Claims such as K↔JTB are more commonly known as biconditional claims. Thought experiments are used to test such claims. This is done by examining their implications with the use of seemingly coherent scenarios. In this essay, I will look at two biconditional claims, one being the traditional theory of knowledge and I will use thought experiments to identify which directions if any, can be seen as false. I will particularly look at Edmund Gettiers use of thought experiments and how they pose a threat to one of the directions of the K↔JTB theory. Firstly, to illustrate this use, we can look at a more original example; this being the theory of sexual consent; (SC) consent↔ (a) asked and (b) OK. We are able to test this biconditional claim if …show more content…
A counter – example to this direction (R → L) can be presented through the following thought experiment. Suppose you are home alone and a gunman forcefully enters your home. As he cannot find any valuables in the house, he decides that he will force you to have sex with him. He knows you will not do this and instead holds you at gunpoint and asks you to agree. Under enormous pressure; you say “yes”. Here, we have both (a) and (b) present but we don't have consent. This is because, you may have been asked (condition a)) and obviously to save your life you have said yes (condition b)), but this doesn't necessarily mean you are giving consent. Instead you are just saying yes because you do not want to killed, but clearly it isn’t the same as saying yes if you were not being forced into a …show more content…
Edmund Gettier is famously known for his counter examples against this claim of having knowledge if and only if there is justified, true belief. In 1963, he published a paper which demonstrates the implications of the JTB theory. We can look at his counter examples which rely heavily on the use of thought experiments which subsequently, allow him to analyse which direction if any, of the JTB theory is incorrect. By Gettiers use of thought experiments, we are able to imagine a coherent scenario in which we are able to recognise where justified, true belief may be present but not knowledge. Let us take the following thought experiment; suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for the same job. Smith believes that the man with ten coins will get this job. Jones has ten coins in his pocket, which Smith himself has counted and the president of the company has assured him that the Jones will be chosen. Smith has strong evidence that the man who will be picked will have ten coins in his pocket, as Jones will be picked and he has ten coins. Therefore, Smith is justified in believing that this proposition is true. So we can conclude that both directions of this claim; K→ JTB and JTB → K are
Thomson notes that this example shatters the argument that abortion should not be permissible. Her example shows that it is
She again uses a thought experiment where she presents a situation where if a mother were to carry her fetus to term that it would kill her. She states “we are told that performing the abortion would be directly killing the child, whereas doing nothing would not be killing the mother, but only letting her die,” which opens up an argument of the difference over killing a person and just letting them die when in this situation the mother could live if she was able to abort the pregnancy. She presents four scenarios to which this situation could end. The first is that killing an innocent is impermissible, so an abortion cannot take place. The second is killing an innocent is equivalent to murder, and murder is never okay so therefore an abortion can not take place. The third is, killing an innocent is worse then letting a person die therefore an abortion may not be performed. Finally, the fourth scenario is that if you have to choose between killing a person and letting them die you have to choose letting someone die and an abortion may not take place. She goes on to say that all of the scenarios are all false, but then only provides a reasoning for the second scenario saying that if the mother performed an abortion to save her own life that it could not
I am going to start off by explaining a thought experiment that was originally created by Frank Jackson, for the knowledge argument in favour of property dualism. I am going to revise both the thought experiment and the knowledge argument in order to argue
In this short paper I will examine the positions of foundationalism and coherentism, and argue that a form of weak foundationalism is the most satisfactory option as a valid theory of justification for knowledge and is therefore a viable way of avoiding any sort of vicious regress problem and skepticism.
Goldman's requirement that we must have a causal connection explaining that some proposition is true and one's believing that a proposition is true is required to avert the Gettier problems, according to Goldman. “Jones owns a Ford” is a proposition which Goldman makes in an example that he uses to explain how this causal connection is required in order to avoid the Gettier problem. In the example he lays out a disjunction which says that Smith, the believing person, believes that “Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona”.
...e theory already allows for knowledge. This does not follow as we are not justified in holding step one without a proper method. Step one is needed to justify three and four, you are not justified in holding either three or four as they both require that we have a justified step one. Thus the steps do not allow for complete justification.
Almost all epistemologists, since Edmund Gettier’s 1963 article, have agreed that he disproved the justified-true-belief conception of knowledge. He proposed two examples
I shall also expound Ayer's theory of knowledge, as related in his book. I will show this theory to contain logical errors, making his modified version of the principle flawed from a second angle.
position that abortion is morally wrong. Therefore, if you kill a fetus, then (prima facie)
..., well defined idea about what is thought to be individually necessary and jointly sufficient for is needed in order to have knowledge. What I do not like about JTB analysis is that you can find a hole in every one of the analysis that I explained above. I feel like people are trying to make the subject fit in a box that is too small to be put in. I think what is needed is to widen the area that is trying to be used to specify knowledge.
Beliefs are a condition of said knowledge. Davidson’s argument deals a lot with the concept of objective trut...
Knowledge can be achieved either through the justification of a true belief or for the substantive externalist, through a “natural or law like connection between the truth of what is believed and the person’s belief” (P.135). Suppose a man named George was implanted with a chip at birth, which causes him to utter the time in a rare Russian dialect. His girlfriend Irina, who happens to speak the same Russian dialect, realizes that every time she taps his shoulder, he tells her the time and he is always right. She knows that he is right because she checks her watch. Because she thinks this is cute, she never tells him what it is that he is saying. One day, Irina’s watch breaks but instead of getting it fixed, she just taps George on the shoulder whenever she needs to ask for the time.
Immanuel Kant wanted to bring together empiricist and rationalist. Empiricism is the theory the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience. Rationalism is the theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge. Empiricists tried to understand Kant’s epistemological theory through reason. In the field of epistemology no body surpasses philosopher Immanuel Kant, even in modern philosophy nobody has come close to further explaining his views. His viewpoint affects most every other kind of philosophy. The empiricists tried to begin understanding epistemology through knowing and understanding the external world, Kant believed that it was the human that creates or imposes itself on the external world when pertaining to certain things and knowledge. Where Descartes understood the relationship between the mind and the world and how we process information. Kant thought this interaction was impossible, he went on to expose the logical error Descartes was never able to fully appreciate, in particular that no matter where or what is happening to a person at any given time that same person cannot say that what is happening is really existing . The link between the person and the unknown was never really made substantial and therefore everything would have to be questioned.
Some of the objections, such as the ones made by Edmund Gettier, claim that three conditions are not nearly enough to justify a true belief, and that at the very least a fourth must be added. Gettier presents a very valid criticism of the JTB theory of knowledge, and his counter examples highlight flaws in the JTB theory that make it an inadequate theory of knowledge. Gettier claims takes an issue with the third part of the JTB theory, which states that proposition P must be true. Gettier makes the interesting observation that person S may very well be justified in believing in proposition P even if P is false
Russell’s Theory of Definite Description has totally changed the way we view definite descriptions by solving the three logical paradoxes. It is undeniable that the theory itself is not yet perfect and there can be objections on this theory. Still, until now, Russell’s theory is the most logical explanation of definite description’s role.