What is knowledge

• Practical/ability knowledge


  Knowing how to do something e.g. swim
• Acquaintance knowledge


  Knowledge of a person, place or thing through direct experience e.g. the taste of apple
• Factual/propositional knowledge


  Knowing that something is the case e.g. Paris is the capital of France. Can always be expressed in language
• Zagzebski's views on knowledge

  1)We should seek a real definition.

  2) We must find necessary and sufficient conditions.

  3) There may be more than one definition
• Zagzebski's pitfalls


  Circular definitions

  A definition more obscure than the original term

  A negative definition

  An ad-hoc definition
• Tripartite view 


  Knowledge is a justified true belief
• Issue with JTB: is belief necessary?


  For example, if you hesitantly guess an answer to a question correctly you knew the fact without believing it
• Issue with JTB: is truth necessary?


  For example, a caveman knows the Earth is flat because all the evidence available to him points towards this fact.
• Issue with JTB: is justification necessary?


  For example, someone who knows what day of the week any date in the future will be, without being able to justify how they work this out.
• Issue with JTB: Smith and Jones


  Smith and Jones are both going for a job. Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones will get the job and that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. Therefore Smith forms the belief that the man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket. However it turns out that Smith gets the job and he has 10 coins in his pocket so his belief met all the JTB conditions.
• Issue with JTB: Brown in Barcelona


  Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones owns a Ford. He doesn't know where Brown is in but he takes a guess and forms the disjunctive belief Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona. It turns out that Jones no longer owns a Ford but Brown is in Barcelona so Smith's belief meets the JTB conditions.
• Infallibilism


  We should only count as knowledge those things that we cannot rationally doubt.
• No false lemmas

  Knowledge is a justified true belief where the justification is not based on a false belief.
• Reliabilism


  Knowledge is a true belief formed by a reliable process.
• Virtue epistemology 


  Knowledge is true belief where the truth of the belief is due to epistemic virute
• Sosa's triple A rating


  Accuracy

  Adroitness - formed by intellectual virtue

  Aptness - True because of the intellectual virtue