Roderick Chisholm has offered a new attempt to define knowledge in the second edition of Theory of Knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to present an objection to that definiton.

Here is the proposed definition (numbering below follows the text):

D6.4 h is known by 5 =df h is accepted by S; h is true; and h is nondefectively evident for 5.

To understand D6.4 we need to know what it is for a proposition to be nondefectively evident for a person. That has the following definition:

D6.3 h is nondefectively evident for S=df Either h is sertain for S, or h is evident for S and is entailed by a conjunction of propositions each having for S a basis which is not a basis for any false proposition.

There are four technical expressions in D6.3: “entailed,” “certain” “evident,” and “basis.“