Explaining Knowledge

New Essays on the Gettier Problem

Edited by Rodrigo Borges, Claudio de Almeida, and Peter D. Klein

A state-of-the-art examination of the central problem of epistemology
Includes the 1963 paper by Edmund Gettier which kickstarted contemporary theory of knowledge
All other papers specially written for this volume
The most illustrious line-up of epistemologists ever assembled?
Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of epistemology

Explaining Knowledge

New Essays on the Gettier Problem

Edited by Rodrigo Borges, Claudio de Almeida, and Peter D. Klein

Description

The 'Gettier Problem' has shaped most of the fundamental debates in epistemology for more than fifty years. Before Edmund Gettier published his famous 1963 paper (reprinted in this volume), it was generally presumed that knowledge was equivalent to true belief supported by adequate evidence. Gettier presented a powerful challenge to that presumption. This led to the development and refinement of many prominent epistemological theories: internalism, externalism, evidentialism, reliabilism, and virtue epistemology. The debate about the appropriate use of intuition as providing evidence in all areas of philosophy began as a debate about the epistemic status of the "Gettier intuition". The differing accounts of epistemic luck are all rooted in responses to the Gettier Problem. The discussions about the role of false beliefs in the production of knowledge are directly traceable to Gettier's paper, as are the debates between fallibilists and infallibilists. The "knowledge first" view was, in large part, provoked by the supposed failure of all solutions to the Gettier Problem. Indeed, it is fair to say that providing a satisfactory response to the Gettier Problem has become a litmus test of any adequate account of knowledge - even those accounts that hold that the Gettier Problem rests on mistakes of various sorts. This volume presents a collective examination by twenty-six experts, including some of the most influential philosophers of our time, of the various issues that arise from Gettier's challenge to the analysis of knowledge. Explaining Knowledge sets the agenda for future work on the central problem of epistemology.

Explaining Knowledge

New Essays on the Gettier Problem

Edited by Rodrigo Borges, Claudio de Almeida, and Peter D. Klein

Introduction
Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?, Edmund Gettier
Part I: Solving the Gettier Problem
1. Gettiered Belief, E. J. Coffman
2. The Nature of Knowledge, Peter D. Klein
3. Knowledge, Luck, and Virtue: Resolving the Gettier Problem, Duncan Pritchard
4. Perceptual Capacities, Knowledge, and Gettier Cases, Susanna Schellenberg
5. Chained to the Gettier Problem-a Useful Falsehood?, Robert K. Shope
6. The Lesson of Gettier, Linda Zagzebski
Part II: The Gettier Legacy
7. Sed ubi Socrates currit? On the Gettier Problem before Gettier, Risto Hilpinen
8. Lessons from Gettier, Jonathan L. Kvanvig
9. Defeasible Reasoning and Representation: The Lesson of Gettier, Keith Lehrer
10. Accident, Evidence, and Knowledge, Jonathan Vogel
Part III: Gettier and Philosophical Methodology
11. The Gettier Case and Intuition, Jessica Brown
12. Gettier and the Epistemic Appraisal of Philosophical Intuition, Alvin Goldman
13. The Metaphysical Gettier Problem and the X-Phi Critique, Ernest Sosa
14. Gettier Cases: A Taxonomy, Peter Blouw, Wesley Buckwalter, and John Turri
15. Knowledge, Noise, and Curve-fitting: A Methodological Argument for JTB?, Jonathan M. Weinberg
Part IV: Gettier and Inferential Knowledge
16. Inferential Knowledge and the Gettier Conjecture, Rodrigo Borges
17. Knowledge, Benign Falsehoods, and the Gettier Problem, Claudio de Almeida
18. Closure, Counter-Closure, and Inferential Knowledge, Branden Fitelson
19. Knowledge and False Belief, John Hawthorne and Dani Rabinowitz
Part V: Dissolving the Gettier Problem
20. Golden Gettier: What We (Should Have) Learned, Fred Dretske
21. The Value of Knowledge and the Gettier Game, Richard Foley
22. Gettier Cases: Transworld Identity and Counterparts, Stephen Hetherington
23. The Difference between Knowledge and Understanding, Sherrilyn Roush

Explaining Knowledge

New Essays on the Gettier Problem

Edited by Rodrigo Borges, Claudio de Almeida, and Peter D. Klein

Author Information

Rodrigo Borges, Associate Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil,Claudio de Almeida, Professor, Professor of Philosophy at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil,Peter D. Klein, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, New Jersey

Rodrigo Borges is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Claudio de Almeida is Professor of Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Peter D. Klein is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Contributors:

Rodrigo Borges: Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul
Peter Blouw: University of Waterloo
Jessica Brown: University of St. Andrews
Wesley Buckwalter: University of Waterloo
E.J. Coffman: University of Tennessee
Claudio de Almeida: Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul
Fred Dretske: formerly Duke University
Branden Fitelson: Northeastern University
Richard Foley: New York University
Alvin I. Goldman: Rutgers University
John Hawthorne: University of Southern California
Stephen Hetherington: University of New South Wales
Risto Hilpinen: University of Miami
Peter D. Klein: Rutgers University
Jonathan L. Kvanvig: Washington University, St. Louis
Keith Lehrer: University of Arizona
Duncan Pritchard: University of Edinburgh
Dani Rabinowitz: University of Oxford
Sherrilyn Roush: King's College London
Susanna Schellenberg: Rutgers University
Robert K. Shope: University of Massachusetts, Boston
Ernest Sosa: Rutgers University
John Turri: University of Waterloo
Jonathan Vogel: Amherst College
Jonathan M. Weinberg: University of Arizona
Linda Zagzebski: University of Oklahoma