Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 75, 2018

Theories of Knowledge and Epistemology

Gettier Vindicated Against All His Blemishes

First, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge’ is imprecise but Gettier is explicit that ‘know’ is analysed as the definiendum is ‘S knows that P’. Second, Gettier does not misrepresent (a) as Plato’s definition as the expressions used are ‘Plato considers’ and ‘seems to accept’. Third, Gettier is not mistaken to apply Plato’s definition to propositions since propositional knowledge is a species of Plato’s definition. Fourth, for Plato true belief temporally precedes an account. ‘Jones owns a Ford’ is never a true opinion, hence no account for it can be given. The counterexample is reconstructed with temporality built into it. Fifth, Gettier does not fail to establish the equivalence of ‘believe’, ‘accepts’ and ‘sure’ in the three versions as this is implicitly established in the shifts made in the paper. Sixth, ‘entails’ logically is used only when the entailing proposition is true, but in the counterexamples a false proposition is taken to imply a true one. ‘Entail’ is to be taken in the ordinary sense of implies. Seventh, in Case I, the implication is preserved with the proper representation: (Gj & Tj) → (y)[Gy ↔ (y=j)], which implies ($x){(Gx & Tx) → (y)[Gy ↔ (y=x)]}’. Eighth, the counterexample is reworked to avoid the objection that justification for p and justification for q may not be sufficient justification for ‘p & q’.