I think that only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.
-Albert Einstein
In his essay “Is Justified Knowledge True Belief”, philosopher, Edmund Gettier presents two cases which many thought destabilized the standard analysis of knowledge and its principal definition that knowledge is “justified true belief” (Crumley 61). And although both of Gettier’s examples are somewhat convoluted and unlikely, they do force us to rethink the traditional analysis (JTB) and its tenability. However, instead of attempting to remove conditions from this analysis, many modern epistemologists have, instead, added to or altered the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowing whilst adopting externalist theories to make up for the agent’s lack of knowing within the Gettier problem— but at what cost to knowledge? In this post I will argue that truth is not a necessary condition for the justification of a belief in the acquisition of knowledge and that components relevant to justification cannot be independent from the agent’s internal state and cognitive perspective.
Knowledge can be better understood as “justified belief “, as opposed to a “justified true belief” because not only does this modification allow for many more instances of knowledge, but it also keeps knowledge rightly connected to the knower’s belief(s) and perspective(s). Expressly, it demands an internalist view of knowledge that is consistent with the ancient view from which the JTB was initially erected. As professor Crumley notes in his book, An Introduction to Epistemology, “Plato thought knowledge was at least true belief” (56) which tells us two compelling things about the traditional analysis: that it is embedded into the very foundation of the Western tradition, and that it has an enduring quality which has enabled it to stand the test of time. In the traditional analysis of knowledge, S (subject) knows that P (proposition) if and only if:
(1) P is true
(2) S believes that P
(3) S is justified in believing that P
In both of Gettier’s counterexamples, all conditions are met, yet do not technically result in
knowledge because the agent’s beliefs are inferred from justified false beliefs. As a result, Gettier concludes that the JTB “does not state a sufficient condition for someone’s knowing a given proposition” (3), which in turn, motivated many epistemologists to modify the JTB in ways that might account for the deficiencies exposed by Gettier. But is truth a necessary condition for knowledge? What if, instead of adding conditions or altering its original conditions, the first condition that “p is true” was simply removed from the formula? Would the Gettier problem be removed as well? The simplified traditional analysis of knowledge would look like this:
S (subject) knows that P (proposition) if and only if:
(1) S believes that P
(2) S is justified in believing that P
Now, if we revisit the Gettier cases under these conditions, we will find that it is no longer relevant that Smith does not KNOW that (e) is true or that Smith does not KNOW that (h) is true. Strictly speaking, Smith has knowledge, the truth of which, is not our concern from an epistemic perspective. To further illustrate why knowledge can be better understood as “justified belief “, as opposed to “justified true belief”, I will now present a case of my own. Suppose that a professor points to an object on his desk and asks his students to identify it. The first student to respond is an indigenous student from a remote island in Sentinelese, India, who looks at the object and immediately declares that “it’s a zňdada!”, while a second student quickly disagrees and says, “no it’s not, it’s a water bottle!”. The first student is from an isolated region in the Bay of Bengal where no water bottles exist. To her knowledge and experience, the object that her professor is pointing to is indeed a “zňdada”, a tool used for crushing dried herbs commonly used in Sentinelese cooking. The second student, on the other hand, has extensive knowledge and experience of water bottles and has seen his professor drinking from the object many times. Can we honestly claim that truth is a necessary condition in this case? For both students, their belief about the same object is different but equally justified, yet, according to the traditional analysis only the second student’s knowledge counts as knowledge because the object to which the professor pointed was indeed his water bottle. But is this a just analysis of the case? Is it fair to say that only the second student “knows” what the object is? Not only does this case show us that the condition that “p is true” may not be a necessary condition for knowledge, but that truth can, in some cases, be relative as well. This does not mean that there are no objective truths, it simply means that truth may not be a necessary condition for knowledge.
Epistemological theories that demand indubitability, infallibility and/or incorrigibility are counterproductive because they inadvertently give superiority to empirical evidence. Evidence that can be observed, measured, and experimented upon. And although it is undeniable that observational methods are useful in their ability to produce facts (which help us to understand the material world around us), they do not have the ability to take us beyond verifiable observations, and thus, cannot connect us to the metaphysical world or the true essence* of anything. Regrettably, the abstract reasoning once elevated by the ancient Greeks, has no value within either skepticism or most epistemological theory born from such skepticism. Skeptical theories about knowledge threaten epistemic growth because they do not acknowledge any beliefs which are subject to doubt (Crumley 23). Such stringent conditions make knowledge almost unattainable, and what is worse, they have the potential to disregard an individual’s inner experience and their personal cognitive perspective. Skepticism threatens the ancient speculative approach to inquiries about why things exist on a universal level because skeptical theories do not typically entertain ideas which are not indubitable or infallible. This means that some of the most profound questions relating to human existence (i.e. What is justice? What is love? What is virtue? What is our purpose?) are less likely to be asked because they cannot be answered using observational methods, such questions do not even hover in the same stratosphere as “knowledge” by the skeptic’s standards. Indeed, we may have “thoughts” about these questions, but nothing that counts as knowledge because the answers cannot be proven “indubitably”. As a result, these questions are left unacknowledged and are often perceived as lower or less-than “indubitable” facts especially when skeptical epistemological theories are the dominating standard.
Ironically, it was nonskeptic, René Descartes’ that spawned an entire era of epistemic skepticism, often referred to as “cartesian skepticism” (Crumley 24). In his Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes presents his readers with a famous beeswax example that seeks to illuminate the deficiencies within our sense experience and why the true form* of a thing often escapes our understanding. In this example, Descartes uses his sense perception to examine a piece of beeswax and argues that nothing we apprehend about it using our senses (i.e. taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing) can give us a complete understanding of the wax and its special capacity for flexibility and change. He argues that since fire can effectively remove every quality previously detected by our senses, our ultimate understanding of the wax requires our faculty of judgement (Descartes 51). This experiment leads Descartes to the provocative conclusion that we can know more about ourselves using our sense perception than we can about the things we experience around us (52). This example is interesting because it draws attention to the deficiencies within observational methods and why a thing’s true essence is not easily found using standard methods of knowing. Another good example of this deficiency might be a treasured philosophy book. Our senses can tell us about its compact, rectangular shape, its thin paper pages, its enchanting smell, and the sound it makes when we tap our knuckles on its cover. They cannot, however, detect its deep and curious themes, its symbolism that stimulates our visual imagination, the ancient allegories that enhance our sense of freedom, or the hidden clues that point to universal truths. Our senses cannot detect the metaphysical magic that occurs when our rational minds finally decipher its form, the imagery, the ideas, the concepts, or the theory that may be inspired by its inner contents and essence.
Finally, to test the strength of my thesis, I will now present a simple case that seeks to invalidate my claims. Let’s say that I believe that Gambia is in South America because my friend who has a major in Geography told me it was and because I saw a mislabeled map of South America which reinforced this belief. According to my analysis of knowledge (which excludes the condition that “p is true”), I know that Gambia is in South America simply because I believe it and because I am justified in believing so because my sources of knowledge were legitimate. In this case, I do not know that Gambia is, in fact, in Africa, therefore, I am, unfortunately, confident in a false belief. And while this may seem like a problematic account of knowing, the JTB is no more able to counter such problems because, oftentimes, truth cannot be shown because it exists in a metaphysical realm alongside things like essence, morality, the soul, and even God perhaps.
Although the Gettier problem is valid, it does not have the power to undermine the traditional analysis of knowledge due to the absurd nature of its cases which would seldom arise under normal circumstances. Knowledge is best understood as “justified belief” because by removing the truth condition, we remove the need to rely on empirical methods to judge the “truth” of a belief, which, in turn, empowers the knowledge-seeker, rather than things external to our experience. Since the simplified traditional analysis is not concerned with explaining the truth of justified beliefs, externalist theories are overruled by the internalist view. Moreover, the isolated tribe from Papua New Guinea who believes that the sun revolves around the earth because they have no access to scientific knowledge or civil society, rightly has knowledge under these conditions. Afterall, we would never say that Aristotle did not have knowledge despite his geocentric perspective, would we? The more stringent the epistemic conditions, the less open we are to knowledge that sits outside the bounds of those conditions and the harder it will be to find the true essence of knowledge itself.
Sincerely,
Heather
*according to Aritotle’s Physics, the formal cause or “form of the archetype” is its “essence”
*Form is the definition of a thing or formal cause according to Aristotle’s Physics
Works Cited
Aristotle. “Physics.” Course pack for LBST 325: Our place in the Cosmos, compiled by David Livingstone, Spring 2022, Vancouver Island University.
Crumbley, Jack S. An Introduction to Epistemology. 2nd ed. Peterborough, Broadview Press, 2009.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy, edited by Andrew Bailey. Translated by Ian Johnston, Peterborough, Broadview Press, 2013.
Gettier, Edmond. “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” VIULearn. Accessed 20 September 2024.
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