In light of Gettier cases, we should abandon justified true belief as a sufficient account of knowledge. Discuss.

The justified true belief is an account of knowledge that can be traced back as far as Plato1, claiming that all three conditions are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for knowledge. Edmund Gettiers challenge to this view successfully caused a reconsideration of this long-standing account of knowledge, when Gettier created situations such that one may be in possession of a justified true belief, but that this is, in fact, not knowledge.

Let us first understand the Justified True Belief account of knowledge that Gettier is attacking2:

i) P is Trueii) S believes that P, and iii) S is justified in believing that P

While few would doubt the necessity of justification, truth and belief for knowledge, Gettier exploits the disparity between mutual necessity and sufficiency. Let us analyse the first case concerning Smith and Jones applying for a job2:

Smith believes that (d) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. He therefore believes that (e) the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket. However, it is Smith that ultimately gets the job, and, by chance, he has 10 coins in his pocket.

Gettiers argument in his first case claims that (e) is knowledge by the tripartite definition, and that this definition has failed. However, this is not the case. Smith accepts (e) as knowledge because of the proposition (d). Smiths justification for (d) (and thus(e)), however was clearly insufficient as Jones was not the man to get the job. Smith made the mistake of building new knowledge (e) on the basis of other knowledge (d) that was lacking in sufficient justification. Were someone to have challenged Smith on his certainty of (d), perhaps he would not have ever believed (e). Because of this flaw in Gettiers own example, it seems unfair to abandon justified true belief as a sufficient account of knowledge when in this first example, Gettier seems only to be attacking a true belief, and not a justified one.

However, this is not to say that Gettier does not make an interesting proposition. Imagine a more troublesome Gettier case from the scientific community: Fifty years ago, doctors discovered that delta cells could be used as a way to treat ALND (a disorder of the muscles and nerves). This treatment followed standard medical testing (a rigorous and thorough procedure) before being employed, making thousands of sufferers lives much more manageable. Therapists specialising in this treatment possess the justified true belief that once these delta cells have been implanted, they grow and allow the nerve endings reform and give the patient more mobility. However, in recent years, previously unavailable research methods have been used to look further into delta cells. While it is true that delta cells grow and reform nerve endings, they do so in a way we shall call Method Y, instead of Method X as the research that took place 50 years ago would have had us believe. Because of this, the doctors concerned with treating ALND patients rightly possessed a justified true belief, though the scientists concerned with researching this have replaced the knowledge that delta cells operate according to Method X with the new knowledge that they operate as Method Y.

This is a more subtle example of a Gettier-style case that addresses some of the flaws in the examples given by Gettier himself. Previously, the Gettier case can be resolved by simply providing a better level of justification. However, for this case, the scientific method was used for justification throughout - a method all but Cartesian sceptics would regard as excellent justification. Through the justified true belief definition, it is quite easy to call something knowledge that is a justified false belief. As Zagzebski concludes, as long as the truth is never assured by the conditions which make the state justified, there will be situation in which a false belief is justified3.

Should we, then, be expected to provide a level of justification so great that we are unable to provide it at the moment we seek to acquire knowledge? In this example, if doctors had sought a treatment to ALND fifty years later, they would have had a correct understanding of whether it worked as Method X or Method Y from the beginning. While this would have been desirable for the epistemologist, only acquiring knowledge when a suitable justification exists is not practical. If it is that we are expected to provide justification beyond our reach, we may still be required to abandon the justified true belief account of knowledge since it would be impossible to ever sufficiently justify anything.

An alternative view to this is that the justified true belief is not sufficient in its definition of knowledge - that there is a missing fourth factor that is required for knowledge. If this is so, what would this factor be? Alvin Goldman proposes a different Gettier-style case4 in which Henry, driving through the countryside with his son, is pointing out their surroundings. He has the knowledge that what he is pointing at is a barn, and he is correct in this. However, what Henry is unaware of is that all of the other barns around them are papier-mch facsimiles of barns. He has had some epistemic luck in pointing at the only real barn. The reason this case is distinct from Gettiers is that Henrys knowledge was not initially based on any false beliefs. Perhaps, then, the missing factor is to not use false beliefs as a foundation for knowledge. Through this understanding, knowledge is highly dependent on other existing knowledge, perhaps modelled through coherentism or foundationalism.

This additional condition of not basing knowledge on false beliefs is a very specific response to Gettier cases. The reason the justified true belief was adopted so widely prior to Gettiers criticism was that it was seen as each condition was individually necessary and jointly sufficient. The addition of this particular fourth condition does address the majority of Gettier-style examples, but adds an unnecessary condition to the majority of knowledge held under the conventional tripartite definition. For example, my knowing that a triangle has three sides and the sum of its internal angles is 180 is knowledge as a justified true belief, and does not require any more conditions than that. Because of this, it is improbable that the missing fourth condition for a jointly and maximally sufficient definition of knowledge is that it is not based on false beliefs.

There is also still something to be said for what is best described as epistemic luck. It is exhibited in many Gettier-style cases, such as Goldmans aforementioned fake barn county case4, and Brian Skyrmss Pyromanic case5. It would appear that one cannot obtain secure knowledge without some degree of epistemic luck. This is a somewhat unexpected side-effect of an exploration of Gettier cases. When seeking knowledge, it is often the justification that we are most concerned with. The belief usually comes first, and we would not be seeking justification for something we did not know to be true. This is where the role of epistemic luck is pivotal, since (as Gettier cases point out) it is often through luck that we obtain the true belief we seek to justify.

In conclusion, Gettier cases do present enough issues for us to seriously consider abandoning the justified true belief account of knowledge. While Gettiers own examples may not have been entirely persuasive, his proposition that justification, truth and belief are not sufficient in themselves for knowledge is strong. Further exploration of his ideas also shows how it might be that we can never sufficiently justify our beliefs, how there might be some other factor such as epistemic luck, and certainly exposes how knowledge built only on the tripartite definition can easily lead to knowledge not suitable for being part of an epistemic chain, as found within foundationalist and coherentist understandings of knowledge. Because of this, it would be wise for the epistemologist to abandon the justified true belief account of knowledge.

Sources:1 Plato, (1983), Theatetus, 112c-d2 Gettier, E. L., (1963), Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, Analysis, 23:6 p.121-1233 Zagzebski, L., (1994), The Inescapability of Gettier Problems, The Philosophical Quarterly, 44:174 p.65-734 Goldman, A. I., (1976), Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge, The Journal of Philosophy, 73:20 p.771-7915 Skyrms, B., (1967), The Excplication of X knows that p, The Journal of Philosophy, 64:12 p.373-389

Other Books Used:OBrien, D, (2006), The Theory of Knowledge: An Introduction to, (Cambridge: Polity) Shope, R. K., (1983), The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research, (Princeton: Princeton University Press)