knowledge requires a commitment which Duncan lacks
• another response is that Duncan does know, he just lacks conscious belief (he has an unconscious belief)
• Plato claims that knowledge can’t be false so we can only have knowledge of things that are always true. He claims that we have belief about things that change and this is not knowledge.

Question 6

is JTB sufficient

Answer 6

• Gettier claims that deduction preserves justification
• if you have a belief (A), that is justified and you correctly deduce B from A, then B is also justified
• this shows that JTB is insufficient
• as the outcome is not knowledge because it is lucky or a coincidence
  (it luckily turns out to be true)

Question 7

Gettier case 1

Answer 7

Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job
Smith is justified in believing that:

(d) Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones has ten coins in his pocket

from (d), smith deduces (e), the man who will get the job had ten coins in his pocket

however, it just so happens Smith gets the job and Jones doesn’t

and it just so happens that smith (unknown to him) has 10 coins in his pocket

smith believes (e), (e) is true and (e) is justified
but it is not knowledge

Question 8

Gettier case 2

Answer 8

Smith is justified in believed that:

(f), Jones owns a Ford

from (f), smith deduces that (h), either Jones owns a Ford or brown is in Barcelona

however, Jones actually doesn’t own a Ford

but it just so happens that brown is in Barcelona

smith believes (h), (h) is true and (h) is justified
but it is not knowledge

Question 9

responses to Gettier

Answer 9

• most epistemology agree that Gettier was successful in disproving JTB
• there are three different ways to respond to this idea that the problem is with the justification condition
  1. strengthen the justification condition so that it rules out Gettier cases
  2. add an additional necessary requirement
  3. replace the justification condition with an alternative

Question 10

infalliblism

Answer 10

• justification should be strengthened so that it guarantees truth
• avoids Gettier cases because it means that if your belief is justified it must be true, eliminating a justified belief that luckily true

Question 11

objections to infalliblism

Answer 11

• we know very little (eg we can not know: things we read in books, things other people tell us, things known only through our senses, our memories)
• Descartes claimed that we only know truths of maths, logic and incorrigible beliefs
• most people reject this view because the believe we know more than this
• one of the conditions are not necessary

Question 12

internalism

Answer 12

• knowledge and justification depend only on factors that the agent is aware of
• eg JTB and infalliblism

Question 13

externalism

Answer 13

• knowledge and justification depends, at least partially, in factors that the agent is not aware of
• eg no false lemmas

Question 14

no false lemmas

Answer 14

• knowledge = JTB + N
• N = p is not inferred from a false belief
• rules out Gettier cases as the belief is inferred from a justified false belief and therefore can not be considered knowledge
• this view claims that JTB on its own is not enough for knowledge; it must also be the case that any reasoning process you have gone through

Question 15

objections to no false lemmas
JTB+N is not sufficient

Answer 15

Linda Zagzebski gives this example to show this:

a doctor examines a patient and concludes on the basis of a variety of tests and observations that the patient has virus x. This belief is justified but the patient actually has the much rarer virus y which causes similar symptoms. It just so happens that the patient has just caught virus x, but it is too early for symptoms to develop

Zagzebski claims that the doctor’s belief that the patient has virus x is a justified true belief that is not inferred from a false belief, but it is not knowledge

Question 16

objections to no false lemmas
N is not necessary

Answer 16

eg I see my wife getting ready for her work party. I think to myself what a lovely violet dress, even though the dress is actually indigo. A colleague is giving her a lift and when I meet her at the door, she asks if my wife is wearing her red dress. I reason that she is not wearing a red dress because she is wearing a violet one, so I confidently state she is not wearing a red dress

the belief is inferred from a false belief, but that does not seem to stop me from knowing that she is not wearing a red dress

Question 17

reliablism

Answer 17

• justification is not necessary
• knowledge is reliably produced true belief
• about the history of the belief

S knows that p, iff
1. S believes that p
2. p is true
3. S’ belief that p is produced by a reliable process

Question 18

strengths of reliabilism

Answer 18

• it helps explain what knowledge is in a more satisfying way
• it lays the foundation for natural epistemology (which treats questions about knowledge as an empirical mater to be studied by science. If knowledge is the product of reliable processes, it means that we can study knowledge more easily)
• it explains how animals and small children have knowledge

Question 19

reliabilism and Gettier

Answer 19

• Gettier cases involve a person having a justified false belief and then inferring something from that is only true by luck
• inferring beliefs from a false belief is not a reliable process, so this is not knowledge

Question 20

(reliabilism)

Henry is driving through the countryside and sees a barn out of the window. He has normal vision and the object he is looking at really is a barn. Unbeknownst to Henry, many barn facades have been erected in the area. He just happens to be looking at the only only real barn in the area. This is a reliably formed true belief but it is not knowledge

Answer 20

to deal with examples such at barn facade county, the no relevant alternatives condition was added

• the agent must be reliable at distinguishing the truth form relative alternatives
• this means that the person must be able to tell the difference between a barn and a fake barn when in barn facade county, but not in normal circumstances, where they are not relevant

Question 21

objections to reliabilism
the generality problem

Answer 21

• we can change how reliable a process is depending on the way we describe it (Feldman)
• in the original Gettier cases, the process can be described in two different ways: forming beliefs using deduction (reliable) or inferring from false beliefs (unreliable)
• there is not an obvious, correct way to describe it
• if we describe them very precisely, they become unique, so we can say how reliable they are

Question 22

objections to reliabilism
reliability is not necessary

Answer 22

the new evil demon problem (Cohen)

• if you are asked how you know your in school, you could give various reasons
• suppose someone else is being manipulated by an evil demon (arjun) to believe they are in school when they are not
• when asked to give reasons, arjun would give the same reasons as you
• whatever is good about your belief must also be good about arjun’s (therefore equally valid)
• and whatever the good stuff is, it must be enough for knowledge because you know you are in school
• but it can not be knowledge because arjun’s belief is not reliably produced
• even though arjun’s thought aren’t knowledge because his beliefs are false, Cohen thinks that it not arjun’s fault his belief is wrong and therefore should not be penalised

Question 23

objections to reliabilism
RTB is not sufficient

Answer 23

the clairvoyant (Bonjour)

• suppose that a person is a reliable clairvoyant but has no reason to believe that clairvoyant powers exist. This person correctly believes that the president is in New York using this ability despite having no other evidence for this.
• this is a reliably formed true belief but not knowledge
• similar to calendar savants

Question 24

objections to reliabilism
easy knowledge

Answer 24

the problem of easy knowledge

• suppose you look at an object and form the belief that it is red. Your vision is reliable, so you know this. Then you note that your vision must be accurate on this occasion because it produced a true belief. You keep repeating this. Eventually, you will have lots of evidence for thinking that your vision is reliable
• unreasonable to check your own colour vision as to be accurate it needed to be checked by group consensus
• eg what if you were colourblind and did not know

Question 25

virtue epistemology

Answer 25

knowledge is true belief arising out of virtue

S knows that p, iff:
1. S believes that p
2. p is true
3. S’ belief that p is a result of an exercise of epistemic virtue

Question 26

Zagzebski’s virtue epistemology

Answer 26

• knowledge is belief arising out of acts of intellectual virtue
• the reason why knowledge is good and why we value it so much is because it is the product of virtue
• intellectual virtues include: open mindedness, curiosity and intellectual resilience
• intellectual virtues have two components:
  1. motivation - the virtues motivates us to attain something good
  2. success - virtues are typically a good way of achieving what they aim

Question 27

virtue epistemology and Gettier cases

Answer 27

• Smith’s beliefs are true but they are not true because of smith’s virtue
• Zagzebski would say that smith does not arrive at the truth because of any intellectual virtue he is demonstrating

Sosa compares Gettier cases to this example:
An archer who makes a skilful shot which is then blown off course by the wind but then hits the target because of second gust of wind. The shot is not successful because of the archer. Smith lacks knowledge because his belief is not apt. It is accurate and adroit, but not accurate because it is adroit.

Question 28

objections to virtue epistemology
is virtue to rare?

Answer 28

• most people think knowledge is quite common to come by
• true beliefs are formed from our surroundings all the time
• children and animals have true beliefs
• these examples don’t involve intellectual virtues
• response: Zagzebski claims that virtues include automatic, less demanding examples like noticing or remembering

Question 29

objections to virtue epistemology
do motives matter?

Answer 29

• Zagzebski thinks that motives matter, otherwise our true beliefs would be accidental
• direct criticism as it claims that you have to aim for something with epistemic value otherwise it is not knowledge
• a reliabilist would claim that as long as your belief comes from a reliable process, our motives don’t matter
• do animals and children have the right motives
• what about someone who revised hard because they want to get to a good university but doesn’t care about having true beliefs? therefore, every time true beliefs is gained, it is accidental
• one of the conditions is not necessary

Question 30

objections to virtue epistemology as not sufficient
fake barn county

Answer 30

Henry is driving through the countryside and sees a barn out the window. He has normal vision and the object he is looking at really is a barn. Unbeknownst to Henry, many barn facades have been erected in the area. He just happens to be looking at the only real barn in the area.

surely Henry is just as virtuous or skilful as someone who is looking at a barn in normal circumstances

Question 31

response to fake barn county
(virtue epistemology)

Answer 31

• Sosa responds by distinguishing between animal and reflective knowledge
• animal knowledge: knowledge that satisfies the triple A account
• reflective knowledge: animal knowledge plus awareness of the circumstances that make animal knowledge possible
• Sosa says that Henry has animal knowledge because he meets the requirements of the triple A account
• he lacks reflective knowledge because he is unaware of his unusual circumstances

Question 32

Sosa’s virtue epistemology

Answer 32

S’ belief that p is knowledge, iff
1. the belief is accurate (it is true)
2. the belief is adroit (it is skilful, it arises from S’ belief)
3. the belief is apt (it is true because it is adroit)