Give the three types of knowledge.
- Aquaintance knowledge
- Ability knowledge
- Propositional knowledge
What is aquaintance knowledge?
It is knowing of something/ familiarity. For example, I know of Oxford.
What is ability knowledge?
It is knowing how to do something/ practicality. For example, I know how to ride a bike.
What is propositional knowledge?
It is ‘know that’ / factual information. It is a declarative statement or what is expressed by a declarative statement. For example, I know that elephants are heavier than mice.
What is a necessary condition?
A condition that must be fulfilled in order for something to be the case.
What is a sufficient condition?
A condition that, if fulfilled, is enough for something to be the case.
What is jointly sufficient?
A collection of individually necessary conditions and when all are fulfilled or put together, this is enough for something to be the case.
What is Plato’s definition of knowledge?
JTB (justified true belief) a.k.a the Tripartite definition.
Explain JTB
It is a justified true belief. Each condition is individually necessary and jointly sufficient.
To be true, the statement must correspond to the fact/the way the world is; to believe the statement is to hold the statement to be true; and for the statement to be justified the statement must be supported by reasoning or evidence.
Why IS justification a necessary condition?
- True beliefs can be held on irrational grounds (prejudice) or just be lucky guesses (astrology). Knowledge needs reason or evidence (justification).
- Without a justification, we would be reluctant to say that someone “knew” something would happen. To “know” something without evidence becomes belief, not knowledge.
Why ISN’T justification a necessary condition?
- Subjective and vague. Different individuals may deem different ideas as valid justifications.
- Maths equations; not knowing why the answer is right but knowing that it is.
- Prejudice; subjective. Depends on the perceiver.
Why IS truth a necessary condition?
- You cannot know something that is false.
- Correspondence definition: corresponds/ agrees with the way the world is so we cannot deny something that exists before us.
Why ISN’T truth a necessary condition?
- Two definitions so subjective. If there are multiple definitions for truth, there is no way of establishing collectively what “truth” is.
- Coherence definition: proposes a belief is true if it covered with the web of beliefs held by a society to be true. By this definition, it means we can know something that isn’t true.
- External criteria. We can not always be sure about we can know about the world around us. Establishing facts may be an impossible task. Comes down to perception.
Why IS belief a necessary condition?
- Contradictory and implausible to say you know something without believing it.
- Unconscious belief: hesitantly writing a correct answer, may not believe their answer is correct or remember being taught the idea BUT they do in fact know and write (unconsciously/ deep down or else they would not write it down) the correct answer.
Why ISN’T belief a necessary condition?
- Incompatiblists argue that knowledge and belief are entirely different/distinct. They are incompatible. Two entirely different ways of viewing the world.
- Infallibilists argue that knowledge is infallible (not capable or mistake or to contain error) and belief is fallible. These are opposing concepts so cannot be compatible.
- you can have knowledge without belief (not believing in a test answer but getting it right)
- Knowing goes further than believing, more validity.
- Knowing is factive, belief is not factive.
What is Williamson’s view on belief?
- knowledge is not a type of belief
- knowing is factive (how the world is) belief is not factive.
- every attempt to add conditions to belief to turn it into knowledge has failed. Any definition of knowledge that comes from belief is doomed to fail.
- Knowledge is unanalysable (cannot be understood through one definition). There a different kinds; perceiving, remembering, rationality.
