Is Justified True Belief Really Knowledge?

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 (iii), 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