en true, though proposition (d), from which Smith inferred (e), is false. In our example, then, all of the following are true: (i) (e) is true, (ii) Smith believes that (e) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (e) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not KNOW that (e) is true; for (e) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith’s pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith’s pocket, and bases his belief in (e) on a count of the coins in Jones’s pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job.
Put simply: Smith has applied for a job, but has very good reason to believe that Jones will get the job (Smith has been told by the company president that Jones will win the job) . He also has justified belief that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket (Smith had earlier seen Jones with 10 coins in his pocket). He therefore concludes that…
“the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket.”
But it so happens that in fact Jones does not get the job. Smith does. However, Smith, unknowingly and by sheer chance, ALSO had 10 coins in his pocket. So, indeed, the belief that…
“the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket”
…was justified, and true. But then this can’t really count as knowledge on Smith’s part – for he was not aware that he’d get the job, and neither was he initially aware that he too had 10 coins in his pocket. It was by accident/luck that his justified belief coincided with the truth.
It would thus appear that there is problem with the notion of knowledge being defined as justified true belief, seeing as its possible to have a justified true belief that is still not knowledge.
Several proposals have been offered by various philosophers as a solution to Gettier’s problem:
1. Eliminating Luck Proposal:
One way to proceed in trying to address the problem posed by Gettier is by taking another look at the tripartite structure of knowledge, which takes the following form:
S (Somebody) knows that P (Proposition) if…
S believes P
S’s belief 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