Part IV: Epistemology

Chapter 11

Study questions for What is Knowledge?

  1. Give examples of your own of the following types of knowledge:
    1. scientific knowledge
    2. geographical knowledge
    3. historical knowledge
    4. religious knowledge.
  2. Explain, in your own words, the distinction between ability knowledge and propositional knowledge. Give two examples of each kind of knowledge.
  3. Why is mere true belief not sufficient for knowledge? Give an example of your own of a case in which an agent truly believes something, but does not know it.
  4. What is the classical account of knowledge? How does the classical account of knowledge explain why a lucky true belief doesn’t count as knowledge?
  5. What is a Gettier case, and what do such cases show?
  6. In what way might it be said that the problem with Gettier cases is that they involve a justified true belief which is based on a false presupposition? Explain, with an example, why one cannot straightforwardly deal with the Gettier cases by advancing a theory of knowledge which demands justified true belief that does not rest on any false presuppositions.

Multiple Choice Questions

Weblinks for What is knowledge?

Chappell, Tim (2009). ‘Plato on Knowledge in the Theaetetus’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-theaetetus/. [An excellent overview of Plato’s view of knowledge, as expressed in his book, the Theaetetus.]

Gettier, Edmund (1963). ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’, Analysis 23: 121–3 (freely available online: http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html). [The article which started the contemporary debate about how best to define knowledge and which contains, by definition, the first official Gettier cases.]

Hetherington, Stephen (2005). ‘Gettier Problems’. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eds B. Dowden and J. Fieser, http://www.iep.utm.edu/g/gettier.htm. [An excellent overview of the Gettier problem, and the main responses to it, by one of the leading epistemologists.]

Kraut, Richard (2011). ‘Plato’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. Zalta, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/. [A very good overview of the life and works of Plato.]

Perseus Archive (Tufts University), http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/. [This is a fairly comprehensive archive of ancient Greek and Roman texts, including the works of Plato.]

Ichikawa, Jonathanand Steup, Matthias (2012). ‘The Analysis of Knowledge’. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/. [An excellent and comprehensive overview of the issues regarding the project of defining knowledge.]

Truncellito, David (2007). ‘Epistemology’. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eds B. Dowden and J. Fieser, http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epistemo.htm. [Read up to the end of §2.b for more on the basic requirements for knowledge.]

Introductory further reading for What is knowledge?

Annas, Julia (2003). Plato: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. [This is a succinct and very readable introduction to Plato’s philosophy.]

Pritchard, Duncan (2013). What Is This Thing Called Knowledge? 3rd Edition. Routledge. [See chapters 3–4 for further introductory-level discussion of the nature of knowledge.]

Advanced further reading for What is knowledge?

Hetherington, Stephen (2010). ‘The Gettier Problem’. In The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, eds S. Bernecker and D. H. Pritchard, chapter 12. Routledge. [A very useful and completely up-to-date survey of the main issues raised by Gettier-style examples.]

Pritchard, Duncan (2009). Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan. [This is an advanced textbook in epistemology. Chapters 1–4 offer a critical overview of some of the main analyses of knowledge in the contemporary literature.]

Shope, Robert K. (2002). ‘Conditions and Analyses of Knowing’. In The Oxford Handbook to Epistemology, ed. P. K. Moser, pp. 25–70. Oxford University Press. [A comprehensive treatment of the problem posed by Gettier cases and the various contemporary responses to that problem in the literature. The discussion that starts on p. 29 is most relevant to this chapter. Note that as this chapter develops it becomes increasingly more demanding.]

Steup, Matthias, Turri, Johnand Sosa, Ernest (eds) (2013) Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. 2nd Edition. Blackwell. [See the exchange between Duncan Pritchard and Stephen Hetherington on whether there can be lucky knowledge (§7).]

Zagzebski, Linda (1999). ‘What Is Knowledge?’. In The Blackwell Companion to Epistemology, eds J. Greco and E. Sosa, pp. 92–116. Blackwell. [A very thorough overview of the issues surrounding the project of defining knowledge, especially in the light of the Gettier cases.]