Philosophy of knowledge: is what we know true?

Can we really know if we know something? The Philosophy of knowledge is the discipline that studies everything related to the capacity for knowledge.: the scope it can have, the origin of what we know, its nature…

Plato, in one of his works dedicated to this topic, Theaetetus, tells of a discussion between Socrates and Theaetetus. It explains that the only way to understand knowledge is define it as a true and justified belief. For many years, this definition was taken as true (with some modification), until the arrival of the American philosopher Edmund Gettier.

What we know according to Gettier

In his work Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, Gettier tried to show that a true and justified belief may not be knowledge. How can this be? If I believe that it rained yesterday because water was falling from the sky and I came home soaked after jumping through puddles, could that really not be knowledge?

Apparently, in the example above, it is counter-intuitive to say that my knowledge of what happened is wrong. But Gettier, a little more twisted than all this, He introduced some variables to make us see that a belief, even if justified, can be wrong.

Let’s imagine that I have a friend, Marcos, who has bought a red sports car X. Yesterday he came to show it to me and gave me a ride on it. From this experience I can deduce that “a friend of mine has a red X sports car.”

However, Marcos, who is a very changeable person, sells that car to our friend Emilio. The previous proposition “a friend of mine has a red sports car X”, although true, does not generate true knowledge in me because the friend I was referring to was Marcos. We are inferring a correct conclusion from an erroneous premise..

But then what do we know?

In the previous case, our justification fails, but it exists; and supposedly that is what is required to form knowledge: a justification. So, to avoid all this difficulty, it would be necessary for the justification to also be totally true and thus be able to speak of knowledge.

But, in this way, we would need a justification for the justification, and a justification for the justification of the justification, ad infinitum. Gettier has put us in an infinite loop.

Gettier knows nothing

The first reactions to Gettier’s objections consisted of attacking these assumptions, arguing that were not true counterexamples to the definition of knowledge as a true and justified belief.

Some argued that it is possible to justifiably believe something false (as was the case with the friend and the car). If the belief that allows us to infer that something is true is false, there would be no justification for believing it.

Thus, Since the three conditions of the classic epistemological model are not met (belief, veracity, justification), there would be no knowledge.

Let’s reflect on what we know (and don’t know)

Let us imagine that someone is called to appear before a court considering that he has committed a fault; In this case judging him is justified. But, Sometimes, the justification may be wrong and that is why it is taken to trial.

We cannot put this person in jail because, although judging him is justified, there is no certainty that he has committed a crime. If not, why go through the bureaucratic and tiring process of judging him? It would be much easier to condemn him directly. This is a clear example that there may be justification, but not certainty.

Let’s imagine again. Often, we trust our senses (if we do not find any anomaly in them). If we have good reasons to believe something, believing it is justified. But, Would we blame someone for making a mistake? an optical illusion or a trompe l’oeil?Would we say that that person is not justified in believing what he believes?

It seems clear, by way of conclusion, that The required justification will vary depending on the importance of the matter we are dealing with.. But then… do we know anything? the answer to the question is in you.

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