Despite the common intuition that something is very wrong with the Gettier problems, after forty years they still seem to be intractable. The responses to these paradoxes of knowledge range from complaints against their logical structure to conclusions that knowledge simply cannot be analyzed. Most philosophers, however, take a position somewhere in between these two extremes; their responses advocate changing the traditional Justified True Belief model of knowledge to something that “de-Gettierizes” knowledge. This almost always means either adding some fourth condition or clarifying or changing the definition of justification. In this essay I will consider different possible solutions to the Gettier problems. After establishing the validity of these problems by defending Gettier against an objection to the logical structure of his counterexamples, I will then look at several attempts to change the justified true belief model to avoid the Gettier problems. I will then show that when these proposed solutions fail, as many of them do, it is because of a common defect. Finally, I will suggest that Nozick’s proposition analysis of knowledge is an elegant and insightful solution to this basic problem, and defend it against an objection from Kripke.

There are really only a few general strategies that can be used to resolve the Gettier problems. First, one could concede the point and claim that Gettier beliefs are knowledge; Smith does indeed know that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket, and Smith does know that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk. Second, one could argue that knowledge is a basic concept that cannot be analyzed. Third, one could argue against Gettier’s principle that “for any proposition P, if S is justified in believing P, and P entails Q, and S deduces Q from P and accepts Q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing Q” (Gettier 121). Fourth, one could argue that justification has some necessary conditions that preclude these types of beliefs. Fifth and finally, one could argue that there is some necessary condition for knowledge in addition to justified true belief that precludes these types of beliefs.

I. Arguments against the Validity of the Counterexamples

The first strategy, arguing that Gettier beliefs are knowledge, is a cure clearly worse than the disease. A concept of knowledge that allowed such cases would be strongly counterintuitive. The second strategy, arguing that knowledge is a basic concept that cannot be analyzed, certainly has its merits, but it is mostly beyond the scope of this paper and I can do little more than give a broad objection it: it simply feels wrong. There are many basic concepts, but for the most part they are self-evidently basic; we feel no compulsion to try to analyze them. Knowledge intuitively seems like something for which there are fairly strict, logical conditions, and if it were a basic concept it would be unique in not being obviously so.

The third strategy, arguing that being justified in believing a proposition does not necessarily make one justified in believing all propositions entailed by that proposition, shows more promise. In “In Defense of Justified True Belief,” Irving Thalberg argues against the transitivity of justification using the analogy of betting. For instance, in the case in which Smith believes the proposition “the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket,” Thalberg argues that though Smith may be justified in believing the propositions “Jones has ten coins in his pocket” and “Jones will get the job,” he nevertheless may not be justified in believing even the conjunction of these two propositions, let alone the general proposition containing the denoting phrase “the man.” To explain why this is so, Thalberg considers the conditions for betting on each proposition. Even if Smith were willing to vote independently on the proposition “Jones will get the job” and the proposition “Jones has ten coins in his pocket,” he may still be unwilling to bet on the conjunction of these two (Thalberg 798). Conjoining propositions increases one’s possibilities for error, as a falsehood in any one of the conjuncts renders the entire conjunction false. This reasoning presupposes that the justification of a proposition is simply one’s reliable judgment of the probability that the proposition is true. If this is the case, then the justification of a conjunction will only be as strong as the probability that the entire conjunction is true, which is obtained by multiplying together the probabilities of all of the conjuncts. A belief is justified if the probability that it is true is above a certain cutoff, which may vary according to circumstance. Therefore, while two propositions composing a conjunction may be justified, the conjunction itself may not be.

Of course, this argument relies on the assumption that justification is a matter of probability and that it admits of degrees in the way that Thalberg believes it does. But even if this assumption is granted, the argument still has problems; Thalberg’s point about the intransitivity of justification in conjunctions may be valid, but his argument against the Gettier problem arising from disjunction is seriously flawed. Thalberg believes that Smith’s compound belief that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk is invalid for basically the same reasons that the compound statement is invalid: since justification is based on probability, a proposition may be less justified than its premises. In this case again, Thalberg states that adding a disjunct to the proposition “Jones owns a Ford” alters the odds that it is true. However, Thalberg does not seem to appreciate how different this case is: here, rather than making the compound proposition less probable, it makes it more probable. If justification is indeed a matter of degree and is based on accurately judged probability, then the proposition “either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk” is more justified than the proposition that entails it. Extending the betting analogy, Thalberg states “no bookmaker would permit Smith to gamble on (the disjunction) under the same conditions as he bets on (the original proposition). . . Smith might be justified in accepting (the disjunction) whenever he is justified in accepting (the original proposition), but we might not be justified in allowing him to shift from (the original proposition to the disjunction)” (Thalberg 798). But why should Smith care about what we are justified in allowing him to do? This must be an entirely different kind of justification that Thalberg is talking about; whatever this justification is, it shares no connection with the kind of justification we are concerned other than name. The kind of justification that matters here is Smith’s justification in believing this series of propositions. In fact, the reason that we are not “justified in allowing him to shift” is that it is more probable that it is true; far from making Smith less justified in believing the proposition, this is rather precisely what makes him more justified. Therefore, the Gettier paradox is still present; by Thalberg’s admission, Smith is justified in believing a proposition which is true, but in circumstances that do not intuitively seem to constitute knowledge.

II. Truth as a Redundant Condition

As Gettier points out, his counterexamples rely on two principles: first, it is possible to have justified false beliefs; and second (as discussed above), justification is transitive from a proposition to any propositions entailed by that proposition. We have just seen the failure of an argument against the second of these principles. However, this strategy of challenging whether Smith’s beliefs are justified is certainly the minority. Most philosophers concede Gettier’s point and attempt to either strengthen justification or add some other condition that avoids such problems. But unless justification is strengthened to the point that justified false belief is impossible, Gettier problems will always arise. If both justified false belief and unjustified true belief are possible, one can always make a Gettier problem from them by putting one of each together in a disjunction.

This same general principle applies to models adding some other condition to justified true belief. However many conditions are added, if it is possible that all of these conditions (except truth) can be fulfilled and the belief still be false, then a Gettier problem can always be made by forming a disjunction by adding a belief that fulfills the truth condition but not some other condition or conditions. In any analysis of knowledge, truth must be a redundant condition. If the other conditions do not already guarantee truth, a disjunctive Gettier problem can always be made. This means that, despite what many philosophers have assumed, the analysis of knowledge is not a matter of what conditions to attach to truth and belief to get knowledge; truth must be a necessary consequence of the other conditions. Therefore, there is no such thing as “knowledge minus truth”, or beliefs that qualify as knowledge in every condition except that their propositional content is not true (I will henceforth refer to these beliefs as “condition-fulfilling false beliefs”).

Based on this criterion that truth must be a redundant condition, it seems that any analysis that merely strengthens the justification condition will end up being very counterintuitive. Justification that entails truth seems too strong, but if it does not entail truth, an analysis that only contains the conditions of justified true belief will always be subject to Gettier problems. If justification is taken to be normative; that is, if an unjustified proposition is one that we ought not to believe and a justified proposition is one that we may or should believe, then clearly truth cannot be a necessary condition for it. Certainly there are sometimes propositions which we have every reason to believe, which we do not violate any epistemic duty by believing, and even which we would be violating some duty by not believing, but which are nevertheless false.

III. The Basic Fourth Condition and Defense of Nozick

It seems then that if we hope to analyze knowledge in a way that conforms to our intuitions, we must add some fourth condition to justification, belief, and truth; or more precisely, we must add some condition to justification and belief that necessarily entails truth. Many further conditions have been suggested. Some of these allow for condition-fulfilling false beliefs and therefore fail. Others explicitly forbid justified false beliefs, and still others do not commit themselves either way, but can be interpreted as forbidding such beliefs. For example, consider Lehrer and Paxson’s theory of knowledge as undefeated justified true belief. According to this theory, a belief is knowledge if it is justified and true and if there is no other true proposition that the subject justifiably believes to be false and which, if known, would render belief in the original proposition unjustified (Lehrer and Paxson 227). Though Lehrer and Paxson do not say so explicitly, this clearly disallows any condition-fulfilling false beliefs, because in such cases there will always be a defeater: namely, the true proposition “this belief is false.”

There are several other possibilities given for conditions added to justified true belief that will avoid Gettier problems. Goldman’s causal theory, Plantinga’s theory of proper function, the many variations on the theory of “no false lemmas,” and all other theories proposing adding conditions to justified true belief all avoid the Gettier problems to the extent that they succeed in connecting the subject’s belief necessarily to the truth of the proposition. The condition must be such that condition-fulfilling false beliefs are impossible, and therefore such that the proposition’s being false is sufficient to preclude belief in it. Robert Nozick recognized this most basic element of any condition added to knowledge and formalized it as “if p weren’t true S wouldn’t believe that p” (Nozick 211).

This condition, I believe, captures the essence of the Gettier problems and provides an elegant way to avoid them. However, it is not without its critics. Kripke proposes as a counterexample a variation on the traditional “Barn County” thought experiment. In the original thought experiment, Matthew is traveling through Barn County, in which, unbeknownst to Matthew, there is only one barn but thousands of barn façades. Matthew sees the one real barn and forms the belief “I see a barn,” though it is by sheer luck that Matthew happened to see the one real barn instead of one of the thousands of facades. The justified true belief account would consider this knowledge. Nozick’s account deals with this easily. Even if Matthew had seen a façade, rendering the belief “I see a barn” false, Matthew would still have believed it. Therefore, Nozick’s added condition is not fulfilled, and Matthew’s belief is not knowledge.

Kripke’s counterexample adjusts Barn County so that only the one real barn is painted red, and all others are left unpainted by law. Matthew sees this barn and forms the belief “I see a red barn.” This, Kripke claims, counts as knowledge under Nozick’s definition, because if this were false and Matthew did not see a red barn, but rather saw an unpainted façade, he would not have believed the proposition. But if this is knowledge, then Matthew knows that he sees a red barn, and from that can deduce that he sees a barn, which is what we rejected in the first place (Luper-Foy 265).

This objection, however, is flawed. Kripke states that when Matthew believes the proposition “I see a red barn,” this qualifies as knowledge under Nozick’s definition because if Matthew hadn’t seen a red barn, he would not have believed that he saw a red barn. But Kripke seems to have formalized this sentence incorrectly. He is treating Nozick’s condition as though it were “there is some state of affairs such that p is not true and Matthew does not believe p.” One might as well say that Matthew’s original assertion, “I see a barn,” qualifies as knowledge because there exists some possible state of affairs, say, if Matthew had been blind, such that if this state obtained, Matthew’s proposition “I see a barn” would have false and he would not have not believed it. But Nozick’s condition is more stringent; it is that every time and under whatever circumstances p is false, S will not believe p. And in Kripke’s counterexample there are clearly cases in which it is false that Matthew does not see a red barn and yet believes that he does; for example, in the next county over where all façades are red and all real barns are unpainted.

IV. Conclusion

In this essay, I have defended both of Gettier’s foundational principles: the transitivity of justification and the existence of justified false beliefs. By delving further into the reasons why objections to the second principle fail, and concluded that the central issue was that in any analysis of knowledge, truth must be a redundant condition. With this core insight in mind, Nozick’s theory of knowledge, which does not have truth as an explicit condition, seems to be the simplest and best solution to the Gettier problems. The implications of Nozick’s theory are yet to be fully developed, but I believe they have the potential to both challenge and hone many of our intuitions about what knowledge is, and particularly to give us greater understanding of the role of truth.

Works Cited

Gettier, Edmund. “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis 23.6 (1963): 121-23. Print.

Lehrer, Keith, and Thomas Paxson. “Knowledge: Undefeated Justified True Belief.” The Journal of Philosophy 66.8 (1969): 225-37. Print.

Luper-Foy, Steven. The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and his Critics. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1987. Print.

Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations. Cambridge, MA: Robert Nozick, 1981. Print.

Thalberg, Irving. “In Defense of Justified True Belief.” The Journal of Philosophy 66.2 (1969): 794-803. Print.

Steve Tensmeyer (’11) is a Philosophy and International Relations Major at Bringham Young University

Abstract: Ever since Plato described knowledge in the Theaetetus and the Meno, three criteria, namely justification, truth, and belief (JTB), have composed the traditional philosophical definition of knowledge. In his 1963 paper “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Edmund Gettier attempts to disestablish the traditional definition of knowledge. He utilizes a thought experiment in which a person appears to meet the knowledge criteria yet still does not seem to have knowledge. In this paper we clarify and specify the definition of knowledge, breaking the justification criterion down into three separate criteria, saving the common sense intuition and the traditional definition of knowledge from The Gettier Problem. All the while this new understanding of knowledge and justification still allows us to consider many everyday knowledge claims to be knowledge (i.e., it is parsimonious but not too restrictive).

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In his 1963 paper “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Edmund Gettier claims justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge because “it is possible for a person to be justified in believing a proposition that is in fact false” 1. Gettier demonstrates how chance events can turn a seemingly justified false belief into a seemingly justified true belief using a thought experiment about Smith, a man applying for a job. Smith has “strong evidence”2 that the other applicant, Jones, will get the job (maybe the boss told Smith) and that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (maybe Smith saw Jones counting them). Accordingly, Smith believes that “(e) the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket”3. Yet, Smith gets the job, not Jones, and unbeknownst to Smith, he, too, has ten coins in his pocket. According to Gettier, although Smith thought Jones would get the job, events just so happened to make his belief (e) true and justified. Therefore, Gettier claims one can have justified true belief while “it is equally clear”4 that the belief is not sufficient for knowledge. It is unclear what Gettier meant by “clear”; he seems to be referring tosome kind of intuitive notion of knowledge or the practical everyday layman’s conception. The intuitive or practical notions, while rough, appear to be a useful guide toward a more complete understanding of knowledge.

In order to make sense of the intuitive notion of knowledge Gettier refers to, one needs a new conception of justification. Gettier’s description of justification unintentionally and merely illustrates apparent justification. Only apparent justifications can lead to belief in “a proposition that is in fact false”5. If one has enough information and uses it correctly, one no longer treats apparent justification, which can lead to falsity, as actual justification. For example, if Smith only allowed reliable evidence to justify his beliefs and Smith knew that the boss’ statement about hiring Jones was unreliable, then it would no longer appear to justify Smith’s belief. In Gettier’s conception of the traditional knowledge criteria he does not distinguish between apparent and actual justification.

The traditional requirements for knowledge, according to Gettier, are as follows:

S knows that P IFF

(i) P is true,
(ii) S believes that P, and
(iii) S is justified in believing that P.6

To prevent a misinterpretation, like Gettier’s assumption that justification can lead to false belief, it is beneficial to understand the traditional justification requirement, (iii), as a shortened version of the following:

(iii)   S’s believing that Q makes S believe that P,
(iv)    If Q is false or if Q has no impact on the truth of P then Q will not make S believe that P and
(v)     Were S to have perfect information about everything, (iii) would still be true.

Such an understanding eliminates S’s ability to confuse apparent justification with actual justification. Smith’s knowledge claim in Gettier’s thought experiment violates (v) when P is “the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket,” and Q is “the boss said that Jones will get the job and Smith saw Jones count ten coins in his pocket.”7 Smith’s claim violates (v) because if Smith had the whole story the boss’ statement would no longer make him believe P so long as (iv) is true. Smith would realize that it is possible that despite Q, P could be false because the boss’ statement is unreliable. The statement merely appears to be justification if S does not have access to the information that the boss is unreliable. In other words, (v) guarantees that there is no further information that S could attain that would render Q false or show it not to have an impact on the truth of P.

A consequence of (v) is that S would probably have many reasons to believe P. Generally, not all reasons are created equal (i.e., some reasons are better than others). For example, in the court of law, DNA evidence linking someone to a crime is better than eyewitness testimony because DNA evidence is more reliable. However, with perfect information all reasons become equally good. For example, eyewitness testimony is just as reliable as DNA evidence if one can be certain of what the witness observed and that he or she is telling the truth. Criterion (iii) will still be upheld even if, given perfect information, one has what is generally considered to be reasons better than Q. If one has perfect information then reliability issues vanish, making all true and relevant reasons equally trustworthy.

Meeting the five criteria prevent a knowledge claim from falling victim to Gettier-style chance. The criteria distinguish between apparent and actual justification. Skeptical arguments can arise when attempting to ascertain whether a claim meets criteria (i), (iv), and (v). Like in Gettier’s “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” the difficulty will remain unaddressed here. This new conception of knowledge and justification is a good first step in figuring out when someone has knowledge. They allow for a continuum of confidence about whether a particular claim is knowledge. The more one learns about the world, the more confident one can be that a particular claim is knowledge. So, as long as one has the correct understanding of justification, yes Gettier, justified true belief is knowledge.

Endnotes

1 qtd. in Huemer 444

2 qtd. in Huemer 445

3 qtd. in Huemer 445

4 qtd. in Huemer 445

5 qtd. in Huemer 444

6 qtd. in Huemer 444

7 qtd. in Huemer 445

Works Cited

Gettier, Edmund. Epistemology : Contemporary Readings. Ed. Michael Huemer. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Alex Ehrlich (’09) is a Accounting and Taxation major at Hofstra University.

AJ Durwin (’10) is a Philosophy major at Hofstra University.

Photo courtesy of jolian.

By James Fox

Abstract

Since its publication Gettier’s Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? has become the seminal work in modern epistemology. This paper challenges the very assumptions of Gettier’s counterexamples and is therefore a radical alternative to both the proponents, and critics, of Gettier. By showing how knowledge is found, not in mere words or statements, but within the fundamental beliefs of the speaker, I expose the way in which ambiguity in language can mislead us into rejecting the traditional definition of knowledge as Justified True Belief.

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“What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and wouldn’t wait for an answer.”
– Francis Bacon

Pilate’s question has haunted humanity, and its answer I shall not presume to give; suffice to say that it will be an answer both beautifully simple and excruciatingly complex. However, as a preface to any study of Truth and knowledge, this question, simpler and less frequently asked, must be considered: Where is Truth? If we are to discover Truth, where should we look? There are many sources that purport to be true – spoken words, manuscripts and books, scientific theorems and even the deepest feelings of men’s hearts. In this essay I intend to address two main questions. The first is the relationship between a true statement or belief and Truth Itself. Is a statement True by its own virtue, or by what it causes or by what it reveals, for instance. Secondly, I intend to defend the view that Knowledge is Justified, True Belief, one which has only recently been challenged and yet is now almost entirely rejected. I shall not attempt to define knowledge, only to break it down into its three components.

So, to our business of finding Truth. I must make it clear that I am not attempting to investigate the nature of Truth itself, its many complexities and misattributions. As Beauty is commonly used to describe many things which are not truly beautiful, merely elegant, picturesque, alluring or some lesser aesthetic quality, it is quite possible that our notion of Truth would include those which, if a thorough consideration were applied, would need to be demoted. However, this is not my aim. As it is acceptable, for the purposes of buying an oil painting, for instance, to use a wide and admittedly imperfect notion of beauty, I hope that it will serve my purposes to do the same for truth, and that you, my reader, will forgive my failure to think more clearly and precisely. Truth then, for the purposes of a preface only, we may take as corresponding to reality, as it is described by science and believed by men of common sense. Let us for now put metaphysical speculations aside and concentrate on the lives of men, leaving the Forms to their business.

“Lying lips are an abomination unto the Lord,” we are told by Solomon in the Book of Proverbs. Indeed, for most of us our first encounter with the truth is as a child, when we are told to tell the truth, and not to lie. Is this then where the philosopher should search for Truth? When we look at those who do not deceive, we see that what they are saying corresponds with what they believe. However, this is not Truth in itself. For one could imagine a lie, by coincidence, being factually accurate and therefore true. On the other hand, the thoughts of a liar, and his beliefs and opinions, may be true, while what he says is not. It seems that in this area, it is better to consider the issue of sincerity. A sincere man will say what he thinks, which may be true or not. To speak the truth, however, we must be more than sincere, we must have some knowledge of it, and our words must express this.

Let us then return to statements which are made, being able as we now are to ignore those which are insincere, and to concentrate our search for truth in those sayings and writings which accurately reveal the author’s beliefs. I believe that there are two ways to search for truth in a statement of language, and that it is the understanding of these which is the key to this question. However, with spoken expressions, we almost always have a fair amount of knowledge concerning the speaker – even if they are a stranger to us we know what they are wearing, their height, accent, and can usually gain a little of the motivation for what they say by considering the circumstances. Therefore our knowledge of the speaker influences our analysis of the statement itself. However, when reading, particularly when reading classics or other works where we are far removed by time and place from the author, we are forced to consider to a greater extent the words on their own merits. Here, then, is where we see the contrast most starkly.

A clear example of this is with the Holy Scriptures. For many of the books of the Bible, the authorship is uncertain, and what is known about the authors is severely limited. In addition, the writers lived in both places and times far removed from our own. Despite this, vast numbers of people, both inside and outside of organised religious traditions, have scoured its pages in a search for Truth. It is also certain that there is considerable disagreement as to how this resource is to be used. Broadly speaking, there are two main methods, although most readers will use both techniques and will not draw sharp boundaries.

There is one group who read books and apply them to their own lives, seeking to find truth which may not have been explicitly intended. This does not mean that each person’s interpretation is equally true, but it does mean that it is possible for there to be truth in a sentence which was not explicitly proposed by the author. This can be seen in Shakespeare’s use of irony, where what is said by the characters delivers an apparently unintended truth to the audience. Historians and others of a similar mind do not attempt this, but seek to discover what was intended by the author. In order to do this it is important to know the context, to make comparisons with other contemporary writings and to, as far as one can, enter the mindset of the author. As already mentioned, many will use a combination of these practices according to their objectives and their situation.

These two methods or comprehensions can be applied to any work. When applying oneself to Machiavelli’s Discourses, for example, one man may find it useful to read a biography of the Florentine, to compare his work to those of the period, to examine his letters and habits, so as to gain the greatest insight into the intended argument. When asked how useful and accurate the composition before him is, he will examine the arguments that the author made, and, if a fault can be found in them, will conclude that the book, while intriguing, is flawed, or relevant only to its particular period. Another man, however, may do none of this. Instead, he says to himself, “As this work has been preserved for many years, there must be something in it. Let’s give M the benefit of the doubt, and construct the best possible argument from what is written that we may use this to aid our understanding of politics.” When asked how useful the book is, the second man will recite what he has been able to glean from it, and if the argument he has produced is stronger, and more useful than that particularly intended by the author, he will not mind one jot. We cannot say that one of these modes of thought is superior to the other; they have entirely different aims. The first man is trying to understand Machiavelli’s psychology, his motivations, and his beliefs as a man and as a politician. The second may as well not know who has written the book at all, he is trying to gain knowledge of the subject for himself, and is more interested in the politics and philosophy than history and psychology. Indeed, it can be interesting to have both ways of understanding a book in mind when reading it, so one can gain knowledge of all of the above fields, and understand, if a stronger argument can be made, why the original writer did not manage to express this.

This distinction, however, gives us considerable insight into the relationship between spoken and written statements and Truth. Indeed, it shows that a statement’s truth depends on how it is read, and indeed, it is clear that, depending on the context in which it is spoken, and the reception that it receives, the same statement can be seen as being both true and false. For example, the statement “The princes in the tower” would seem true, if I were asked to name victims of Richard III. However, it would seem manifestly false if the question were “Who commanded the Armada?” From this, it can be seen that a statement is not simply true or false in itself; the truth we apply to it depends on the beliefs which underlie our utterances. Is this really that surprising? For, after all what distinguishes a statement from a clanging cymbal, or an inscription from mere gashes in a stone? Solely the fact that it can be interpreted. We cannot apply truth to mere noise, or knowledge to mere ink on parchment. A statement, as a string of words written or uttered, is neither true nor false.

We will find if we are being precise, it is wrong to call statements made using language true or false at all. The statement is a mere vehicle, an imperfect but usually reliable way of transmitting information about our beliefs. The statement itself does not correspond to reality. Instead, it is our belief that a state of affairs is so that either corresponds to reality or does not. Thus, only a belief, and not a written sentence or a remark which is spoken, can be said to be true or false. Thus, it is in our beliefs that we must look for truth, and be wary of falsehood.

This may seem like the mere splitting of philosophical hairs. After all, we do not know what another believes except by interpreting their statements and actions. If statements are all we can possibly know, then the above distinction, even if it is accurate, is not worth the paper upon which it is inscribed. However, I will attempt to show that this distinction is vitally important when we consider the question of knowledge, which is surely of great importance to philosophy. In particular, I wish to show that if the above is considered, the Examples given by Mr. Gettier, when he argues that Justified True Belief is not knowledge, do not cause a problem to the definition, and that, as this is the main stumbling block which has been encountered, the tripartite definition of knowledge is as far as we know correct.

The first example I shall consider is one of Gettier’s own1. In this situation, Smith and Jones are both applying for a job. Smith is justified in believing that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. Smith is also justified in believing that Jones will get the job. The proposition The man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket seems therefore to be an accurate portrayal of Smith’s justified belief. However, against all expectations, Smith is offered the job. Unknown to him, he also has 10 coins in his pocket. Initially, it looks as if his proposition is true, and as it is also believed with justification, we are tempted to conclude that this is indeed a Justified True Belief. As, however, we would not like to say that Smith knew this; hence this definition of knowledge is inadequate.

In the storm that this example caused when first released, philosophers grappled with what seemed to be the most ambiguous part of the definition, namely the justification clause. However it is clear that in this situation S is justified in believing P. Now, in the light of our earlier discussion, let us take another look at the proposition. It is possible, by modelling the world as such, that “who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket” can be entirely unambiguous – there is only one job, which only one man can get, we agree on a definition of coins and pockets, and of ownership of these. However, The man must be ambiguous, as in order for the example to work there must be two men, Smith and Jones. P is therefore true/false, depending on the identity of the man, which, I think we can safely conclude, refers to one, actual, concrete man rather than an abstract concept of any man. If we were determined to discover whether P is true or false, we would have to seek out Smith and ask him, which man did he mean? It seems clear that in this situation he would reply that, as he believed that Jones would get the job, the man refers to Jones. However, by substituting these now-identical terms, we have made the proposition false; Jones did not get the job. Smith’s belief, although justified, is now not true. It seems sensible that by clarifying the ambiguity in the language, we have not changed Smith’s belief about the state of affairs, so we must conclude that his belief was false all along, and he therefore never had knowledge of P.

Here the sceptic could object that Smith was indeed talking about a man in the abstract, not a concrete figure. For instance, he could, it must be admitted, simply believe that a man with 10 coins in his pocket will get the job, without identifying this in any way with Jones. However, if this is the case, how can it be that his belief is justified? He is justified in believing that Jones has 10 coins, but we have not seen Smith rifling through the pockets of an abstract form of a man!

It may however be accepted that this example fails, while still holding that some Gettier examples are conclusive. The original two situations are now rarely used to illustrate the criticism of Justified True Belief; they are usually replaced by more recent examples. I shall now take a more complex and persuasive example and show that the same method can be used to discount the criticism of the tripartite definition, before looking, in more general terms, at the failings of all such examples.

Imagine that I am sitting in my study, and I hear a siren from the direction of Broad Street. I know that, when one hears a siren of this description, it is produced by a police car, and therefore believe, with considerable justification, that there is a police car on Broad Street. However, I am mistaken; there is instead a prankster who is activating a siren in an attempt to cause a nuisance. There is in fact a police car on the street, driving quietly so as to intercept this disturber of the peace. Here the statement ‘There is a police car driving down Broad Street’ seems to be doubtless true. There is even a causal connection between the justification and the truth of the proposition. Surely here we have a Justified True Belief which is nevertheless not knowledge?2

Let us look at what exactly it is I believe when I make the statement, ‘there is a police car driving down Broad Street.’ I believe that there is an object in that location, that it is moving, that it is a car, and more specifically a police car, that inside are police officers, and that it is sounding its siren, and many other things about it. I must believe that it is sounding its siren, as if not, my belief cannot be said to be justified. Hearing a siren is not a justification for believing that there is a car driving silently nearby. I can therefore make many propositions about the state of affairs, all of which I believe, some of which are true. It is not true, however, that the police car has its siren on. In this situation, the term police car is ambiguous, it does not give me enough information to make a decision as to the truth or otherwise of my belief. When clarified, my belief, that there is an object in that location with the attributes listed above, is not true.

The obvious reply to this is that although my belief is a bundle of propositions, not all of them have to be true in order for the belief to count as Justified and True. However, let us consider what would occur if a different proposition was altered. It could be the case that I am correct in believing that there was a moving object carrying police officers in that location, sounding a siren. However, instead of being a car, the policemen in question are riding a pink rhinoceros down Broad Street, which has been conveniently equipped with a siren. Here we would not say that I am correct in believing that a police car was driving down Broad Street, with a siren and all of the other attributes above. By altering any one of the propositions which make up my belief, the belief is fundamentally altered. Thus, in order for our belief to be true, all of the propositions need to be correct, and any falsehood will remove the status of knowledge.

In view of this, we need to reconsider how we think about knowledge. Although the tripartite definition is usually referred to, saying that knowledge is a justified true belief, this is used to mean a proposition which is believed and also true and also justified, hence the term ‘propositional knowledge’. This is made explicitly clear at the start of Mr. Gettier’s paper, for instance. However, we have seen that beliefs are not single propositions, but whole bundles of them, which we could not hold independently, but only together in relation with one another. For propositions do not exist in the mind; only beliefs exist in the mind. It is the ambiguity of spoken and written language, and the desire for brevity at the expense of clarity, which leads us to think that a single proposition can be in itself a belief. Knowledge, being a relationship between internal beliefs and the external state of the world, deals in beliefs as they are, rather than as they are expressed.

It is important to note that this distinction in no way shows that Justified True Belief is knowledge. It shows, however, that the Gettier counterexamples do in no way argue that it is not knowledge, and so for the time being we should accept the tripartite definition. There is, I put to you, in every ‘Gettier case’ at least one term which is ambiguous as to its reference. This leads to the sentence being justified on one reading of it, and true only on another reading of it, while that word must refer to only one object in reality. Now if more evidence comes to light that this is not how we should define knowledge, this must be addressed and the definition changed. However, for the moment there can be no objection to defining knowledge as Justified, True Belief.