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JH3: Epistemology
Lecture 1
Theorising About Knowledge
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Four senses of knows
Propositional knowledge or knowledge-that.
John knows that the sky is blue.
Acquaintance knowledge. John knows the
president. Knowledge-how. John knows how to change a
tyre.
Knowledge-wh. John knows where to get coffeeJohn knows who the
murderer is.
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Is Propositional Knowledge
Fundamental?
Knowledge-wh can often translate into
knowledge-that. Embedded questions.
Knowledge-that and abilities.
What about acquaintance knowledge?
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Infallibilism
According to infallibilists about knowledge, inorder to truly
know that a proposition P is true,one must have ruled out or
eliminated allconceivable situations in which P is false.
Infallibility is an ideal that we can admire butrarely, if ever,
attain.
If this is what it takes to have knowledge, then it
seems as though we can have no knowledge ofexternal objects, the
future, the past or, even,perhaps, our own minds.
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The Tripartite account
According to the tripartite account of knowledge,
knowledge has three componentsbelief, truth and
justification.
S knows that P iff
(i) S believes that P
(ii) P is true
(iii) S is justified in believing that P.
Importantly, the justification or evidence required by (iii)need
not be conclusive or total. Justification is
compatible with falsity. The account is far more lenient
than the infallibilist account.
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Advantages of the Tripartite
Account
The account appears to avoid scepticism. It
appears to be consistent with our knowing a
great deal about the external world, one another,
the future and past, the universe etc. The account appears to
resonate with our
intuitive judgements about knowledge. It
appears to explain why we are willing to attribute
knowledge in certain cases and not others. Thelucky guess case
and the pessimist case.
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Trouble Ahead
While the infallibilist account of knowledge maymake life very
easy for a sceptic, as we will seein future lectures, the sceptic
is not defeatedsimply by moving to a more lenient account suchas
the tripartitie account.
While the tripartite account does do a good jobof predicting and
explaining someintuitive
judgments, as we will see in the next lecture,there are others
that pose serious problems.
For the time being, lets get clear on what theaccount actually
says.
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Epistemic Justification I
One has epistemic justification for believing a
proposition P just in case it is epistemically
reasonable or permissible, given ones
evidence, to believe that P is true. Having justification vs.
being able to justify.
Epistemic vs. practical or prudential justification.
Epistemic justification as truth-linked.
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Epistemic Justification II
Conclusive vs. nonconclusive epistemic
justification.
The distinction between propositional
justification (justification for believing) and
doxastic justification (justified in believing).
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Defeat
Proposition D defeats E as a justification for P
just in case (i) E provides justification for
believing that P but (ii) E and D does not provide
justification for believing that P. Proposition D defeats D as a
defeater for E as
evidence for P just in case (i) E provides
justification for believing that P, (ii) E and D does
not provide justification for believing that P and(iii) E and D
and D does provide justification for
believing that P.
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References
Ayer, A. (1955) Knowing as having the right to be surein
Bernecker, S. and Dretske, F. eds. Knowledge:Readings in
Contemporary Epistemology(Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2000),
pp7-12
Descartes, R. (1640) Meditations on First Philosophy,trans by
John Cottingham (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1996),
meditations I and II
Lemos, N. (2007)An Introduction to the Theory of
Knowledge(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press),chap. 1
