elief in P is fallibly justified
P is true
This deconstruction of knowledge might be remedied by adding a fourth condition – such as “if P is true, it is not by luck that S belief in P coincides with it” in order to prevent the scenario from the above Gettier example from occurring. Applied to Smith’s situation, it would mean that his justified true belief that the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket would not qualify as knowledge because it was by coincidence, that his belief coincided with the truth of the proposition. Inclusion of the proposed fourth condition would resolve this, as follows:
S knows that P if…
S believes P
S’s belief in P is fallibly justified
P is true
The justification for S’s belief in P (2) ensures that it is not by luck that S’s belief of P (1), coincides with P being true (3)
2. No False Evidence Condition:
No knowledge can be claimed if it relies on a false evidence.
In the case of Smith – if he had lacked whatever evidence that had led him to believe that Jones would get the job, then he probably would not have inferred that the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket. The same could be said for whatever evidence that led him to infer that Jones had 10 coins in his pocket. If he had not encountered such evidence he would also probably not have had a justified true belief that the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket, which in the end fails to count as knowledge. So for the tripartite model of knowledge to hold, one’s justified true belief must be supported by evidence, none of which is false.
3. Appropriate Causality Proposal:
There must be an appropriate causal connection between the knowledge and the belief. This proposal was brought forward by Alvin Goldman in 1967, who suggested that a person’s believe in justified only if:
…the truth of a belief has caused the subject to have that belief (in the appropriate way); and for a justified true belief to count as knowledge, the subject must also be able to "correctly reconstruct" (mentally) that causal chain. Goldman’s analysis would rule out Gettier cases in that Smith’s beliefs are not caused by the truths of those beliefs; it is merely accidental that Smith’s beliefs in the Gettier cases happen to be true, or that the prediction made by Smith: " The winner of the job will have 10 coins", on the basis of his putative belief, came true in this one case.
4. Conclusive Reasons Condition:
Somebody’s belief in a proposition is based on a particular reason, such that if that proposition were not true, then that person would not have his stated reason as the reason for believing that proposition.
Fred Dretske (1971) developed an account of knowledge which he called "conclusive reasons", revived by Robert Nozick as what he called the subjunctive or truth-tracking account (1981). Nozick’s formulation posits that proposition P is an instance of knowledge when:
- P is true
- S believes that P
- if P were true, S would believe that P
- if P weren’t true, S wouldn’t believe that P
5. No Defeat Proposal:
A justified true belief counts as knowledge if and only if it is also the case that there is no further truth that, had the subject known it, would have defeated her present justification for the belief. In other words something is known as long as there is no evidence to the contrary.
All of the above proposed solutions are not without problems themselves. There are several sources where you can find them discussed in great detail, such as:
The major responses to Gettier that we’ve so far seen suggest that potential solutions should have it that, among other things, beliefs are not based on luck or false evidence, they should be appropriately causally related to the claim of knowledge, should be based on conclusive reasons and should remain undefeated. This is indeed a lot to ask for. In what ways might beliefs be justified in order to meet such criteria, thereby attaining the status of knowledge? And is it even possible?
To answer these questions, we shall be taking a look at various Theories of Justification, in