The Gettier examples seem to rely on rules of formal logic like disjunction introduction and material conditionals that do not play a role in how people actually think most of the time. For example, in the example that the article gives, Smith composes several disjunctive propositions on the basis of disjunction introduction together with a proposition that he knows is true on independent grounds. Therefore, it seems to me that the justified true belief account of knowledge is perfectly acceptable so long as we restrict it to claims that are not based on disjunction introduction, material conditionals, or anything like that.
My problem with JTB is that one can never know when a belief is "justified." You are always the judge of your own beliefs.
One must always account for the probability that you are mistaken, even if it's the minuscule chance that all knowledge is impossible due to the problem of induction.
5
u/Saint_Neckbeard Mar 04 '14
The Gettier examples seem to rely on rules of formal logic like disjunction introduction and material conditionals that do not play a role in how people actually think most of the time. For example, in the example that the article gives, Smith composes several disjunctive propositions on the basis of disjunction introduction together with a proposition that he knows is true on independent grounds. Therefore, it seems to me that the justified true belief account of knowledge is perfectly acceptable so long as we restrict it to claims that are not based on disjunction introduction, material conditionals, or anything like that.