Smith Believes In A True Proposition example essay topic

Is Justified True Belief Really Knowledge? So, you think you found some truth in the traditional concepts that knowledge is true belief? Well, I just might have to burst your bubble and join up with Edmond L. Gettier's famous counterexample's to these particular beliefs. Gettier, published these ambitious counterexamples in a June 1963 article entitled, "Is Justified Knowledge True Belief". The traditional concepts of knowledge seem to hold that the following three stipulations are jointly sufficient in verifying the claim that S knows p (where S is some entity with the capacity for knowing and p is some proposition or claim): (i) p is true, (ii), S believes that p, and ( ), S is justified in believing that p. Gettier's counterexamples demonstrate situations in which justified true belief does not lend to the yield of knowledge.

Before stating his cases, Gettier is quick to note two points; The first being "it is possible for a person (S) to be justified in believing a proposition (p) that is in fact false". And secondly, for any time S is justified in believing p, and p entails q which S then deduces from p and is then justified in believing q. This means that if a person (S) is justified in believing a false proposition, then they are justified in believing other false propositions or propositions that turn out to be true based on false propositions. Gettier, provides two cases, using two subjects (Smith and Jones), that are directly pertaining to two falicies inherent within the traditional beliefs of knowledge. In the first case, Gettier supposes that the two subjects (Smith and Jones) are both applying for a certain job and that Smith has strong evidence that Jones will get the job and that Jones also has ten coins in his pocket. This proposition could be verified if Smith was assured by the president of the company that Jones would get the job and also that Smith had recently counted the number of coins in Jones' pocket.

From this proposition you can then go on to deduct that "The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket". Gettier then supposes that Smith sees this and is justified in believing so. Now here's the contradiction, imagine that unknown to Smith, he is actually the one who will receive the job and that also unknown to Smith, he coincidentally also has ten coins in his pocket. This leaves the proposition that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket to be true but the earlier proposition stating that Jones will receive the job to be false. But, since Smith came to this true proposition by using the count of coins in Jones' pocket and not his own, he is uncertain as to how many coins are in his pocket. Since Smith could still get the job regardless of the number coins in his pocket, the preposition that Smith believed to be true, is actually uncertain.

Even though Smith started with a proposition that he believed to be true and was justified in doing so, he still ended up with propositions that are indeed false. Simply put, you cannot derive truth or knowledge from propositions that are in fact false. In the second case, Gettier offers a similar case in which Smith believes in a true proposition but is unaware of it being true. The case starts by Smith having strong evidence for Jones owning a ford, given that Jones has owned a Ford automobile for as long as Smith can remember. Then let's suppose that Smith has an acquaintance, Brown, whom Smith is ignorant of Brown's whereabouts. Smith then randomly selects three locations and constructs the following three propositions: 1.) Either Jones owns a ford or Brown is in Boston, 2.) Either Jones owns a ford or Brown is in Barcelona, 3.) Either Jones owns a ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.

Imagine Smith realizes the entailment of these three propositions from the first proposition, (Jones owns a ford) and accepts them as true. Smith has correctly inferred these three propositions from a proposition in which he has strong evidence for. But since Smith chose the three locations at random, he has no idea where Brown is. Gettier then asks the reader to consider two more conditions: The first being that Jones presently is driving a rental car and does not own a ford and secondly, that coincidentally and unknown to Smith, Brown happens to be in Barcelona. This would lead to the second inferred proposition to be true even though Smith does not know that it is true. It follows that (i.) prop.

2 is true, (ii.) Smith believes that prop. 2 is true, and ( .) Smith is justified in believing that prop. 2 is true. Smith has just derived knowledge from propositions that indeed happen to be true, but Smith is completely unaware of prop. 2 indeed being fact. And since Smith is ignorant to the light of actual fact, this situation cannot be interpreted that justified true belief is knowledge since Smith is unaware of the actual truth of the first premise.

Even though prop. 2 is indeed true, Smith does not know this and therefore does not hold to all three premises of justified true belief being knowledge, and therefore has come to no conclusion of knowledge. In Gettier's two famous cases, he is not offering any answers as to how knowledge can be gained or justified, but rather, is just showing that justified true belief is not sufficient reasoning for attaining knowledge.