Comments on: Epistemology http://bryanssophia.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/epistemology/ The electronic embodiment of my brain farts. Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:55:13 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: bry0000000 http://bryanssophia.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/epistemology/#comment-7 bry0000000 Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:33:50 +0000 http://bryanssophia.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/epistemology/#comment-7 Thanks for the comment. I have to admit that Epistemology is not my field of specialty... I am in fact a complete Epistemology "n00b". I am curious, though, what you think of the structuralist approach to the analysis of knowledge. Regards Bry0000000 Thanks for the comment.

I have to admit that Epistemology is not my field of specialty… I am in fact a complete Epistemology “n00b”. I am curious, though, what you think of the structuralist approach to the analysis of knowledge.

Regards
Bry0000000

]]> By: philosophyinthepub http://bryanssophia.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/epistemology/#comment-6 philosophyinthepub Sat, 14 Jul 2007 15:13:30 +0000 http://bryanssophia.wordpress.com/2007/07/05/epistemology/#comment-6 Personally I think the Gettier problem demolishes the theory that knowledge is justified true belief. It does, of course, leave us with the question of what we want knowledge to be. Again, speaking personally, I've always been attracted to pragmatist accounts that leave room for knowledge to be tentative and negotiable. When you think about it, "justified true belief" contains <em>three</em> philosophically complicated ideas, whereas "knowledge" is just one, so on the face of it the traditional "explanation" or "definition" of knowledge never was much good anyway. I suspect, for example, that any attempt to pin down "justification" is futile, and that if Gettier doesn't, ahem, get ya, then another similar case will. As for truth, well, that can be slippery too. I wrote a short piece about Gettier problems on <a href='http://www.bigi.org.uk/2007/07/11/gettier-problems/' rel="nofollow">Big Ideas</a> -- you may or may not find the links there useful. You might also enjoy the <a href='http://www.bigi.org.uk/2007/07/13/the-paderewski-problem-and-ludlows-dynamic-lexicon/' rel="nofollow">Paderewski problem</a> if you're not familiar with it. Cheers, Rich Personally I think the Gettier problem demolishes the theory that knowledge is justified true belief. It does, of course, leave us with the question of what we want knowledge to be.

Again, speaking personally, I’ve always been attracted to pragmatist accounts that leave room for knowledge to be tentative and negotiable. When you think about it, “justified true belief” contains three philosophically complicated ideas, whereas “knowledge” is just one, so on the face of it the traditional “explanation” or “definition” of knowledge never was much good anyway.

I suspect, for example, that any attempt to pin down “justification” is futile, and that if Gettier doesn’t, ahem, get ya, then another similar case will. As for truth, well, that can be slippery too.

I wrote a short piece about Gettier problems on Big Ideas — you may or may not find the links there useful. You might also enjoy the Paderewski problem if you’re not familiar with it.

Cheers,

Rich

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