You're trying to smuggle the "truth" criterion back into the "justification". Any standard of justification that depends on truth is impractical (to say the least) to meet, creates conceptual confusion, and, if applied to the definition of knowledge in this case, makes the "truth" criterion redundant.
Not so. I was applying a strict definition of justified, where justified means "logically necessary." Others have clarified elsewhere in this conversation that this in't the intent.
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I already think the truth criterion is redundant, since if you can determine whether your knowledge is true, you don't need to worry about justifying it or believing it.
The problem is that if your definition of knowledge requires only three conditions (belief, truth and justification), then it has counterexamples, namely, the Gettier cases. So we need to either revise our concept of justification (for example, make it so that a knowledge-apt belief is justified only if it is for the right reasons -- but then, how to account for justified but false beliefs?), look for ways to supplement the analysis with additional conditions (for example, that the conditions are satisfied in a robust ways counterfactually), or reject the idea that knowledge can be analyzed altogether.
To make it more concrete how this sort of thing can get complicated quickly, consider your own explanation of the case. As I take it, you think that the issue is that "the justification is faulty". But how is it faulty, besides not being true (remember, we have reasons to want justification to not imply truth)? And also, there are Gettier-like cases where we cannot say that justification is faulty or where we can't find false premises (for example, cases where it seems like the problem is that the individuals in questions are not in an appropriate environment, see [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem#False_premises...)).
I haven't read the original paper, so maybe the example is better, but it seems the cow example fails the justified condition. The knowledge is justified if it derives from the evidence, but once we know the evidence is faulty it can no longer be used for justification by definition. It seems by extension that any justified true belief can become unjustified by the addition of new information that invalidates the justification on which the alleged knowledge is based upon.
By what definition? The "notion" of "justified true belief" WAS the definition of knowledge prior to these complications. Just saying "everything is subjective" is more tedious than making meaningful distinctions, in my subjective opinion
Gettier cases long ago convinced me that it is useless to talk about 'truth' apart from 'justification'.
Obviously, none of us can ascertain truth directly. The only way we can claim A or B is true is by appealing to some justification for our belief. Therefore, the idea that [knowledge = true and justified belief] collapses to [knowledge = justified belief].
From that point, we have only to discuss what constitutes better/worse justification(s).
I think they meant what is true, which is also concrete, technical and unambiguously defined in this setting. But you are very correct to make the distinction between truth and knowledge. Pointing out that many philosophers have believed that knowledge is justified true belief might elucidate the relationship a bit.
Thanks for engaging in the conversation. When I say "the justification is faulty" I just mean it's not deductively air-tight, therefore we can't assume that it leads to truth. In this sense, pretty much all justifications are 'faulty.'
The thing I'm struggling with here, ultimately, is truth. All of these problems rely on some outside, oracular knowledge of what is true, (e.g. in the example you linked there really is a cow/sheep in the field, or Mark is really hiding under the desk). But we have no such oracle to refer to, so trying to ground knowledge in truth seems like a lost cause in the first place. All we can have is more or less certain beliefs.
"The field of philosophy called epistemology deals with what knowledge is and how it is obtained, and the field overwhelmingly agrees that it is necessary (but not sufficient) for knowledge to be a (1) belief that is (2) true, and (3) justified."
How do you know if something's true, though?
If knowledge of truth has to be true, how do you know that the true knowledge of truth really is true? Etc..
I agree with you, but we have to be aware that by this definition two diametrically opposed "knowledges" can be equally valid if they have disjoint justification frameworks.
And that leads to relativism, which we don't want.
Not quite, if a ‘truth’ is defined as some ‘justice’ then there could be an unprovable ‘justice’ that should be carried out, we just can’t reason our way there.
(again disagreements like this are usually because of a disagreement of terms)
A critique of a strawman of empiricism, is not really a justification for an alternative truth system (mysticism.).
Yes, there are things that are unknowable, even with the tools of empiricism.
But pointing out this issue, in no way supports the idea of using a non-sense ideology in its place, or even ascribing any value to such a thing.
> that holds that there is value in both kinds of knowledge
No, there is no knowledge in mysticism. And is it a bad argument to point out a supposed problem in empiricism, as a justification for a different system, when that other system doesn't deal with the problem any better.
> believing something irrational to be true, makes it true.
Believing something to be true, does not make it true, unless you redefine the word "true" to a nonsense definition of "Well a true thing, is whatever we believe to be true. Gotcha, I win! I just created a self-consistent tautology, by playing word games, and making up a new definition! You can't call me wrong, because it's a consistent, self referential belief! That intro to philosophy class sure was useful!"
Knowledge isn't sufficient to show something is false, since the knowledge can also be false. Insofar as it's important for it to be true, it needs to be continually verified as true, so that it's grounded in the real world.
That is not what truth is. Belief, knowledge, truth they all have different meanings in epistemology. There are centuries of philosophy and critique made on these problems. If you are interested in learning, I would suggest starting with some Kant, and checking the term das-ding-an-sich.
Redefining "truth is knowable" to "truth is knowable with infinite certainty a la Descartes" is itself a deeply contentious epistemological stance, and still doesn't validate the use of the term "faith" for ordinary abductive reasoning from experience.
Actually, it's literally impossible to know something that isn't true. Plato defined knowledge as "true justified belief", which is an imperfect definition but good enough for our purposes.
Sure, from a present perspective on epistemology this may make sense, since we now know all the troubles and faulty attempts to decide proper justifications from incorrect ones after Gettier's paper. However, back then the idea to define knowledge using JTB was on the table. The knowledge as justified true belief view is about a definition of knowledge, not a learning method or how to gain knowledge. Many authors would even have rejected the idea of graded belief entirely and said you either believe something or don't (many still do).
Since you accept the notion of truth (otherwise you couldn't be a Bayesian), you'd have to explain why you reject the realist conception of knowledge inherent to the JTB view. Gettier's paper is one attack on it, arguing for graded belief representations is another type of attack on it. In this context it is worth noting that graded belief and categorical belief are very hard to reconcile because they have different logical properties [1]. It's known as Locke's Thesis and quite a vexing problem.
That being said, I share your intuitions. The factivity of knowledge has created more problems in epistemology than the notion of knowledge was supposed to solve. The German word Erkenntnis in Erkenntnistheorie has a meaning closer to learning theory. AFAIK there is no good equivalent to this in English.
Both halves of the sentence contain wrong and rendundant statements. Since truth is a relation of correspondence between a proposition and reality and knowledge is justified true belief or it is not knowledge; it is both impossible for us to know untruths if we believe them to be true (we can believe falsehoods but we can only know truth), and likewise truths, being essentially propositions, cannot not be known (can only be known by someone, or there is no one proposing them therefore no truth relation subsists - ergo no 'truth' can be wholly unknown to everyone.)
You may say instead:
A lot we believe is not true, and we don't know much.
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