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Four Conditions for Knowledge Essay examples

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Four Conditions for Knowledge

I. In this paper, I offer a solution to the Gettier problem by adding a fourth condition to the justified true belief analysis of knowledge. First though, a brief review. Traditionally, knowledge had been accounted for with the justified true belief analysis. To know something, three conditions had to be met: first, you had to have a belief; second, the belief had to be justified; third, this justified belief had to be true. So a justified true belief counts as knowledge. Gettier however showed this analysis to be inadequate as …show more content…

The justified true beliefs (viz., ‘the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket’ and ‘Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona’) are both based on or caused by false beliefs, viz., Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones owns a Ford.

This analysis however runs into difficulty with the election example. In the election example, John is justified in believing that all fraternity members, 30% of the voters, sorority members, 30% of the voters, and all on-campus independents, 30% of the voters, will vote for Joan to be president. Therefore, he has a justified belief that Joan will be elected as president. Joan does get elected, but the on-campus independents changed their minds and voted for the opponent. Joan still won, but John’s belief is based on three beliefs: two true, one false. Therefore, according to the no-false-belief analysis, John didn’t know Joan would get elected president. Surely, though, he did. Thus, this analysis is too strong.

Another example that people have thought is problematic for the no-false-belief hypothesis is the barn façade example. Imagine that Henry is driving down the road and sees an object that looks like a barn. He believes it’s a barn, and he is justified in his belief. It is indeed a barn. However, he was in a community full of barn facades. Had he known that he would not have been justified in believing it was a barn. It is often assumed that there are no false beliefs in this case.

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