| | "Knowledge is truth believed with justification." - Joel Català This is the "classical" definition of knowledge, and one that is generally accepted by philosophers with certain key exceptions, notably Edmund Gettier, who wrote a famous paper in 1963 criticizing it. See http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html. Jimmy Wales summarizes Gettier's criticism as follows: "In a Gettier example, we have justification for believing something that is true, and we do believe it is true, and it is true. But it turns out to be true for altogether different reasons than we supposed." But then, contrary to Gettier, we aren't really justified in believing it, if it turns out to be true for altogether different reasons than we supposed -- not in the sense of "justified" that is relevant to the classical definition. "Justified," in that definition, means "true for the reasons we believe." I read Gettier's paper, and was not impressed.
That doesn't mean, however, that I agree with the classical definition. I too think that it comes up short, but for altogether different reasons! Knowledge is not "justified, true belief," because, for one thing, knowledge is not belief. The objects of knowledge are facts, and one does not "believe in" facts; one believes in propositions or ideas, whereas one knows facts. For another thing, knowledge is not true. To say that knowledge -- the apprehension of facts -- is true implies that it is the kind of thing that could be false. But to say that the apprehension of facts is false is a self-contradiction. Only propositions, ideas or beliefs can be true or false. Therefore, truth cannot be a property of knowledge any more than belief can.
At the risk of sounding like a true believer, let me say that the only proper definition of knowledge is the one found in Objectivism. :-) In ITOE (p. 35), Rand refers to "knowledge" as "a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation." The Glossary of Objectivist Definitions published by Second Renaissance Books, an ARI affiliate, refers to this statement as her "definition" of knowledge. Unfortunately, Rand's statement, which includes only the distinguishing characteristics of the concept of knowledge, was not intended as a definition, since the latter requires both genus and differentia.
However, since Rand regards knowledge as a product of a psychological process (ITOE, 35), a good definition from her perspective, would be something like the following: "knowledge is a product of a psychological process involving a mental grasp of a fact(s) of reality, reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation."
This is not to suggest that all belief is irrational or a matter of blind faith, for one can believe in true propositions for eminently rational reasons, nor is it to suggest that a belief that is both justified and true does not represent knowledge. But it is still propositions that one "believes in" and facts that one "knows."
- Bill
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