what is knowledge? what is right and/or wrong about thinking that knowledge is justified true...

7/29/2019 What is Knowledge? What is Right and/or Wrong about thinking that Knowledge is Justified True Belief?

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Epis temology Tutor ial

WH A T I S KNOWLEDGE? WHAT IS RI GH T A ND/ORWRONG ABOUT THINKING

T H AT KNOWLEDGE IS JU ST I -

FI ED TRU E BELI EF?

R E N M A R I O M I C A L L E F


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WH A T I S KN O W L E D G E ? WH A T I S RI G H T A N D / O R WR O N G A B O U T T H I N K I N G T H A T

KN O W L E D G E I S J U S T I F I E D T R U E B E L I E F ?

Ren M ar io Mica l l efHeythrop College, University of London

Keywords: knowledge, justification, tripartite analysis, Gettier counter-examples, tracking.

1 . INTRODUCTION

The title question invites us to consider a defi-

nition and its appropriateness. The term in questionis Knowledge, one of the most significant words in

our every-day linguistic conception of the world and

in Philosophy. Indeed, knowledge is an icon of

Epistemology; it hallmarks the whole field just like

good in Ethics or justice in Political Philosophy.

We are all aware that such key notions are hard to

define in a satisfactory way, hence it is rather sur-

prising to note that the traditional definition ofknowledge known as the tripartite definition

sat unchallenged for many years till Edmund Gettier

caused a whole outcry with a neat little three-page

paper.

The tripartite definition of knowledge is pre-

cisely the one stated in the title: knowledge is justi-

fied true belief. The three words after the copula

state three individually-necessary and together-

sufficient conditions for knowledge: knowledge is

belief of a special kind, belief that is true and justi-

fied. More accurately, as we shall see, to know that

x is

to believe that x, when x (is true),

and when ones belief that x is justi-fied.

Before going any further, it is significant to note

that we have already narrowed the field considerably

by equating knowledge with knowledge that x.

But what do we mean when we use the word

knowledge in ordinary language?

2. KNOWLEDGE IN ORDINARY LAN-

GUAGE

In a dictionary-thesaurus such as Wordsmyth(2001), knowledge would be thus defined:

DEF: 1. familiarity, awareness, or understanding.Synonyms: familiarity, awareness, acquaintance, comprehen-

sion, ken. Similar terms: understanding, sense, conscious-

ness, cognisance.

DEF: 2. a particular or specialized form of under-standing or skill. Example:a knowledge of computers.

Synonyms: understanding, experience, know-how, proficien-

cy. Similar terms: expertise, skill, mastery, technique, com-

mand.

DEF: 3. erudition; learning. Synonyms: erudition,learning, education, intelligence, wisdom. Similar terms: ken,

understanding.

DEF: 4. awareness or cognisance, as of a particularfact or set of facts:Example:What knowledge did the

president have of these events?Synonyms: cognisance,

awareness, comprehension, familiarity. Similar terms: ken,

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inkling, realization, sense, consciousness, understanding,

acknowledgement, recognition.

The variety of ideas that the word expresses is

surely remarkable. Probably, no native Englishspeaker would normally go to look up such a term

in the dictionary, since it is one of the first words

one learns in a language. The dictionary entry serves

rather to identify the different meanings and shades

of meaning the word takes and to relate it to syno-

nyms, which refer concepts surely not more basic

than the one we are seeking to define.

Some dictionaries try to go further. The Con-

cise Oxford Dictionary (Allen, 1990) adds a mean-

ing proper to philosophy: knowledge is justified

true belief; certain understanding, as opposed to

opinion. Hopefully, this does not entail that in Phi-

losophy the word has a meaning that is clearly dis-

tinct from that in ordinary language, otherwise Phi-

losophy would stand accused of uselessly increasing

linguistic polysemy: Philosophers would be creating

new meanings for old terms meanings that re-

main restricted to Philosophy and then provide

themselves a job in trying to define them. One

would rather think that Philosophy aims at provid-

ing some better understanding and more rigorous

use of the words we use in everyday life by provid-

ing some ordering to the polysemy of terms (for

instance by pinpointing the focal meaning, on which

secondary meanings can be focussed and accounted

for). Gettier challenges the philosophical definition

using counter examples: this assumes that the Philo-

sophical definition must match (or track, we may

say) our intuitions on what knowledge is.

The use of term in language has a history; so

has the philosophical attempt to de-fine it, i.e. to

set-limits to its use, by comparing it and distinguish-

ing it from similar terms (by stating proximate ge-

nus and specific difference, to put it Aristotelically).

Terms like knowledge also have a geography, since

they are etymologically or conceptually linked in adynamic manner with parallel terms in other lan-

guages (such as German, Latin and French). Such

languages are related to English in origin or due to

overlap in areas of influence. In modern Philoso-

phy, moreover, the transition to vernacular lan-

guages meant that theories developed around cer-

tain Latin and Greek terms have been transferred to

equivalent terms in the vernacular language. Sinceno two terms in two different languages are perfect-

ly equivalent (in connotations, breath of use) one

may, at this point, start speaking of a Philosophical

meaning; one actually means a Philosophic limita-

tion (definition) of its meaning such that we can

focus on that same concept (from among others)

evoked by the English word as was focussed on by

Plato, Kant, Descartes when they were using theequivalent words in their own languages.

2. ETYMOLOGY, USE IN THE GREEK

PHILOSOPHICAL CONTEXT

Knowledge is composed of: know- from knowen

(Middle English), from cnawan (Old English), from

the Indoeuropean baseen-/no-, meaning to know,to apprehend; and -ledgeprobably from -lcan(Old

English), from -lc(as in wedlock). Compare:gnoscere

(Latin), gignskein (Greek), cognoscere (Late Latin): to

know (see Allen, 1990; Guralnik, 1974; Garzanti,

2001).

Gnsis in Classical Greek denotes an inquiry, a

judgement especially of a judicial kind (Lat. cognitio).

Evolving from this earlier legal use, the term comes

to signify knowledge in a philosophical sense espe-

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cially in Plato: as in Resp. 478C. In other classical

texts, we find it to mean acquaintance with a per-

son (e.g. in Aeschines) and also a knowing, a rec-

ognising (e.g. in Thucydides). A third Classicalmeaning is that of being known, being famous,

having credit (see Liddell and Scott, 1864).

Though etymologically related to the English

knowledge,gnsis is not the only Greek term with

which we are concerned in the Philosophical discus-

sion of what is knowledge. There is another main

term, epistm, that renders in Greek some of the

concepts behind the English word knowledge and

its use has been very significant in philosophy, such

that we still find its root in Epistemo-logy: the

understanding/ rational talk/ study (logos) of

knowledge (epistm)1.

Epistm, in a more traditional sense means ac-

quaintance with a matter, understanding, skill as in

combat, archery. We find this meaning also in Plato

(e.g. Phil. 55D, Gorg. 311C), though this philosopher

also uses it to denote scientific2 knowledge (e.g.

Resp. 477B) as does Aristotle (An. Post. I 33;Eth.

N. 6.3) as opposed to techn(artistic and technical

1 In the theory of Knowledge, being mainly interested withknowledge in general, the termgnsiswould seem most proper,since epistm(that in classic Greek Philosophy was used to referto objective, rigorously definable knowledge) has come to de-note scientific knowledge more specifically (in Modern Philos-ophy, and especially after the Enlightenment and after Positiv-ism). Hence, on the Continent, we find terms like gnoseologa(Spanish), gnoseologia (Italian) used to denote this branch ofphilosophy (Cfr.: Erkenntnislehre/Erkenntnistheorie (German);thorie de la connaissance (French) and the other Spanish alterna-tive teora del conocimiento.). In Italy, epistemologia would be ourPhilosophy of Science (see Cioffi et al., 2000:608)

2 i.e. rigorously definable, objective; from Lat. scire, scientiaop-posed to spere, sapientia. Spere, used also to mean to (possessa) taste (cfr. in-sipid) is more indicative of experientialknowledge.

skill, crafsmanship) and empeiria (practical experi-

ence, without the knowledge of principles). Other

classical authors use the term to signifyknowledgein

a general way (e.g. Sophocles).

Other Greek terms expressing knowledge are:-

*eid (to see) in the perfect form ida: to know(once having seen or perceived) in Homer it

must be rendered sometimes by to know, have

knowledge of, sometimes by to know, perceive; later

to come to know, learn (Liddell and Scott,

1864:360);

nosis: perception (mental), understanding,thought (opposed to what is simply visible hora-

ton, aisthton);

sophia (originally meaning cleverness or skill inmatters of common life):i. knowledge of, acquaint-

ance with something; ii. sound judgement, intelligence,prudence, practical and political wisdom (also: cunning,

shrewdness); iii. knowledge of a higher kind, as of the

sciences, learning, wisdom, philosophy (see Liddell

and Scott, 1864:1342).

3. PROPOSITIONAL KNOWLEDGE

Most Western-European languages distinguishknowledge-that from other forms of knowledge,

using a different term for knowledge: wissen da in

German (vs. wissen, kennen, erkennen, unter-

scheiden, erlebe, erfahren...); saber que in Spanish

(vs. saber, conoscer, reconoscer, distinguir, entender

de, enterarse de...); savoir que in French (vs. savoir,

connatre, se render compte, reconnatre, entendre,

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tre au courant de); sapere che /conoscere che in

Italian (vs. sapere, conoscere, rendersi conto di,

riconoscere, intendere, intendersi di, essere al cor-

rente di...). In English, the conjunction that follow-ing the verb to know (/noun knowledge) is the

main linguistic feature that distinguishes that use of

to know which expresses propositional knowledge:

that introduces a phrase (proposition), which one

is claiming to know or not know.

Knowledge-that (S knows-that Paul is taller than

Anne) is often distinguished from knowledge-how

(S knows how to get to Moscow from St Petersburg; S knows

how to play football)3 and from knowledge-of (S knows

Paul; S has a good knowledge of Moscow)4. Why therefore

3 G. Ryle has argued strongly in favour of the distinction be-tween knowledge-that (theoretical) and knowledge-how (prac-tical) in his book The Concept of Mind (1949). He claims thatnot all knowledge-how presupposes knowledge-that (since thiswould imply infinite regress because we need know-how toformulate and apply the propositions of knowledge-that), ra-

ther, priority should be given to knowledge-how. Hamlyn dis-tinguishes further between knowledge-how (which entailsknowledge of principles even if one may not be able to formu-late them) and mere ability to do something (this somewhatreminds us of the theria praxis poiesisdistinction in Aristo-tle); he also expresses doubts whether it is correct to insist thatin between knowledge-how and knowledge-that there one thatis prior (see Hamlyn, 1970:104). The distinction has recentlysparked further debate (e.g. Williamson and Stanley, 2001).

4 One has further to distinguish between acquaintance with aperson and acquaintance with a thing. The distinction betweenknowledge-that and knowledge-of is further sustained by thefact that some languages have distinct words for the two (e.g.connatreand savoirin French). Hamlyn comments:

The reference to a confrontation between subject and object, however,may suggest a distinct state of mind involved in that confrontation a state of awareness. There is indeed such a state as an awareness ofa thing, although it is something more special than simply havingknowledge of the thing. Such a state of awareness is implied by theGreek term gnsis nd there was a tendency in Plato and Aristotle tothink of such awareness the direct intuition of an object as theparadigm of knowledge. Even so, the content of any such awarenesscould be expressed only in terms of what a subject knows about theobject, what relevant facts he knows; hence, once again, what a personknows when he has direct awareness of an object is knowledge-that.

(Hamlyn, 1970:105)

This seems to assume that we know only what we can express.We seem to have a lot of problems with expressing what

concentrate on knowledge-that in a theory of

knowledge?

Knowledge-of does in fact lie at the basis of

some theories of knowledge whereby knowledge is

considered to be the possession of an adequate

(mental) image of the object being known; such a

model (sometimes called the iconic model) has its

origins in the Stoics5; we find it prevalent in Modern

Philosophy (e.g. Descartes mentis inspectio,

Kants phainomenon) and in 19th century German

idealism. Such a model finds considerable difficulty

in accounting for mathematical and logical

knowledge, which lacks iconic character. The other

model that has prevailed in history is the proposi-

tional model whereby knowledge is the possession

of a true proposition regarding the relations be-

tween things (facts) rather than the things them-

selves. (This model traces its origin to Aristotle; we

find it prevalent in Medieval Philosophy and in

Contemporary Philosophy (1900s to present), espe-

cially due to the influence of Positivism. It was also

present in Modern Philosophy, e.g. in Leibniz). The

challenge facing the propositional model is that of

representing justification convincingly (see entry

gnoseologia in Redazioni Garzanti (1993)).

knowledge itself is: does this mean that we do not know whatknowledge is? When we discuss the problems concerning thetripartite definition we are not doing this on the basis of ourhaving a better way of expressing what knowledge is, but ratheron our intuitively having a knowledge of what knowledge is,and intuitively knowing that the tripartite definition does notexpress well what we intuitively know.

Russell distinguishes between knowledge by acquaintance andknowledge by description in his book The problems of Philosophy(1912), but this distinction seems internal to knowledge-of,rather than a distinction between knowledge-of and knowledge-that. Knowledge by acquaintance is said to be certain, direct,incorrigible, immediate.

5 In Plato we find the theory of reminiscence, that is somewhatparticular. It is proposed in conjunction with the Socratic view

4

(footnote continued) (footnote continued)


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We shall not go into the merits of each of these

models since this is beyond the scope of the present

paper; it is however important to note that the tri-

partite definition assumes the propositional modelgiven that this is deemed more plausible in Con-

temporary Philosophy. Hence, the tripartite defini-

tions attempt to define knowledge-that is one of its

weaknesses (it is a limited definition of knowledge)

but also one of its strengths (it has a great appeal for

a Contemporary Philosopher of the sort which con-

siders the scientific proposition as the model of true

knowledge, and believes that this is the knowledgewe are mainly concerned with in Philosophy).

Consider now the following propositions:

1. S knows that {London lies to the north ofParis}.

2. S knows that {in Euclidian geometry, a tri-angle with sides 3:4:5 must necessarily havea right angle}.

3. S knows that {wanton cruelty is wrong}.4. S knows that {Vivaldis Four Seasons is an

exceedingly beautiful musical composi-

tion}.

5.

S knows that {Jesus Christ is God}.

The tripartite definition does not have the pre-

tence of dealing with the propositional knowledge

involved in examples 2 (Mathematical and Logic

knowledge), 3 (Ethical knowledge), 4 (Aesthetic

that knowing something means being able to define it (to saywhat it is: ti esti), and with Platos theory of ideas.

knowledge) and 5 (Religious knowledge) at least

not in the consideration of the tripartite definition

we are undertaking in the present work. Many epis-

temologists would be happy with a suitable defini-tion of knowledge (e.g. an emended version of the

tripartite definition) that would provide an under-

standing of our knowledge of empirical facts about

the world, even though its account of knowledge

not be fully adequate to the other types of proposi-

tional knowledge. Again, this limitation of scope can

be at once a strength and a weakness. It is doubtful

whether we can ever find a definition that could beapplicable to all the five cases; focussing on what

interests us most in Epistemology (that is more

closely related to Philosophy of Science than to Phi-

losophy of Mathematics, Aesthetics, Ethics or Phi-

losophy of Religion) promises to be more fruitful.

Another issue regards the use of the first per-

son:

1. S knows that {I wrote this}.2. I know that {I wrote this}.De se knowledge causes considerable compli-

cations and we shall avoid these by restricting the

use and scope of the tripartite definition and its cri-

tique to third-person, empirical, propositional

knowledge, as epistemologists usually do in order

not to engage in problems better dealt with in such

disciplines as Philosophy of Mind.

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4. THE TRIPARTITE DEFINITION AND

GETTIER EXAMPLES

The tripartite definition can be expressed logi-

cally in this form:

sKp (sBp & p & sJp)

where:

sKp = Subject S Knows Predicate P

sBp = Subject S Believes Predicate P

sJp = Subject S is Justified in believingPredicate P

p = Predicate P is true

= If and only if connector

& = And connector

As we have otherwise stated above, the three

separately necessary and together sufficient condi-

tions for knowledge, according to the tripartite def-

inition, are:

1. a state of mind of the subject: a belief,which regards facts stated as a proposition,

and which holds that proposition to be

true;

2. the facts believed being true (i.e. being ac-tually in the way one believes them to be)

3. the subjects having justification, warrant,reason to hold what s/he believes.

Plato, in Theaetetus (200d ff.), reaches a similar

definition of knowledge, which he does not howev-

er accept. According to this definition, knowledge

would be a true opinion6 accompanied by reason

(epistme= dxa alths meta logou). Knowledge seems

therefore to bring together two ideas: the strictly

objective notion of truth; and the more subjectiverequirement of justified belief. This asymmetry

seems to cause problems: some solutions to the

Gettier problem have tried to do away with justifi-

cation (e.g. Nozick) or with evidence-transcendent

truth (anti-realism). But before coming to this, let us

provide some Gettier examples.

1. Jones is justified in believing that his col-league, Smith, owns a Renault (he has seen

Smith driving it this very morning, he had

accompanied him to the car dealer when he

bought it and seen him sign the con-

tract). Hence, Jones is justified in believ-

ing that one of his colleagues owns a Re-

nault. It so happens that Smiths car has

just been stolen; however, unknown to

Jones, his other colleague, White has just

bought a Renault. Jones has therefore a jus-

tified true belief that one of his colleagues

owns a Renault, but we wouldnt say that

he knowsthis, since its truth is purely a mat-

ter of coincidence.

2. Jane seems to perceive a key in front of her,and is justified in believing that there is infact a key in front of her. Actually, all there

is is a hologram of a key, generated by a

special projector. It so happens that the

switch that activates the projector lies in

6 Opinion (dxa), for Plato, is what is held true; is distinguishedfrom knowledge (epistme) since dxadoes not exclude the pos-

sibility of error, while knowledge does. Dxa has two levels:immagination (eikasia) and belief (pistis). See Cioffi et al.(2000:448-9)

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front of Jane, well hidden, and is activated

by a key identical in appearance to the hol-

ogram. Janes justified belief is thus true,

though Jane lacks knowledge.

3. Mr. Morgan has just returned home toLondon after a short holiday in Kent, and

is eager to open the mail for news of her

husband who she is justified in believing to

be in Pakistan. His company sent him there

on a special assignment for six months, and

Mrs Morgan is very worried about this, giv-

en the recent war. Mr Morgan, knowing

that his wife is undergoing special medical

treatment, wants her to calm down and feel

reassured; he therefore writes letters to his

wife saying that he has been transferred un-

expectedly to the head office in New York,

and sends them to a friend in this city in

order to have them posted from there. As

she picks up the pile of letters, Mrs. Mor-

gan is justified in believing that her hus-

band is in Pakistan, and this is true. Never-

theless we wouldnt say that she knows this:

her knowledge is undermined by evidence

she does not yet possess7.

5. SOME RESPONSES TO GETTIER

Dancy (1985:26) three possible ways of re-

sponding to Gettier counter-examples. One may:

1. find some means to show that the counter-examples donot work;

2. accept the counter-examples and search for a supplementto the tripartite analysis which excludes them

3. accept the counter-examples and alter the tripartite anal-ysis to suit rather than adding anything to it

A. REJECTING THE COUNTER-EXAMPLES

A first reaction to these counter-examples could

be that of saying they do not work, since the justifi-

cation of Jones, Jane and Mrs Morgan is not suffi-

cient: for knowledge, one requires certainty, infalli-

ble justification. This would however be too strin-gent a requirement; it tends to give leeway to the

sceptic and allows h/er to conclude that we cannot

know anything. It is also important that we allow

justified belief the possibility of being, in some cas-

es, false. Otherwise, judges, political leaders, scien-

tists, , we ourselves would probably never be jus-

tified in deciding or doing anything. The spectre of

error is always present however solid our evidenceand reasons may be, hence we must at some point

decide that our justification is sufficient, that it is

satisfactory for us and for whoever else may require

it (e.g. a jury in court). As Brena (1995:40) states:

Even though we invoke and presume absolute truth in our

statements, we do not demand absolute or exhaustive justifica-

tion neither from ourselves, nor from others. [] Justification

that resolves the relevant questionsactuallyopen is hence rea-

sonable and sufficient.

After all, it is important that we keep justified

belief distinct from knowledge; and at least to a first

approximation, the objective fact that a justified

7 See Harman (2000) for a discussion of such examples.

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belief is free of error is what promotes it from the

status of justified belief to that of knowledge. If

truth is built into justification, we would simply be

converting our problem of defining knowledge inone of defining justification.

Some have concluded, on analysis of cases such

as that of Jones, that the problem is one of inferring

from a falsehood (Smith owns a Renault), and have

tried to put into question the principle of closure

whereby

{(sKp) & (sK(pq))} sKq

[if {S knows P}, and {S knows that P entails Q},

then S knows Q]; or

{(sJBp) & (sJB(pq))} sJBq

[if {S is justified in believing P}, and {S is justified in

believing that P entails Q}, then S is justified in

believing Q].

We shall return to this when discussing

Nozicks account of knowledge as tracking, howev-

er, in cases of knowledge from perception (such as

Janes case), it is not evident that there has been

inference from a false proposition.8

B. SUPPLEMENTING THE TRIPARTITE ANALY-

SIS

Consider the following:

sKp (sBp & p & sJp & C4)

where :

C4 (condition 4) = sJp ensures that {sBp and p}

8 An account of knowledge using probabilistic rules of ac-

ceptance could also exclude such an inference from other typesof knowledge, but it risks facing the lottery paradox and otherproblems (see Harman 2000:67-9)

are not jointly an accident (see Sturgeon

1995:17).

Several have proposed conditions to fill in C4.

One proposal is that of requiring the absence of

relevant falsehood (e.g. taking the hologram of the

key for the key in Janes case). But what beliefs are

relevant? Possibly those, failing to believe which

one would fail to believe the final conclusion (there

is a key in front of Jane). But there could be further

gratuitous beliefs that neutralise the effect of the

relevant falsehoods (e.g. Jane could have heard on

the radio that a power cut planned for this morning

at the very moment she sees the hologram, and that

hologram machines need electricity to work). Then

there could be other falsehoods relevant to these

beliefs that neutralise the neutralisation (the elec-

tricity company decided to delay the power cuts due

to complaints against daytime cuts from the manu-

facturing industry). This web of beliefs tends to ex-

pand such that it would make too many false beliefs

relevant, and risks plunging us into scepticism.9

A similar approach is that requiringundefeat-

edly justified belief, i.e. that no be other truth such

that if one believes it, ones justification for believ-

ing the conclusion ends up defeated10. This would

9 Audi (1998:218) uses the lottery paradox against the relevantfalsehood proposal: you believe you will loose (you have achance in 10 million, say), though you do not know it, and thisdoes not depend on any falsehood!

10 Klein (2000) would put it: there is no true proposition suchthat if it became evident to S at t, p would no longer be evidentto S. Harman (2000) replies with examples similar to that ofMrs Morgan: Mr Morgan wrote her letters saying he is in NewYork (this is a true proposition), if this became evident to MrsMorgan on picking the pile of letters (t), she would no longerhave believed that her husband was in Pakistan. But now sup-pose that for some reason the letters were lost in the mail, or

were destroyed, or that Mr Morgan after writing the letters,decided not to send them. Would Mrs Morgan know that herhusband is in Pakistan in these circumstances?

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bring us into infallibilism on justification, since no

false justified beliefs could ultimately be undefeated-

ly justified. Besides, unless one considers at once all

beliefs that could possibly defeat the conclusion(which would be to stringent a condition) the pro-

posal presents the same difficulties with piecemeal

additions of truths that overturn one another as in

the case of relevant falsehoods.

F. Dretske has proposed a weaker account of

the conclusive reasons approach which originally

held that conclusion G must be sustained by con-

clusive reasons A, B, , F which couldnot be true if

N is false. The could is too stringent a condition,

hence Dretske proposes the use of would instead.

The use of the subjunctive conditional (A, B, , F

wouldnot be true if N werefalse) is a very interesting

move: we shall see it adopted in Nozicks account.

However, as Dancy (1985:33) notes, an account not

based on reasons is preferable, especially since we

need to account for perceptual knowledge. We can-

not expect Jane to provide reasons to justify her

seeing a key in front of her.

Another approach requires that our justified

true beliefs be derived from a reliable method in

order to be called knowledge. Unfortunately, we

cannot envisage a belief-gathering method that is

perfectly reliable (even if the method itself wereinfallible, we couldnt but apply it fallibly); yet, if we

were to accept only general reliability this would

not ensure knowledge.

Alvin I. Goldman has proposed the introduc-

tion of a causal mechanism in C4: the fact that P

should cause Ss belief that P. But how are we to

understand this causality? In Janes case, the key in

front of her does cause the system to project the

hologram and cause Janes belief: without that key,

the system wouldnt work and Jane would not havethat belief. One may object that the key is not the

fact that there is a key: this raises the spiny issue

whether facts (rather than things) can cause any-

thing. Goldmans position also encounters difficul-

ties in accounting for knowledge of the future (how

can future facts cause justification of present be-

liefs?) and for universals (how can the fact that all

chalk is white justify my belief that this piece ofchalk is white?).

C. ALTERING THE TRIPARTITE ANALYSIS

Nozick (2000) removes justification from his

account of knowledge (hence it is not simply an

addition of a fourth condition to the tripartite defi-

nition); he links the truth of P with Ss belief using a

subjunctive conditional:

sKp (sBp & p & {p sBp}&

{p sBp})

where:

{p sBp} = if it werethe case that not P,

then S wouldnot believe P;

{p sBp}= if it werethe case that P, then S

wouldbelieve P.

Nozick calls this account of knowledge track-

ing, since the belief tracks the truth like a column

of mercury in a thermometer. Causation theories,

such as that of Goldman, can be seen as special cas-

es of the tracking view, which itself offers to link

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facts and beliefs in a more general, less committed

way. The use of the subjunctive/counterfactual

construction reflects our everyday comparisons of

the actual situation to possible situations resultingfrom slight modifications of certain conditions that

account for the actual situations: had I not taken

that extra piece of toast at breakfast, I wouldnt

have missed the bus etc. In an exceedingly

different situation, where time travel were possible,

or where I were a brain in a vat being fed all sorts of

simulated sensations, one could not say that s/he

wouldnthave missed the bus. The scenario is so rad-ically different that s/he would not be able to do

our everyday sort of games with postulating slightly

different conditions to see what would obtain: the

factors to consider ex novo in our calculation of the

new situation would be too many to allow any

would prediction. Nozick, following David Lewis,

puts this in terms of close possible worlds: tracking

involves consistently believing that P when P, andthat not P when not P, in relatively different,

though also relatively similar, conditions.

This idea brings Nozick to refute the preserva-

tion of knowledge under closure. Clearly, if P, and if

P entails Q, then Q. But it does not follow that we

can track all of the components of this deduction:

P, (P entails Q) and Q. One may be able to track P

(I have a hand) but not Q (I am not a brain in a

vat), even though P logically implies Q, since you

could have P and P in close possible worlds but

not Q and Q: Q entails a radically different world

than Q and hence excludes the possibility of being

tracked.

D. FURTHER POSSIBILITIES

Another possibility beyond those listed by Dan-

cy is that of considering the tripartite definition not

as a definition of knowledge but rather as a view

regarding what is understood in our everyday un-

derstanding of knowledge. It does give a complete

analysis, the three elements may not be together-

sufficient, but is useful for the purposes of a critical

grasp on such a basic concept as knowledge admit-

ting the difficulties in defining such concepts. Simi-

larly, Nozicks concept of knowledge captures a

good deal of what we understand by knowledge

and is very useful, though it may not be completely

satisfactory as a definition. All this discussion of

knowledge, however, presupposes a very Socratic

understanding of knowledge itself, whereby know-

ing something means being able to define it rigor-

ously. But maybe knowledge is wider than that, and

we can know what knowledge itself is without being

able to define it. Dancy puts a position similar to

this rhetorically:

Hasnt Wittgenstein shown us anyway that a concept can be

perfectly healthy without being definable, arguing that there

need be no element common to all instances of a property (e.g.

instances of knowledge) other than that they are instances (e.g.

that they are knowledge)?

Dancy, 1985:26

9. CONCLUSION

Tracking is very useful concept; Nozick uses it

effectively against a sceptical argument. It counters

Getter-typer counter-examples better than any addi-

tion to the tripartite definition. Maybe, it is not

completely satisfactory as a definition of knowledge

10


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as we ordinarily understand it since it does not in-

clude some notion of evidence or justification on

the part of the subject. A tracker may hold beliefs

true in a totally irrational way, yet as long as his be-liefs track the truth we must admit that s/he knows

the propositions believed. At this point, we could

either let go of our ordinary understanding of

knowledge and accept that knowledge is nothing

but tracking, or else accept the concept of tracking

as a useful tool to use in the place of knowledge in

epistemology while retaining knowledge as an in-

spiring intuitive idea without seeking to define itrigorously, accepting the tripartite account as a

rough idea of what knowledge is.

REFERENCES

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problemi. Vol I: Let antica e medievale. Ediz. Scol.

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what is knowledge? what is right and/or wrong about thinking that knowledge is justified true...

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