The Epistemic Closure Principle By Edmund Gettier

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is a branch of philosophy related to the scope and nature of knowledge. The subject focuses on examining the nature of knowledge, and how it relates to beliefs, justification, and truth. Epistemology contract with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. “Epistemology is the philosophical investigation into this question: What can we know? The question, at first, seems pretty simple: It seems pretty obvious that I know that 3+5+8, that the sun will rise tomorrow and that my chances of winning the lottery aren’t very good. I also know

With this particular case, Gettier effectively challenges the relationship between the sufficient condition and the necessary conditions because Smith’s justified true beliefs are not jointly sufficient for him to know he is the man with 10 coins in his pocket who will get the job. In fact, even if Smith’s justified true belief turns out to be true; Jones actually gets the job, intuitively we are not convinced that his justified true beliefs is deemed as knowledge because in the case that he is correct, we intuitively regard his justified true belief as a lucky coincidence since he could have had a false justified true belief.

What is Evidentialism? “As evidentialism is a thesis about epistemic justification, it is a thesis about what it takes for one to believe justifiably, or reasonably, in the sense thought to be necessary for knowledge” (Mittag). Now what does that mean in order for someone to believe in something, they must see the real proof have hardcore evidence. One famous argument about evidentialism is by William Kingdon Clifford, (born May 4, 1845, Exeter, Devon, England—died March 3, 1879, Madeira Islands, Portugal) British philosopher and mathematician. Although he was most famous for his work as a mathematician, Clifford also wrote, “The locus classicus for the ethics of belief debate is, unsurprisingly, the essay that christened it. “The Ethics of Belief” was published, in a journal called Contemporary Review.”(Chingell)

The fact that one can believe in something or a statement is based on, among other factors, the available evidence. A range of philosophers have written widely on this topic. Clifford in his Influential essay “The Ethics of Belief” defends the contention that it is always wrong for any human being to believe anything if there is insufficient evidence. He uses two stories to illustrate wrong ways through which people arrive at beliefs. William James, however, disapproves Clifford. Pascal has a different view on belief formation where he argues that reasons for believing and failing to believe in God are indecisive. The three philosophers have varied views on how beliefs are formed. This essay discusses the reasons why Clifford made the above conclusion, the position taken by James in his opposition and how the argument relates to Pascal’s Wager.

In Plato’s Theaetetus, the dialog between Socrates and his student, Theaetetus, sets up the argument that knowledge is true belief that is adequately justified. Although there are many examples that prove Plato’s suggestion, people such as Edmund Gettier have questioned and disproved the notion of knowledge as justified true belief. In response to Gettier’s findings, many have tried to modify or find an alternative to the Justified True Belief model in search for the true definition of knowledge. In this paper, I will outline and discuss Plato’s Justified True Belief argument, outline and discuss Gettier’s response to Plato’s argument, and lastly, present and analyze four solutions to the Gettier problems.

In this paper, I will discuss the truth-belief-justification conceptual analysis of knowledge, which I will refer to as TBJ, Gettier cases, and an example that refutes TBJ. Conceptual analysis is an analysis of a proposition P with given premises to acquire knowledge of that P. The truth-belief-justification analysis of knowledge fails to provide sufficient conditions for someone to possess knowledge. For a condition to be necessary, it has to be satisfied to have knowledge of a proposition. If a condition is sufficient, then the person x will have some information to know something about proposition P. Jointly sufficient conditions are conditions that all need to be satisfied together to have knowledge about some P. They are necessary and supposedly jointly sufficient, but Gettier cases prove that extra conditions on top of TBJ are required to be jointly sufficient.

The Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy, and important to the evolution of natural sciences. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism. Descartes modified it to account for a truth he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions. Whereas Francis Bacon’s Scientific Method wanted to replace the deductive reasoning by inductive reasoning. The important concept in this reformed

David Hume presents an argument that unobserved matters of fact are irrational to believe in. In this argument, Hume argues that unobserved matters of fact have only been justified by the relation of cause and effect. Yet cause and effect is not a logical justification of unobserved matters of fact. I agree with Hume’s argument because the world is everchanging there is nothing to say that the causes we see will always lead to the same effect that we have always seen.

Skepticism argues that we do not know things about the external world. The External World Skeptic argument holds that we cannot, in principle, know things about the external world. Skeptical arguments aim to disprove the Standard Account of Knowledge, which claims that we do in fact know things about the external world. We come to know things through observation and experience, testimony, memory, introspection, and reasoning (Epistemology Lecture Notes). Skeptics claim that all of evidence we have for our knowledge are consistent with alternative hypotheses. The Traditional Account of Knowledge requires a justified, true belief for knowledge. Knowledge requires truth because we can only know things that are true. The factivity of knowledge means that everything we know must be true. Knowledge also calls for belief because you cannot know something you do not accept as true. Finally, knowledge must be justifiable because you need a basis, or evidence, for your true belief to count as knowledge. Skepticism objects the way we come to know things and our knowledge of things by claiming that we do not actually know things about the external world and that our evidence is consistent with alternative skeptical hypotheses.

In the report “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” by Edmund L. Gettier, he explains his arguments against a common analysis used to define ways in which knowledge is obtain by individuals. Gettier argues against the theory called “Justified True Belief,” in which an opinion must be supported by a justified true belief in order to be correct. Gettier’s essay on “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” successfully establish his objections by clearly explaining why true belief does not always acquire knowledge for individuals, the support gain from other important figures for his objection, and the clarity given in his explanation against the knowledge system.

The Gettier Problem is a widely acknowledged philosophical question, named in honour of Edmund Gettier who discovered it in 1963, which questions whether a piece of information that someone believes for invalid reasons, but by mere happenstance is correct, counts as knowledge. Before the Gettier paper was published, it was widely believed that the Tripartite Theory of Knowledge- which states that Justified True Belief equaled knowledge- was fact. This means that with three conditions, one could know something. Firstly, if you believe something, secondly, if you have justification for believing, and thirdly, that your belief is in fact true. If all three of these conditions were met, then this amounted to knowledge. However, with the publication of Gettier’s paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, he attempted to prove, with the aid of a number of problems, that it was not sufficient to have only these three conditions in order for a belief to become knowledge.

In his 1963 article “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, Edmund Gettier pointed out the fault in the traditional definition of knowledge and presented two counterexamples. The problem created by the two counterexamples is called the Gettier problem. In detail, the Gettier problem is whether a true belief based on invalid reasons counts as knowledge. My own Gettier counterexample is as follows. One day, my dad and I went to Costco Gas Station and there were already a lot of cars waiting for gasoline filling. So we queued in the last. When we were the next one to use the pump, there were two cars using the pumps, with one in the front and the other following it. My dad then asked me, of the two cars in front of us, which one would leave first.

One of the most important branches in philosophy, is Epistemology, which means, theory of knowledge. So far, philosophers have made many attempts to discover the source of knowledge, the standards or criteria by which we can judge the reliability of knowledge. We tend to be satisfied with think what we know about almost everything, even though sometimes we are shocked to discover that something that we thought it was sure and certain, is instead proved dubious and not sure. For example, suppose that one person that you know and trust tells you that the moon landing in 1969 is only a lie, and the pictures and film were made in a laboratory. We might distrust our friend maybe or think that in fact there were no prove

The purpose of this paper is to argue that Alvin Goldman's paper "A Causal Theory of Knowing" does not solve the problem in Edmund Gettier's paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" To argue the old view of knowledge, Gettier presents a case in which a Subject (S) is justified in believing that a proposition (P) and P entails another proposition (Q). S deduces Q from P and accepts Q. Then S is justified in believing Q. In the first Case that Gettier presents however, P is falsely justified, but Q is a true justified belief: Smith (S) is justified in believing that Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones has ten coins in his pocket (P). Thus, the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket (Q). S is justified in

There are two main schools of thought, or methods, in regards to the subject of epistemology: rationalism and empiricism. These two, very different, schools of thought attempt to answer the philosophical question of how knowledge is acquired. While rationalists believe that this process occurs solely in our minds, empiricists argue that it is, instead, through sensory experience. After reading and understanding each argument it is clear that empiricism is the most relative explanatory position in epistemology.