Is Justified True Belief Knowledge

Abstract

A fourth approach is the amalgamation of Types I and II, where the authors have attempted to take what is best from both types. In this part, I show the defects of a number of analyses of Type I and suggest that future attempts of this type are apt to be unsatisfactory. After pointing out some of the problems with the representative of the ad hoc type, I ar gue that an ad hoc approach is unsatisfactory. I A version of the so-called Standard Analysis of knowledge is: (D. 1) S knows that £ if and only if (1) p is true, (2) S believes that £, and (3) S is justified in believ ing that £ (where ' p' is a sentence/statement and 'S' is the name of some person).? A more precise formulation is: For any x and for any £, if x is a sentient being and £ is a statement, then x knows that £ if and only if ^ is true, x believes ^ and x is justifTed in believing that £. Hereinafter I shall Tet 'S', in contexts of analyses of knowledgefrefer to a particular sentient being. A. J. Ayer, in The Problem of Knowledge, presents the fol lowing version of the Standard Analysis: "I conclude then that the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowing that something is the case are first that what one is said to know be true, secondly, that one be sure of it, and thirdly, that one should have the right to be sure."* 8 Translated into a uniform style, Ayer's analysis is: (D. 2) S knows that £ if and only if (1) £ is true, (2) S is sure that £, and (3) S has the right to be sure that £. The first condition, "£ is true," is defended by Ayer in the usual fashion; i.e., by appealing to ordinary usage. He says, "For while what is true can be believed, or disbelieved, or doubted, or imagined, or much else besides being known, it is ... a fact of ordinary usage that what is known, in this sense, cannot but be true."" The phrase "in this ?Lewis. 8Ayer. Q Ayer, p. 7. A-8 371 sense" refers to knowledge in the sense of knowledge that £. Elsewhere, he describes this first condition as a "linguis tic fact"10 and, also, as part of "the meaning of the word 'know,H. H If S were to have asserted on October 30, 1968: "I know that Humphrey will win the presidential election this fall, " S's listeners of 30 October 1968 might well have said, amidst the football-and-turkey of that '68 Thanks giving, that S did not really know after all, since what S claimed to know was false. If, in a howling blizzard in the Swiss Alps, your climbing partner says that he knows that the route to the nearest shelter is to the right and if you believe him, then you, too, believe, provided you are rational, that the route is to the right. Even politicians do not know that £ when £ is false. If some politician were to claim that he knew that £, even though £ was false, we might say that he was foolish, stupid, deceptive, etc., but we would not say that he was correct. Thus, I think that Ayer's claim that condition one is part of the meaning of knowledge is quite well-supported. In fact, since the topic of discussion is the knowledge of truths, there really are no grounds for disagre...