Epistomology: The Nature of Knowledge

Epistomology: The Nature of Knowledge

What you say: The word epistemology (ee-PISS-ta-MA-luh-gee) refers to a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. It addresses questions such as, "Do you really know what you think you know?" And if so, "How do you know what you know?"

What is Knowledge?

Traditional definition (Socrates): true belief plus reason or justification for the belief.

What you say: Traditionally, knowledge was defined as something you truly believe plus reasons or justification for that belief. Just because you believe something, doesn't mean you know it. A person who is sick, for example, may be an optimistic person and believe he will get well. Even if this turns out to be true -- and he does get well -- he didn't actually know he would get well because his belief didn't have justification or reasons.

Epistomoloy is concerned with how true beliefs are justified. Believing something doesn't make it true because we can have false beliefs. On the other hand we do tend to believe everything we know. The things we know are like a subset of things we believe. In other words, when we believe something and also have evidence that supports our belief, then we know.

Throughout history, "knowledge" meant belief that was justified as true with absolute certainty. Anything less than absolute certainty was "probable opinion." But in recent years the requirement for absolute certainty has lost favor.

Knowledge has a way of changing. A hundred years ago, for example, it was known with absolute certainty that there were no 7-foot tall people. There was plenty of evidence to support that "fact." But now we have lots of 7-foot people. They play basketball.

Slide 2: Contemporary Definitions of Knowledge

During the 1960s Edmund Gettier's new argument: belief may be justified and true but not sufficient to count as knowledge.

What you say: A person could have a good reason for believing something is true. While he or she might be correct, he might be believe for the wrong reason. For example, Smith and Jones both apply for the same job and both have ten coins in their pockets. Smith has good reasons to believe that Jones will get the job. Also, he is correct in his belief that Jones has ten coins in his pocket -- he saw them counted a moment ago. From't his, Smith infers that "a person with ten coins in his pocket will get the job." He doesn't know that he, himself, has ten coins in his pocket too. His belief that a person with ten coins in his pocket will get the job satisfies all the conditions but is what he thinks he knows really knowledge?

Slide 3: A Fourth Condition for Knowledge - Candidates

We do not want to award the title of knowing something to someone who is only meeting the conditions through a defect, flaw, or failure..." (Simon Blackburn)

To qualify as knowledge, belief must not only be true and justified, the evidence for the belief must necessitate its truth.

Richard Kirkham)

What you say: Since 1963 when Gettier's article was published, many other articles have come out trying to come up with an adequate definition of knowledge. Some of them have tried to supply a fourth condition. These are just a couple of possibilities.

Another possibility for a fourth condition of knowledge is that the justification be undefeated. There should be no overriding truths that defeat the reasons that justify a person's belief. For example, suppose Sam believes Tom Brown stole a book from the library. He justifies this claim because he saw Tom Brown steal the book from the library. Something that would override or defeat this claim could be a true proposition like "Tom Brown's identical twin Paul is currently in town.

If no such defeater exists, then the belief is justified.

Slide 4: What is Belief?

In order to know something, we must think it is true.

What you say: Sometimes you'll hear people say something like, "I believe in the Detroit Tigers," meaning that they believe the Tigers will win the World Series. This is not what epistemologists mean when they speak of belief.