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When Is True Belief Knowledge?
A woman glances at a broken clock and comes to believe it is a quarter past seven. Yet, despite the broken clock, it really does happen to be a quarter past seven. Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief.
In this provocative book, Richard Foley finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs--something important that she doesn't quite "get." This may seem a modest point but, as Foley shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information.
Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge.
In this provocative book, Richard Foley finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs--something important that she doesn't quite "get." This may seem a modest point but, as Foley shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information.
Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge.
- GenresPhilosophy
162 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 15, 2021
The Gettier problem is one of the trickiest in contemporary philosophy: what turns true belief into knowledge? The traditional tripartite definition held that knowledge is any justified true belief (JTB), but in 1963, Edmund Gettier presented a short paper which seemed to show cases where someone holds a justified true belief but did not have knowledge.
The most common response to the Gettier problem is to revise the justification condition, replacing justification with properties such as warrant, or adding indefeasability, or the reliability of one’s faculties to it.
In this book, Foley’s rather extreme approach is to completely abandon the justification condition, and focus instead on the belief condition. Severing knowledge completely from justification has two interesting effects:
1. It provides a quick and easy solution to most of the Gettier-type stories being debated today, and
2. It puts him squarely at odds with about 95% of epistemologists.
Does it pay off? Kind of. For example, in a lottery problem (S has a lottery ticket with a 1/1000 chance of winning, and S believes that P (she does not have the winning ticket). This is in fact true, but before the results are announced, can S be said to know P? Most people would deny that S knows P. Foley agrees, however instead of exotic justification explanations, he reasons that S simply lacks an important truth - namely, that another ticket won. In his example, S knows P once she reads the newspaper the next days and learns Q (the winning ticket was #453)
This is all well and good, but an issue arises: what if the newspaper hadn’t printed Q, but rather Q*(S didn’t win)? Since S already believes that she didn’t win, what information is being added?
Foley doesn’t address this exact counter-example, but anticipates similar ones. His response is that any counter-example can be fleshed out with enough information to render justification unnecessary.
He discusses a principle called “knowledge blocking” where a circumstance may be completely lacking in accessible information. He gives an example of a Beetle in a Box, which is a sealed box and has the property of always having been sealed, and the history of the box such that it cannot be known to any person. This provides an interesting thought experiment, however I believe cuts against the claim that justification is unnecessary.
This book achieves its goal of providing interesting problems for epistemology, although falls short of “reorienting” the discipline, as I suspect Foley hoped it would.
The most common response to the Gettier problem is to revise the justification condition, replacing justification with properties such as warrant, or adding indefeasability, or the reliability of one’s faculties to it.
In this book, Foley’s rather extreme approach is to completely abandon the justification condition, and focus instead on the belief condition. Severing knowledge completely from justification has two interesting effects:
1. It provides a quick and easy solution to most of the Gettier-type stories being debated today, and
2. It puts him squarely at odds with about 95% of epistemologists.
Does it pay off? Kind of. For example, in a lottery problem (S has a lottery ticket with a 1/1000 chance of winning, and S believes that P (she does not have the winning ticket). This is in fact true, but before the results are announced, can S be said to know P? Most people would deny that S knows P. Foley agrees, however instead of exotic justification explanations, he reasons that S simply lacks an important truth - namely, that another ticket won. In his example, S knows P once she reads the newspaper the next days and learns Q (the winning ticket was #453)
This is all well and good, but an issue arises: what if the newspaper hadn’t printed Q, but rather Q*(S didn’t win)? Since S already believes that she didn’t win, what information is being added?
Foley doesn’t address this exact counter-example, but anticipates similar ones. His response is that any counter-example can be fleshed out with enough information to render justification unnecessary.
He discusses a principle called “knowledge blocking” where a circumstance may be completely lacking in accessible information. He gives an example of a Beetle in a Box, which is a sealed box and has the property of always having been sealed, and the history of the box such that it cannot be known to any person. This provides an interesting thought experiment, however I believe cuts against the claim that justification is unnecessary.
This book achieves its goal of providing interesting problems for epistemology, although falls short of “reorienting” the discipline, as I suspect Foley hoped it would.
September 7, 2019
Highly accessible and compelling.
Foley's thesis - knowledge is true belief plus all important information that is necessary - is a rather simple one with a lot of explanatory power. And it is a refreshing break from the standard (JTB) analysis. However, there are some deeper problems with the theory: for instance, what counts as important?
Foley's thesis - knowledge is true belief plus all important information that is necessary - is a rather simple one with a lot of explanatory power. And it is a refreshing break from the standard (JTB) analysis. However, there are some deeper problems with the theory: for instance, what counts as important?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews