How did “justified true belief” [JTB]

arise as the definition of knowledge

from Plato until 1963?

Course: Epistemology
.
 Justified true belief

01 02 03
P IS TRUE S BELIEVES P JUSTIFIED.
• KNOWLEDGE • FULL BELIEF IS • HAVING A GOOD
LATCHED ONTO NECESSARY REASON/GROUND
TRUTH • A HUNCH (LINH
CẢM) IS NOT
ENOUGH
 Most of contents of presentation based on The
Sources:
 Lecture from our Professor: Fr Terry Walsh SJ.
 From youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lB-XJjmvoE
 Some other references
 From Sophist to Plato
 A sophist: claiming to make someone a better person
 Providing them with a certain kind of rhetorical skill.
 Plato: to become “excellent” human beings
 Ethical virtue (areté), which requires real knowledge of
human excellence.
 Agents Desire Knowledge, Not Merely Beliefs
 The value of knowledge is that it enables us to achieve our goals in life
 And if we want to become an excellent human being, then we need
knowledge of excellence, not mere belief.
 As Pritchard writes, “We desire to be knowers as opposed to being agents who have
mostly true beliefs but lack knowledge.” (p.12)
 Even true beliefs are not trustworthy because many of them arise by accident, luck,
or deception. For this reason, we as agents cannot rely upon them from one moment
to the next.
 A comparison with the Statues of Daedalus
 Plato compares belief to a statue:
 it is not stable, may be true at one moment, may be false the next.
 Plato says that belief, even true belief, needs to be “tethered” (what we
do to a horse) in order to remain stable. (outlaw: domesticated and
tethered con ngựa bất kham)
 Therefore, knowledge (whatever that means) tethers belief and enables
it to remain beneficial in all circumstances, times, and situations.
 True Belief + An Account (Logos)
 We might say that beliefs are contingent [= changing, variable, becoming]; whereas,
knowledge is free of contingency and change.
 “K = true belief + A” and A = we know why the belief is true; we know what makes it
true.
 We’re not dependent on chance or luck, but we ourselves control it because we can give what
Plato calls an “account” [logos] of the truth of our belief. This has seemed to most
philosophers to be exceptionally important.
 The rational account [logos] of why a belief is true is what secures, tethers, or anchors
belief as knowledge.
 Plato’s Account [logos] of Knowledge as a Justification

 We’re making progress, but the Platonic conception of an account [logos] of why our beliefs are true is still
extremely vague.
 Perceptions
 Testimony
 logical – or rational.” [= analytic]

 What counts as an adequate justification of a belief?

 Justification = a good reason or a ground for accepting a belief as true (?)
 But it is clear that none of the above [perception, testimony, logic] can save a belief from being a false
belief.
 My senses are often wrong, people lie, and false beliefs are perfectly logical (i.e. non-contradictory)
Justified True Belief
The JTB Analysis of Knowledge:

1) S knows that p iff p is true;

2) S believes that p;
3) S is justified in believing that
p.
 Justified
 Justified: positive appraisal.
 Something is justified if it is good
 Good:

- Prudential justification
- epistemically justified
-> beliefs are epistemically justified: The epistemic point
of view.
=> An epistemic justification is a justification sufficient for
Knowledge
Justification and Truth

 Notall justified beliefs are true

beliefs.

 Notall true beliefs are justified

beliefs.
Justification and Reasons
 Reasons for belief, in general, are answers to
“Why?…” questions
 There are different kinds of “why?- questions”:
 Causes
 Must justify why we believe.*
=> Good epistemic reasons to believe that p are facts
about him or facts about his belief that make it
likely that his belief is true
Justification and Reasons
 So it seems that a good
epistemic reason for believing p
is a piece of evidence

 We can say that evidence

presupposes other beliefs that
we hold as true