1. The Definition of Knowledge:
What is propositional knowledge?
Warm-up: How would you define knowledge?

2. Different senses of ‘knowing’
- Exercise, p.48

3. ‘Practical’ or ‘ability’ knowledge – knowing ‘how’
Knowledge of how to do something, without necessarily explicitly understanding of what is involved – i.e. no necessary ability to communicate it linguistically.
Examples?
The offside rule: which comes first – ‘knowing that’ or ‘knowing how’?

4. Knowledge by acquaintance (knowing ‘of’)
Knowing a person, place, thing, sensation or feeling
No necessary ability to communicate linguistically what is involved
Why might it be argued that knowledge of the external world is rooted in this kind of knowledge?

5. Factual/Propositional knowledge (knowing ‘that’)
Knowing that something is the case
Must be, in principle, be expressible in language
Propositional: involving a ‘proposition’ – i.e. a claim about the world

6. Activity, p.51

7. Think of your own examples of both ‘knowing how to’ and ‘knowing of’, and state what implicit ‘knowing that’ claims might be inferred from these.

8. The Definition of Knowledge:
What is JTB, and what are the conditions required for it?
Warm-up: Think of examples for each of the different kinds of knowledge.

9. Terminology:
Beliefs: propositional knowledge involves belief that something is the case.
Assent: ‘give agreement to’; when we believe something, we assent to the propositions concerned.
See diagram, p. 52

10. Different approaches to knowledge:
Normative/prescriptive: what knowledge should be
Descriptive: what the concept of knowledge is
Activity, p.53- what exactly counts as ‘knowing’ something is the case?
Is knowledge certainty about something, or something less definite? Or simply ‘justification’?

11. How to define propositional knowledge:
Plato: ‘Under what circumstances do we say that someone has knowledge?’
Compile a list of 5 things you would normally claim to ‘know’, and 5 things you would normally claim simply to ‘believe’.
What has to be the case for you to claim that you know something, as opposed to believing it?

12. Plato:
What could the difference be between holding a true belief and having knowledge?
See p.56 for dialogue
What does Plato mean by ‘tethering’ a true belief?

13. Knowledge as ‘justified true belief’
Belief must be:
True
Supported by adequate reasons or evidence
Think of two examples of distinction between ‘mere true belief’ and ‘justified true belief’
Return to previous examples of beliefs and knowledge – is what is missing in belief examples justification?

14. Outline the difference between ‘mere true belief’ and ‘justified true belief’:
With mere true belief, someone may be correct in believing something, but does not have any reasons or justification for believing it.
This means that they are effectively guessing whether something is the case.
Without adequate reasons for believing something, there is no reason why someone’s view might not change at any given moment – they are not stable.
A justified true belief is one which will not change without a good reason to.
Stable, justified belief is knowledge.

15. Conditions for JTB: 3 necessary and sufficient conditions for JTB:
S believes that p
P is true
S has adequate evidence for p, or is justified in believing p.

16. Activities:
pp – JTB?
p.61 – necessary and sufficient?

17. Homework:
Explain the difference between ‘mere belief’ and ‘justified true belief’ in your own words, using an example to illustrate. (1 side max.)
Are there any problems with the claim that JTB is the correct definition of knowledge?

18. Are the JTB conditions individually necessary? 1) Belief
Is belief precisely the opposite of knowledge?
Should knowledge be ‘infallible’?
If you forget you learned something, yet can give correct answers which you believe are guesses when quizzed on it, do you know the answers?
- But is assent, of some sort, all that is required for knowledge?

19. Are the JTB conditions individually necessary? 1) Belief
Without assent: Clara’s guidance example (p.63). Does Clara know the route?
Possible that beliefs added together in fact result in hitherto unconscious overall belief.
General conclusion: belief is required for knowledge!

20. Are the JTB conditions individually necessary? 2) Truth
Raquel (cavewoman): believes earth is flat, has evidence that this is so. Does she know that the earth is flat?
Can we ‘know’ something that is false?
Is this just claiming that we know something that turns out to be false?
Conclusion: Knowledge cannot be purely a matter of subject’s internal states – must have an external criterion too.

21. Are the JTB conditions individually necessary? 3) Justification
A racist juror believes that a defendant is guilty, based on the colour of his skin. The defendant is guilty. Does the juror know the defendant is guilty?
John has a rare gift – can, for any given date in the future, give you the day of the week. He is unable to say how he does this, but incredibly accurate. Does John know this information?

22. Are the JTB conditions individually necessary? 3) Justification
Is all that is required for knowledge a reliable process which produces true beliefs?
E.g. John’s rare gift, in example above?

23. Are JTB all that is required (‘sufficient’) for knowledge?
Edmund Gettier (1927- )
Raised issue of whether or not knowledge can rely on luck. If not, then JTB are not sufficient…

24. Gettier-type objections:
See examples, p.69
Extension:
Can you think of your own Gettier-type example showing a case of JTB that we are unlikely to accept as a case of knowing?

25. Differences between Gettier-type examples:
Identifying incorrect aspect of situation, which is coincidentally true (‘standard’ Gettier-type example).
Identifying correct aspect of situation, but only doing so coincidentally (‘fake barn’ Gettier-type scenarios)
Is there any difference in the knowledge-status of these two types of example?

26. Are ‘fake barn’-type examples in fact knowledge, whereas the ‘standard’ forms are not?

27. Avoiding Gettier…
Can you think of a way of defining knowledge so that Gettier-type objections are ruled out?
What is difficult about doing so?

28. Infallibilism: 3 types: Knowledge as feeling of certainty
Knowledge as an infallible belief/understanding (‘strong’/’hard’ Infallibilism)
Knowledge as fairly certain belief, where the relevant alternatives are not possible (‘weak’/’soft’ Infallibilism)

29. Feeling of certainty: What are the arguments in favour of this view?
What are the potential criticisms?
Does a feeling of certainty make any difference to the outcomes of the Gettier-type examples you’ve studied so far?

30. Criticisms: Too subjective
Too vulnerable to circumstantial differences
Does nothing to change Gettier’s examples

31. Infallible ‘beliefs’/understanding:
Activity, p.75
Should we distinguish between ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’ (the latter construed as something that can possibly be doubted)?
Activity, p.76
If we do distinguish, we are committed to a strong form of infallibilism – anything that is merely ‘believed’ is not infallible, and cannot count as knowledge.

32. Evaluating ‘strong’/’hard’ Infallibilism:
What are the arguments in favour of ‘strong’/’hard’ Infallibilism?
What are the criticisms?

33. Criticising ‘strong’ Infallibilism:
Sets bar too high – too normative
“To diverge too radically from common usage (by defining ‘knowledge’ as excluding strong belief)…involves our leaving behind the very concept we set out to analyse…Infalliblism seems to be prescribing what our concept of knowledge should be, rather than analysing/ describing what it is.” p.78

34. Counter-criticisms:
But isn’t this simply an argument about terminology?
What we have got used to informally calling ‘knowledge’, we can now, on closer inspection, restrict to a particular case of beliefs, whilst we need to bring in a new term to describe what is merely ‘justified belief’.
Just as we may once have spoken of ‘germs’ causing disease, we can now distinguish between bacteria and viruses when we want to be precise.

35. ‘Weak’/’soft’ Infallibilism
Theory of ‘relevant alternatives’ – we do not have to eliminate all alternatives, only the relevant ones, to achieve knowledge
See examples, p.79, 80
Think of your own example of a proposition which can be claimed to be known to be true, despite some non-relevant caveats.

36. Evaluating ‘weak’/’soft’ Infallibilism:
What are the implications of this theory for our examples of Gettier problems?
What are the arguments in favour of this version of the theory?
What are the arguments against?
(Extension: can you think of how such criticisms may be rebutted?)

37. Criticisms: How do we judge what is ‘relevant’ and what is not?
Even if we manage to find such criteria, are we not just describing different levels of justification for justified beliefs, rather than ‘knowledge’?

38. ‘No false lemmas’ theory
Lemma = ‘a belief or assumption that is held to be true and is used to justify a piece of knowledge.’
Attempts to identify the false belief used to justify the claim that problematizes JTB in Gettier-examples.

39. For example:
A) I believe that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (having seen them).
B) I believe that Jones will get the job (having been told as much).
C) I believe that the person that gets the job will have ten coins in his pocket.
B = a false lemma

40. ‘No false lemma’ definition of knowledge:
Knowledge = JTB where the justification is not based on a false assumption
I.e. Knowledge J+T+B+N (N=no false lemmas)
Adds an ‘external’ element to justification (a standard beyond the agent being justified)

41. ‘No false lemmas’ and Gettier:
Does the NFLs approach deal successfully with the following Gettier example? (Remember, you need to identify a false belief in order to undermine the claim to knowledge)
A) You believe it is roughly the middle of the day
B) Clocks tell the time
C)The town clock says it is twelve o’clock
D) You believe it is now twelve o’clock

42. NFL to ‘no-essential-false-assumptions’
If we identify false assumptions which are tacitly justifying an otherwise reasonable assumption (e.g. that the clock is right), we can return to a version of NFL.
But: can this approach deal with ‘fake-barn’ cases?

43. Structures that have four walls, a roof, and are used to store hay are barns
I see a structure which has four walls…
I see a barn
Taz sees someone in London looking very like Boris.
Taz believes Boris was riding a pink bike.

44. To not assume you should believe what you are seeing in either of these very unusual cases could be argued not to be an assumption – it is so basic to our normal sense of how we gain knowledge that we can’t reasonably argue this.
Problem arises: how do we judge what can reasonably be termed an assumption?
(cf. the problem of judging what a ‘reasonable alternative’ is…)

45. Activity:
If there are no false assumptions here, does this mean that such ‘fake barn’ cases are in fact cases of genuine knowledge? (The contemporary philosopher Lycan argues that this is the case).
p. 83, questions.

46. So far…
Both Infallibilist and NFL theories try to shore up the idea of what counts as knowledge-worthy justification as means of overcoming Gettier counter-examples against JTB.
Infallibilism: adequate justification rules out all other possibilities, thus guaranteeing truth.
NFL: adequate justification must not be based on any false premises or assumptions.

47. Reliabilism (R+T+B) Basic idea:
reliability of process by which we develop a belief is key factor in whether or not that belief is knowledge.
Activity p.85

48. Reliabilism:
Create a knowledge claim (e.g. the world is round), then draw a spectrum, noting ways of finding out whether your knowledge claim is true that are more/less reliable.
Less reliable
More reliable

49. Reliabilism and Justification:
‘Reliable process’ replaces ‘justification’ – justified belief becomes belief which is produced by reliable process.
By giving a seemingly clear standard by which to define justification, Reliabilism aims to avoid circularity in defining ‘justification’
(e.g. a justified belief is one which, as well as true, is adequate for knowledge; knowledge is a belief that is true and also justified…)

50. Issues for Reliabilism: 1
What are the differences between ‘justification’ and ‘reliable process’?
Justifications are internal to the believer – the agent has to consciously think her beliefs are justified.
A reliable process is external to the believer – the agent does not have to have any conscious thoughts about the process (though they may do)

51. Issues for Reliabilism: 2
Justification requires reasons for holding a belief.
A reliable process requires only causes
It may be argued that causes are not as valuable as reasons. Reasons make the agent aware of why they are doing what they are doing.

52. Example:
John has a rare gift. If you give him any date in the future, say 22nd January 2053, he is able to tell you what day of the week this will be (e.g. Wednesday). He is unable to say how he does this, though he is incredibly accurate.
Does John know this? What would JTB say? What would Reliabilism say? What do you think?

53. Example 2:
You know the sequence of buttons which need to be pressed in order to work out a complicated maths equation, though you have no understanding of the maths involved.
You can reliably produce a correct answer when given any particular set of variables.
Do you ‘know’ the answer each time?

54. Example 3:
Mystic Meg the fortune-teller gives remarkably accurate predictions of the future (9/10 come true). She cannot tell us how she can do this, but she does!
Does Mystic Meg ‘know’ the future?

55. Issues for Reliabilism: 3
If Reliabilism is correct, non-human animals can know things. (E.g. a squirrel knows where its nuts are buried, as it has an incredibly accurate strike rate each spring! Animals ‘know’ what they must do to survive.)
Not propositional knowledge, but know-how.
Does this count as knowledge?

56. Issues for Reliabilism: 4
What exactly counts as ‘a reliable process’?
Does it depend on context? How do we judge between different contexts?
Is the fuzziness of the idea of reliability an advantage or a disadvantage? (Consider similarities with ‘Relevant Alternative Theory’)

57. Reliabilism and Gettier: 1
How would Reliabilism deal with the Gettier problems we have already treated?
Is there a difference in how well the theory deals with standard and fake barn cases?

58. Standard cases:
Making a claim based on the wrong or faulty piece of information is not reliable. A reliable process would involve checking that the evidence we were basing our views on was reliable.
Smith and Jones: Smith should check that the person getting the job is actually Jones, rather than jumping to this assumption.
Broken clock case: depends how we describe process – looking at town clocks is usually reliable; however, checking that the clock is working is more reliable.
Problem comes with knowing when something is faulty information. We could check, but would still not be sure if the evidence was correct. Could imagine a situation in which we would check our clock against 1000 other clocks…

59. Reliabilism and Standard Gettier: 2
Standard cases: depends how we define the process.
Could be said to involve unreliable process of identifying wrong element in situation, and so cannot count as knowledge for Reliabilism.
But then this assumes we know what would count as a reliable process in this particular situation.

60. Fake Barn cases:
Fake barn cases: Is there anything wrong with the process by which the belief is formed? Is not actually looking at something a (generally) reliable process?
- Reliabilism seems to say Fake Barn cases are cases of knowledge.

61. Attempts to resolve Fake Barn cases:
We could modify Reliabilism, to argue that Fake Barn cases are not cases of knowledge, since using one’s senses in Fake Barn county is not reliable.
i.e. true reliability requires that the reliability of the method is checked against the context - i.e. the agent needs check that the circumstances justify using what is usually a reliable process.
E.g. the driver needs to check whether they are in Fake Barn County if their method is to be judged truly reliable.

62. Problem of infinite regress 1:
Is it reasonable to require all normally reliable methods of gaining knowledge be checked against the possibility that the situation is not as it seems?
Why should one check be enough? When would the agent know that they have checked enough to ensure that they know what a reliable process is?
E.g. driver in Fake Barn County may need to check the practices of the local people before judging whether she knows there is a barn. But at what point will she be sure that she has accounted for all possible alternatives? Maybe they’re only telling her they make fake barns, and actually all the barns are real! Checking could go on infinitely.
E.g. reliabilism can argue that the person looking at the clock will only know the time when he has seen a real clock – but how many times would we have to check whether the clock we are looking at is in fact real? Could go on checking infinitely.

63. Problem of infinite regress 2:
Related problem:
each situation is (even in subtle ways) different, and so how can what is normally reliable necessarily be said to be reliable in any particular situation?
Notion of ‘reliable’ breaks down if we allow this kind of detail
Idea of what counts as ‘reliable’ is left very fuzzy.

64. Summary:
Reliabilism’s success depends on how happy we are to attribute knowledge to a process, rather than cognitive processes in the agent.
Reliabilism’s ways of getting around Gettier examples either show admirable flexibility, or are prone to getting bogged down in imprecision, depending on what you feel knowledge should be.

65. Explain, using examples, the criticisms of Reliabilism as a theory for defining ‘knowledge’. (9 marks)

66. Virtue Epistemology:
Shifts focus from justification of a knowledge-claim to the person making the claim:
- knowledge is the product of a person who has the virtues which enable them to understand well, and the disposition of using reliable processes of understanding (K = V+T+B)
‘Virtue’ = excellence, excellent character trait
‘Disposition’ = tendency to do something

67. Aristotle’s intellectual virtues:
Rational Intuition: understanding of first principles, definitions, metaphysics, etc.
Wisdom: understanding of fundamental values
Scientific reason: understanding of natural laws, processes, etc.
Practical wisdom: understanding of how to put values into practice
Creativity: technical, practical skills, art, etc.

68. Activity: Write down names of five celebrities
Rank the five in order of their intellectual virtue
Rank the five in order of who is likely to be a source of knowledge.
What does this activity tell you?

69. Gettier – the challenge to K=V+T+B
You hear a meow from the room next door
You surmise that there is a cat next door
There is a cat next door, but what you heard was a recording of a cat
If K = R+T+B (Reliabilism), then listening to a recording would not count as a reliable process, therefore no knowledge to speak of.
If K = V+T+B, you might be said to be using your virtue of basing your beliefs on evidence, therefore this case would have to count as knowledge.

70. Question:
Explain why basic Virtue Epistemology cannot deal with standard Gettier cases. (5 marks)
The following scenario shows why basic Virtue Epistemology would see standard Gettier cases as knowledge. You are outside a room and hear a cat meow. You form the belief that there is a cat in the room. There is a cat in the room, but the meow you heard was produced by a microphone which is also in the room. Basic Virtue Epistemology would say your belief is knowledge, as you formed it using the virtue of trusting your senses, which is normally reliable. However, the belief is only luckily correct.

71. Sosa’s triple A rating: AAA
Contemporary Virtue Epistemologist Ernest Sosa offers a more nuanced account
Compares knowing to athletic performance
In shooting an arrow, an archer should ideally demonstrate the following three ‘a’s:

72. AAA in archery:
Accuracy: the arrow hits the target (note, accuracy doesn’t necessarily mean that the shot was skilfully shot)
Adroitness: the arrow was skilfully shot (note, adroitness doesn’t guarantee accuracy)
Aptness: the arrow was accurate because it was skilfully shot (and not due to some other accidental factor)

73. AAA in knowledge Accurate belief is true
Adroit belief is skilfully formed (by an intellectual virtue and a reliable process)
Apt belief is one that is true because it was formed adroitly.
Knowledge = apt belief

74. Activity, pp

75. Virtue epistemology and Gettier:
How well does VEp deal with standard Gettier problems?
How well does VEp deal with fake-barn cases?

76. Standard Gettier:
A belief that happens to be true, despite being based on false evidence which the agent has good reason to believe is true would not count as knowledge for VEp:
Belief not accurate because formed adroitly, therefore not apt, therefore not knowledge.

77. Fake-barn cases:
Taz sees the real Boris Johnson (close up – therefore adroit)
It is the real Boris Johnson (therefore accurate)
The belief is accurate because formed adroitly, therefore should count as apt – i.e. knowledge!

78. Fake-barn cases, 2:
As with NFL and Reliabilism, we could simply say that FB cases are knowledge
Or could say that such cases still involve a belief being formed via an element of luck, and therefore are not knowledge.

79. Sosa’s response:
Human beings have reflective knowledge – we can think about our own knowledge claims.
We can have meta-beliefs about our beliefs – i.e. about how accurate our beliefs are.
Animals can have apt knowledge, but not know their knowledge is apt – we can.
Thus if we know that the context in which a belief is made in fact makes apt belief unlikely, we may decide that we do not have knowledge!

80. Criticism:
Is Sosa moving the goalposts here – by asking how we can know we know, rather than simply defining knowledge itself?
Or is this a key part of defining knowledge – understanding the conditions in which we know we know? (This may open up an infinite regress, of course…)

81. Key categories for evaluating a particular theory:
How well does the theory:
Deal with all of the Gettier examples (Standard, Clock standard, Fake Barn County)?
What does it do better/worse than other theories?
Match up with our common usage of ‘knowing’ something?

82. Is knowledge justified true belief? (15 marks)
Key features of a top essay:
Clear statement of your argument in 4-6 lines: knowledge is/is not justified true belief, because… (If ‘not’, which alternative theory do you find most convincing, and why?)
Explanation of why Plato thought that this was a suitable definition; why are JTB thought to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient?
Explanation of Gettier challenges to Plato’s definition. How exactly do the two types of challenge seem to fulfil Plato’s definition, but in fact fall short of what we would want to call ‘knowledge’, and how does this change our view of whether JTB are jointly sufficient for knowledge?
Why exactly do any of the alternative theories for defining knowledge work better than JTB, or each other - but also, why do they not convince completely?
Conclusion, summarising your argument.

83. Summary:
Gettier problems undermine knowledge-claims (statements of the type ‘X is the case’) which do seem to be JTBs, but which:
are true and are justified (you do have a reason for saying them), but your justification is (at least partly) based on a false belief. Your knowledge-claim is therefore only coincidentally true (‘standard’ Gettier-type scenarios).
are true and justified, but your justification is coincidental because you do not know that you were simply lucky to pick out the correct aspect of the situation as the basis of your belief (‘fake barn’ Gettier-type scenarios)
In these cases, we are reluctant to agree that someone really does ‘know’ what they claim to know, despite apparently having a JTB.
Your job:
to judge whether alternative theories to JTB can
convincingly show why Gettier cases are NOT knowledge.
convincingly show what the conditions for knowledge are.
In almost every case (apart from Infallibilism), an INFINITE REGRESS occurs!

84. Mock exam:
Read through entire exam first, making notes on questions if ideas come immediately to you.
Read each question CAREFULLY – make sure you’ve really understood what it’s asking.
Plan out longer than a 2 mark answer to ensure you make your points in the right logical order.
Make the most of your time – if you finish more than 10 minutes early, you probably haven’t written enough!

85. Tips: ‘extension’ means the property of occupying space
Do you know the key features of the three theories of perception?
Which of the theories defining ‘knowledge’ is most convincing?

86. 15 mark answers:
Revise arguments, not just the ‘facts’ – do you know how to argue persuasively for the position you find most convincing?
Answer the question in your introduction – then justify in the essay.
When claiming that a theory does/doesn’t do something, explain exactly how/why – using examples!
Provide a clear conclusion summarising your argument.

87. Ensure you know:
the arguments for Plato’s theory of JTB, as well as the criticisms of it!
difference between ‘necessary’ and ‘sufficient’ conditions for knowledge
the three key types of Gettier example (Smith and Jones, the clock, Fake Barn County), the differences between these, and how well each theory deals with each of them!