Knowledge and justification
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Knowledge and certainty - the tripartite definition of knowledge
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"I know it, therefore it must be true." Is this a way that people generally use "know"? Is it possible to define a sense of know that makes this statement true? If we do define it this way, would it be possible to say that we know anything? It seems probable that the ordinary language user does not distinguish sharply between contexts in which he or she would use know and contexts in which he or she would use believe. On the other hand, it is also likely that, in common language, the term know implies a stronger condition that believe, and this has appeared to be the conclusion of our philosophical analysis so far. Yet, even if knowing is a stronger condition than believing does it follow that knowing implies certainty? Clearly, in common language people do use the term know when they are not certain. Certainty implies a state of mind where what you know for certain is so secure that it could not possibly be false. However, suppose it is true that in common language (that is, unphilosophical language) people do not use know to imply being certain; nonetheless, would it not be possible for a philosopher to define a philosophical use of knowing and state that when he knows something then he could not possibly be wrong? This leads us to the conclusion that there is a philosophical sense of to know in which knowledge is true, justified belief. To explain this: firstly, in this sense anything that one knows one also believes. Secondly, however, since what is known is certain, when you know something you not only know that that thing is true, but you are also in possession of some means of demonstrating that it is true. Hence, if you know something you are in possession of a justification of that knowledge. The justification is a process that guarantees that what you know is true – it proves it. Thus, thirdly, since the process of justification guarantees the truth of what it is one knows, then what one knows must be true. It would not be possible to know something that was false. This has become known as the tripartite definition of knowledge, though it is, of course a theory about what it means to know something, and invites us to consider that there is a special state of mind called knowing to which a philosopher can attain when he is in a position to justify his beliefs.
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Contents of
Knowledge and justification
1 The distinction between knowledge and belief
2 Unsound, invalid, possible world and fallacy
3 Counterexample, exposing a fallacy
4 Belief and doubt
5 Believing that and knowing that
6 Knowledge and certainty - the tripartite definition of knowledge
7 True, justified belief
8 Plato: The Theaetetus
9 Plato: Forms
10 The possibility of scepticism and categories of belief
11 Global scepticism
12 The Argument from Authority
13 Valid argument, inference and justification
14 Chain of deductive inferences, self-evident truths
15 Sense experience, empiricism
16 The dialectic method, thesis and antithesis
17 Rationalism and empiricism; the Discourse on the Method
18 The Cogito, Reason and Rational Insight
19 Bertrand Russell, Acquaintance
20 Universals, Forms
21 Scepticism, Existentialism and Faith
22 The evil genius argument
23 Existentialism
24 Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling - the Absurd
25 Foundation for Knowledge
26 Theory of Knowledge, Epistemology and Metaphysics
27 Rationalism, Mathematics and Logic, Innateness
28 Innate Ideas
29 The a priori
30 Truth by convention, Hume and the Method of Doubt
31 Hume and the distinction between belief and knowledge
32 Hume and the definition of belief
33 Truth as a logical operator on sentences
34 The correspondence theory of truth
35 Wittgenstein: On Certainty
36 Wittgenstein and the coherence theory of truth
37 William James and Pragmatism
38 W.V.O. Quine, pragmatism and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism
39 Postivism and pragmatism
40 Pragmatism and utilitarianism
41 Pragmatism and religiion
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