Gettier’s Counterexample To The Jtb Analysis

03/10/19 Lecture 2 Mind and Reality Gettier’s counterexample to the JTB analysis • Reasons to support your belief of a sufficient knowledge SMITH AND JONES • Propositions: 1) That Jones will get the job. 2) That the man with ten coins in his pocket will • Jones doesn’t get the job, Smith does • Smith’s belief is justified • Gettier~ Smith doesn’t know the man with 10 coins will get the job, just coincidence PRINCIPLES AND ASSUMPTIONS • Justification is consistent with falsehood~ is the evidence sufficient to prove the belief? - See a man drinking a clear liquid from a gin bottle, presume its gin - Come to find out it is actually water - Not justified to believe it was gin • Coming to believe things on the basis of what others tell you • P entails Q - Impossible for P to be true if Q is false - If a certain animal is a hen then it entails it is a chicken~ impossible for an animal to be a hen without being a chicken - An animal having features does not entail the fact that it is a chicken~ possible for an animal to have feathers without being a chicken • Justified to believe that Jones will get the job • If man with coins gets the job and Smith’s belief is justified~ entailed conditions ADDING A CONDITION • Can’t get knowledge from falsehoods • Example, Sheep - Form the belief that there is a sheep from visual experience - Formed on false lemma, isn’t a sheep but a goat disguised as a sheep - Belief is formed spontaneously, isn’t inferred or based on anything, so doesn’t rest of any false lemmas - Can’t see that there is a sheep, just happens to be one - If we require only that a belief isn’t inferred from another belief (that is in fact false) problems like this will arise DEFEASIBILITY • Can be information out that that, if you were no longer to have it, justification for that belief will be defeated - For example, having the fingerprints of the butler on the murder victim. Then find out that evidence was tampered with and the fingerprints were no longer a good reason to think he would have committed the murder • Belief is vulnerable to justification if evidence is no longer sufficient FAKE BARN • Even having a true belief caused by fact is enough to know