RI JTB Package 2023

RI KI Y5 Knowledge & Justification: JTB 1 KI Package Y5, T1 Knowledge and Justification Contents - Justified True Belief: the three conditions - Russell on True Belief - Reply to JTB: The Gettier Problem ________________________ Tutor: Mr Jarrod Lee

RI KI Y5 Knowledge & Justification: JTB 2 Justified True Belief Exercise This exercise will take us through a series of class activities to show the conditions a proposition would have to meet in order to be called knowledge. In other words, if I want to say that I know that X, where X is any proposition, what would X require? 1) The Belief Condition For each of the following situations, discuss why we cannot speak of them as cases of knowledge. a) Suppose that Linh has a brother in Vietnam whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to in months and that his brother is healthy and well. Suppose also that Vietnam was in Jan this year hit by SARS and that Linh hasn’t been in touch with his family for a month because the phone networks and mail systems are down. Why can Linh not say that he knows his brother is well? Would Linh accept it if attempting to ease him, you said, ‘I’m sure your brother is well.’ b) Suppose Mother Theresa has been brought up as a Christian and for that reason has always believed in God, and that there is in fact a God. Why may some people not want to say that they share Mother Theresa’s knowledge that there is a God? Now try to formulate a requirement for us to say that I know that X: Try to think of counter-examples in which the above requirement you have just formulated may not really be necessary for knowledge.

RI KI Y5 Knowledge & Justification: JTB 3 2) The Truth condition We can build further requirements for knowledge if we learn from history. The 2 theories below have more or less been debunked today. Flat Earth Theory Main Claim: the Earth is flat, like a plane or disc Reasons given What are some reasons that suggest otherwise? 1) Rivers flow for hundreds of miles without falling more than a few feet (e.g. the Nile) but if the Earth is round, it should fall more than a few feet. 2) Scripture: “I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the Earth” (Rev. 7:1). 3) If the Earth were round, then the people on the other side are walking upside down. Miasma Malaria Theory Main Claim: Malaria is caused by bad air, emanating from rotting organic matter [Note: “miasma”= “pollution” in ancient Greek, “malaria”= “bad air” in medieval Italian Reasons given What are some reasons that suggest otherwise? 1) You can catch malaria without touching the sick 2) Where malaria was found, bad air could be found 3) Bad air arrives during mosquito seasons Why can we today not say that the flat-earth theorists knew that the earth is flat, or that Miasma theorists knew the cause of Malaria? What does knowledge require apart from belief? Try to formulate additional requirements for us to say that I know that X. To complicate things a little, let us consider the following pieces of knowledge: 1) (Math) I know that a circle has exactly 360 degrees and has an area of πr2 2) (Economics) I know that in a market with perfect competition, the forces of demand and supply would lead to a completely efficient outcome, and prices would move instantaneously to equilibrium. Would these two examples of knowledge meet the same requirements you have drawn up in reaction to the Flat Earth and Miasma Theories? How exactly would they meet these requirements? How do we determine if these pieces of knowledge are in fact true?

RI KI Y5 Knowledge & Justification: JTB 4 3) The Justification Condition The Lucky Gambler Consider a gambler who believes that the next number on the roulette wheel will be red. And it does turn out to be red. Does he have knowledge in this instance? Would it make a difference if he had knowledge that the roulette wheel was rigged to give red numbers? Why/ why not? The All-Knowing Psychic Suppose that a self-proclaimed psychic is able to predict unerringly (with no exceptions) international events that nobody else can, such as the day that a major war breaks out, the day that a new outbreak of Ebola virus occurs in Zaire, the date and hour of every earthquake of 8.0 strength or higher, and the date and strength of hurricanes that even meteorologists are unable to predict. Would you say that she knew that these things were going to happen? In other words, would you consider her predictions knowledge? Why / why not? What does this suggest about knowledge? 4) In Closing Through this exercise, we have seen how the three conditions of belief, truth and justification may be not just individually, but also jointly necessary for X to be called knowledge. Use the following example to consolidate what you have learnt about the above three conditions. A woman is asked on a television quiz programme, “In what year did George Washington die?” She says, “1799,” the correct answer, and wins a new car. 1) Would you say she knows the year in which George Washington died? 2) If 1799 was in fact the wrong year, would her knowledge still hold? 3) Would she know it because she remembered reading it in a history book? 4) Suppose she had read it in a history book, but wasn’t sure she remembered it correctly at the time she gave the answer; did she know it? 5) Would she know it if she just happened to guess the right answer?

RI KI Y5 Knowledge & Justification: JTB 5 Reading: Russell’s Problems of Philosophy The following is an excerpt from chapter 13 of Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy. Here, he discusses some of the problems with defining knowledge as “true belief.” How does this compare with what we have learnt about the conditions in Justified True Belief? Originally published by Oxford University Press, the fulltext of Russell’s book was put into hypertext by Andrew Chrucky in 1998 and is now public domain, available over the internet at http://www.ditext.com/russell/russell.html Russell …. There can be no doubt that some of our beliefs are erroneous; thus we are led to inquire what certainty we can ever have that such and such a belief is not erroneous. In other words, can we ever know anything at all, or do we merely sometimes by good luck believe what is true? Before we can attack this question, we must, however, first decide what we mean by 'knowing', and this question is not so easy as might be supposed. At first sight we might imagine that knowledge could be defined as 'true belief'. When what we believe is true, it might be supposed that we had achieved a knowledge of what we believe. But this would not accord with the way in which the word is commonly used. To take a very trivial instance: If a man believes that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, he believes what is true, since the late Prime Minister was Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. But if he believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be thought to constitute knowledge. If a newspaper, by an intelligent anticipation, announces the result of a battle before any telegram giving the result has been received, it may by good fortune announce what afterwards turns out to be the right result, and it may produce belief in some of its less experienced readers. But in spite of the truth of their belief, they cannot be said to have knowledge. Thus it is clear that a true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief. In like manner, a true belief cannot be called knowledge when it is deduced by a fallacious process of reasoning, even if the