Hypersonic wrote:
Why do we think the definition has to be absolute anyway?

Because that's what definitions are. The definition of a circle as the line described by one point moving equidistant from a fixed point is absolute because it just *is* what a circle is (all good definitions capture the entire essence of a thing to the exclusion of all else).

If knowledge is defined as JTB, then every instance of JTB better be knowledge. Gettier claims to show that JTB and knowledge come apart.

Granted, he may not be successful, but you can't counter Gettier by saying that knowledge is usually JTB but not always, because definitions can't contain negation, except as a shorthand for a positive claim about something else. The reason definitions can't contain negation is fairly obvious -- negation does not affirm the essence of a thing but only stands it in relation to what it is not.

So if you want to counter Gettier, you need to give us an explanation of why knowledge is JTB anyway, or else Gettier wins. (At which point, modern epistemology takes over and you try to determine a new definition of 'knowledge', possibly including JTB, but maybe not.)

Some definitions are absolute, but the tendency is to make every definition as precise as your example. Not all definitions are like this. Language is not always like this.

Think about trying to fit the definition of game into this example, you are not going to come up with a definition that fits all games, and yet we use the word game, and understand what we mean by game. This is also true of JTB - it just isn't an absolute. The only way Gettier wins is if you try to fit JTB into precise definition that works in every single situation. It's not like your example (definition of a circle), which is absolute.

There are just too many things to describe. We need to think more in terms of family resemblances.

Sam26 wrote:

Most of the time we are justified in believing that our senses are trustworthy, but that does not mean that we are justified %100 of the time. Sometimes we are wrong - period. Not only is he/she not justified in this instance, but the belief is clearly false. Sense experience is just not like a proof - sometimes we are misled.



But you surely accept that our senses can provide us with perfectly trustworthy information but still lead us to form false beliefs. An object that's expertly disguised to look like a sheep might lead us to the false belief we are looking at a sheep, but even though the object isn't sheep it doesn't change the fact that it still looks like a sheep and our senses were not wrong in that sense. The fact that it is possible something isn't what it appears to be only means that our beliefs are not undeniably true, but the Gettier problem doesn't require certainty. It only requires that our beliefs be justified.

Sam26 wrote:

It is as though you want to say, that since we are justified most of the time, we are justified all the time. And if you don't want to say this, then you have to admit that sometimes we THINK we are justified, but are not.


No...what I want to say is that justification is independent of whether the beliefs we feel justified in holding are true or false. Suppose I saw an object that looked just like a wolf and this formed in me the belief that the object I was looking at was a sheep. Now further suppose the object was in fact a sheep dressed up in wolf's clothing ( there's a turn around ) In this case I would hold a true belief but would I be justified. Well, I would say of course not. Something looking like a wolf isn't justification for it being a sheep, even if that is what it turns out to be. That suggests to me that justification isn't dependant on the truth/falsity of the belief in order for it be justification.



Sam26 wrote:

Not only is this true with sense experience, but it is true with testimony - sometime the evidence in courts of law point to the guild of someone, but sometimes we get it wrong.


Indeed we do put innocent people behind bars, but that doesn't mean we weren't justified in thinking them guilty. If someone was being framed the evidence would be powerful and be justification for believing them guilty. The fact that is possible our belief in their guilt was wrong, doesn't mean our belief wasn't justified.

Sam26 wrote:

There are NO absolutes here. If the definition of knowledge is JTB, that does not mean that it's an absolute. Why do we think the definition has to be absolute anyway? That's one of the big problems with trying to define something in such a way that it covers every circumstance, or every context. It is generally true that we can trust the testimony of others; it is generally true that we can trust our sense experience; and it is generally true that JTB works.



The issue here has nothing to with absolutes. Defining knowledge as JTB "seems"
a sound thing to do. It apparently meets our intuitions as to what knowledge is, but the point of the Gettier problem is to precisely question those intuitions by showing the definition appears to make the scenario depicted by Gettier an example of knowledge when our "common sense" would say that it isn't, thereby casting doubt on the validity of JTB as an adequate definition of knowledge. So there is nothing absolutist about Gettier. On the contrary he is attempting to challenge our comfortable assumptions.

It does have something to do with absolutes, because we think that if we have found an exception that means that the current definition does not work. We are constantly looking for precision in language - as if we are doing calculus. The striving for this kind of exactness is an illusion, and a waste of time.

To me something smells fishy with Gettier 'problems'...

In the wolf/sheet example, the belief "that there is at least one sheep in the field", if being justified solely by what appears to be *a* sheep, is false. The disguised wolf/sheet is not *a* sheep, so a belief which is based upon that is not true, even if there *are* other sheep in the field because the belief is not being grounded upon the *possibility of* other sheep. It is not about other sheep. It is formed by and grounded upon the perception of that which appears to be *a* sheep, therefore the existence of other *unseen* sheep do not satisfy the truth conditions of the belief or even apply to it.

If we then suppose that someone forms a belief that there is "at least" one sheep in the field, and the "at least" condition is meant to allow that there *may* be sheep somewhere else in the field, other than that which appears to be *a* sheep, then that belief is not being justified by the appearance of the wolf. In fact, the wolf in sheeps clothing has nothing to do with it's truth conditions. That rests upon the possibility of *other* unseen sheep. No appearance is even necessary for this belief to be had, therefore - 'other sheep' is not justified by that which appears.

Only when we conflate the conditions of two separate beliefs does a problem seem to arise.

This excerpt is from SEP...

The Gettier Problem

In his short 1963 paper, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Edmund Gettier presented two effective counterexamples to the JTB analysis (Gettier 1963). The second of these goes as follows. Suppose Smith has good evidence for the false proposition

(1)Jones owns a Ford.

Suppose further Smith infers from (1) the following three disjunctions:

(2)Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Boston.
(3)Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona.
(4)Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.

Since (1) entails each of the propositions (2) through (4), and since Smith recognizes these entailments, he is justified in believing each of propositions (2)-(4). Now suppose that, by sheer coincidence, Brown is indeed in Barcelona. Given these assumptions, we may say that Smith, when he believes (3), holds a justified true belief. However, is Smith's belief an instance of knowledge? Since Smith has no evidence whatever as to Brown's whereabouts, and so believes what is true only because of luck, the answer would have to be ‘no’. Consequently, the three conditions of the JTB account — truth, belief, and justification — are not sufficient for knowledge. How must the analysis of knowledge be modified to make it immune to cases like the one we just considered? This is what is commonly referred to as the "Gettier problem".

How is Smith to be considered justified in his believing the epistemic relationship between any of (2)-(4)? One of the two terms contained in the dysjunction is already known. How is that anything other than begging the question?

The claim here is that he is justified simply because he recognizes that the false proposition (1) entails (2)-(4), but does that constitute sufficient reason to believe that either Jones owns a ford or *whatever*? (2) through (4) cannot be validly inferred from (1). If we follow that logic, *whatever* is always true, because we already know that Jones does not own a ford. It would follow that I am equally justified in believing...

(5)either Jones owns a Ford or the world is flat, apples are oranges, straight is crooked, etc.

As with the sheep example, to me this smells rather fishy...

(1) is false, so it cannot be used as a measure of another proposition unless the truth value of that other proposition is completely contingent upon the truth value of (1). There is no epistemic relationship(contingency) whatsoever between (1) and where Brown really *is*(or the shape of the world, etc.), therefore (2)-(4) are not justified beliefs simply by knowing that (1) *is* false and 'entails' (2)-(4).

creativesoul wrote:
If we then suppose that someone forms a belief that there is "at least" one sheep in the field, and the "at least" condition is meant to allow that there *may* be sheep somewhere else in the field, other than that which appears to be *a* sheep, then that belief is not being justified by the appearance of the wolf. In fact, the wolf in sheeps clothing has nothing to do with it's truth conditions. That rests upon the possibility of *other* unseen sheep. No appearance is even necessary for this belief to be had, therefore - 'other sheep' is not justified by that which appears.

Only when we conflate the conditions of two separate beliefs does a problem seem to arise.

I am sympathetic to what you seem to be getting at here. I think that the appearance of an object ( an object that looks like a sheep for example) is not justification for the belief expressed using the indefinite article namely "A sheep is in the field". It is only justification for the particular. " The object being looked at is a sheep". Let me suggest that to justify a belief of the form " A sheep is in the field" where the indefinite article is used one must infer it from the particular. The inference takes the form such as.

1. The object is a sheep ( Which you justify based on the appearance of what you are seeing in the field)

2. The object is in the field.

Therefore:

3. A sheep is in the field.

This is a valid conclusion but it is not sound as premise (1) is false,therefore, (3) could not be knowledge by virtue of JTB. The point I am making is that it is my view that beliefs that use the indefinite article "A" can only be inferred(justified) from the particular( ie beliefs that use the definite article "the"), and if the particular beliefs are false then the inference from the particular to the general will produce an unsound conclusion. The Gettier scenario is only a problem because people wrongly think that the appearance of a particular object is justification for a belief that uses the indefinite article. It is not.