Topics Knowledge

Question In a response to a question about conceptual analysis and lexicography, Peter Lipton said, "...you can have a justified true belief without knowing, because it may still be just a matter of luck that your belief is true". It is my understanding based on some reading of epistemology that you can't have true knowledge if there's the possibility that your belief is wrong (i.e., you got lucky). Is this a widely held belief in epistemology or am I wrong? Because the definition seems to make sense to me. For example someone rolls dice and says "It's going to be snake eyes", but even if the roll does turn up snakes eyes, they certainly didn't KNOW it (unless the dice were rigged).

Accepted:
June 30, 2006

Comments

I agree that a lucky guess is not knowledge. It's a true belief, but what seems to be missing is some justification for the belief. What is more surprising is that even a justified true belief may fail to be knowledge.

Do you know what time it is right now? Have a look at your watch. Now you know, because you are justified in believing that your watch is working. Of couse if unbeknownst to you your watch has stopped, then you you don't know the time, because your belief about the time, though still justified, is false. But now suppose that, by sheer coincidence, your watch stopped exactly twelve hours ago. In that case your justified belief would be true! But still, you wouldn't know what time it is. Hey presto: that's a justified true belief that is not knowledge.

Cases like these were brought to the attention of the philosphical world by Edmund Gettier in the 1960s, and they have prompted a large literature. For an article on Gettier cases, click here.