Answer to Question #297013 in Philosophy for suha

Question

Your brother, Peter, told you this morning that he is going to cook dinner tonight. In the evening on your way home from school, you see a man from behind with a red T-shirt taking a bag, in which there are some books. Given that the figure of that man fits with Peter's, who likes wearing red T-shirts and reading books, you firmly believe that “the man who is wearing a red T-shirt and is taking a bag containing books will cook dinner tonight.”

However, what you do not see is that the man is indeed your father, John, who seldom wears red clothes. He does not like reading books, but he has borrowed several books from the library in order to learn how to cook dinner tonight, since Peter cannot cook because he fell ill in the afternoon. 

 

 

Question: Does the above case successfully prove that the classical definition of propositional knowledge is incorrect?

(a)  refer to Gettier's "Is knowledge justified true belief?", outline and explain the classical definition of propositional knowledge.

Answer 1

The definition of propositional knowledge is; Knowledge according to the traditional definition, is belief of a special kind, the belief that satisfies 2 necessary conditions: (1) the truth of what is believed (2) the justification of what is believed. Thus Knowledge should be redefined to require infallible justifications for belief.

A belief should not be considered knowledge if the justification occurs through an accidental occurrence.

A false belief may not justify knowledge, additionally, a belief must be caused by relevant evidence. Therefore, the intuition that Gettier cases do not represent knowledge and thus should be eliminated.