Slide 1
A justified true belief can still be lucky
Gettier cases challenge the idea that knowledge is simply justified true belief. A belief can satisfy those conditions yet seem accidentally correct.
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Edmund Gettier's short 1963 paper disrupted an influential analysis of knowledge. The challenge concerns the connection between a person's reasons and the truth, rather than merely whether the final sentence happens to be accurate.
Slide 2
A stopped clock can show the right time by coincidence
Imagine checking a clock that stopped exactly twelve hours ago. By coincidence, it now displays the correct time.
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Assume you have good ordinary reasons to trust this clock and no warning of its failure. The example gives a true belief with apparently reasonable support, but its accuracy depends on fortunate timing.
Slide 3
Correctness alone cannot repair the broken evidence link
The worry is that the evidence does not connect to the truth in the right way. Accuracy alone does not remove the luck.
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Check the same clock a minute later and the belief would be wrong. This nearby variation makes the fragility visible without changing the clock or the observer's normal method of reading it.
Slide 4
Proposed repairs face further disagreements
Proposals add requirements concerning reliability, defeated evidence or the absence of certain kinds of luck. No simple repair commands universal agreement.
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A rule forbidding all false assumptions looks attractive, but philosophical examples can relocate the luck elsewhere. Analysing knowledge requires testing a proposal against several cases, rather than declaring victory after fixing one.
Slide 5
Knowing also concerns how the person got it right
The knowledge question asks how someone got it right. A lucky answer and an informed answer can match word for word.
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For an original comparison, imagine two people naming the right train platform, one from a current display and one from a guess. The shared answer leaves their different relationships to the evidence unexplained.
Sources
- The Analysis of Knowledge
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy