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Knowledge and its Analysis
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What is Knowledge?
In this course, Dr Arif Ahmed (University of Cambridge) explores the question ‘What is knowledge?’. In the first module, we introduce the idea of ‘analysing’ knowledge and arrive at the classical, tripartite definition of knowledge as justified true belief. In the second module, we introduce a series of examples known as ‘Gettier cases’ that seem to undermine the analysis of knowledge as justified true belief. In the third and fourth modules, we explore several analyses of knowledge that attempt to get round the Gettier problem, and show the advantages and disadvantages of each, before turning in the fifth question to the possibility that there is no satisfactory analysis of knowledge, and that we should change our approach entirely. This module includes three such new approaches – that of W. V. Quine, that of Edward Craig, and that of Timothy Williamson.
Knowledge and its Analysis
In this module, we think about the concept of knowledge and the analysis of a particular category of knowledge called ‘propositional knowledge’ (also known as ‘knowledge that’). In particular, we focus on: (i) the distinction between different kinds of knowledge – knowledge that (“I know that Napoleon died in 1824”), knowledge by acquaintance (“I know London”) and knowledge how (“I know how to ride a bicycle”); (ii) the relationship between being able to do something and knowing how to do it; (iii) the relationship between knowledge that and knowledge how; (iv) the idea of knowledge as a true belief; (v) the idea of ‘analysing’ a concept, i.e. identifying the necessary and sufficient conditions; (vi) the relationship between ‘knowing’ something implicitly and being able to put it into words; (vii) the truth condition for knowledge; (viii) the belief condition for knowledge; and (ix) the justification condition for knowledge, which completes the classical (tripartite) analysis of knowledge as a justified true belief.
Hello, my name's Arif Ahmed and I teach philosophy
00:00:06at the University of Cambridge.
00:00:09This is the first of five short lectures in which I'll
00:00:11be talking about knowledge, the analysis of knowledge, problems
00:00:14with various analysis, and generally
00:00:17thinking about the idea of what knowledge is,
00:00:19and how you can understand it.
00:00:21In this first section, I'll be saying something
00:00:23about the motivation behind wanting to analyze knowledge
00:00:25and the basic differences between knowledge of the kind
00:00:28that we'll be discussing and other kinds of knowledge.
00:00:30In the next section, I'll be going into a bit more detail
00:00:33on what you might call the classical definition
00:00:36of knowledge, that is the tripartite definition.
00:00:38And then in the third and fourth sections,
00:00:41I'll be talking about a well known problem
00:00:43for the classical definition, which is called the Gettier
00:00:45problem and various attempts that
00:00:47have occurred in the 20th century to solve that problem.
00:00:49Then in the final section, I'll be
00:00:52saying something about why won't you
00:00:54want an analysis of knowledge in any case,
00:00:55and whether there are alternative approaches
00:00:58to giving an analysis that might prove fruitful in other ways
00:01:00for understanding the concept.
00:01:04OK, so we'll start with the subject
00:01:06that we're discussing, which is knowledge
00:01:09and the distinction between different kinds of knowledge.
00:01:11You can think of knowledge in three ways;
00:01:13there's what you might call knowledge
00:01:16that or propositional knowledge, knowledge by acquaintance,
00:01:18and knowledge how.
00:01:22By knowledge that, I mean knowledge
00:01:25which can be described in terms of a proposition or statement
00:01:27or sentence, which you can be set to know.
00:01:30This is probably the most common use of the term in English.
00:01:32So one might say, for instance, I know that today is Thursday,
00:01:35or I know that the weather is sunny, or any
00:01:39of many other things concerning historical statements,
00:01:44mathematical statements, even philosophical statements.
00:01:46The second kind of knowledge, which I called knowledge
00:01:49by acquaintance, is the use of the word knowledge
00:01:51where we don't talk about knowing that something is true,
00:01:54but just about knowing someone, for instance, or something.
00:01:56You might know London, if you've lived there for a long time.
00:01:59Or you might know a person, if that person is
00:02:02a good friend of yours.
00:02:04Now that use of the word knowledge
00:02:05is obviously related in some ways to the first use
00:02:07that I mentioned.
00:02:09But it's not obviously the same thing.
00:02:10Knowing a person isn't the same thing
00:02:13as knowing a lot of truths about him.
00:02:15For instance, you might know a lot of truths about Napoleon
00:02:17Bonaparte or Wellington, but nobody
00:02:21who's watching this video knows either of those persons.
00:02:23The third kind of knowledge that I mentioned, which is knowledge how
00:02:26is what we talk about when you say, for instance, that you
00:02:30know how to swim, or you know how to ride a bicycle,
00:02:33or you know how to play the piano to a certain standard.
00:02:36Now, knowledge how is probably not the same thing
00:02:39as an ability.
00:02:41One reason to think that they're different
00:02:43is that, if you do something, then
00:02:45it's clear that you have the ability to do it.
00:02:47But somebody might do something without knowing how to do it.
00:02:50If you think for instance, the first time you play golf,
00:02:52supposing you putt a hole in one,
00:02:55we might say that you obviously have the ability
00:02:59to putt a hole at one because you did.
00:03:01But it's not plausible to say that how to do it.
00:03:03So there's a distinction between ability and knowing how.
00:03:06Nevertheless, having an ability probably
00:03:09is in some way related to knowing how.
00:03:11We think of knowing how as the possession of a kind of skill.
00:03:14Now there are various schools of thought concerning
00:03:17the relationship between knowing how to do something
00:03:20and knowing that something is the case.
00:03:22So there are what are called intellectualists
00:03:24who think that knowing how to do something
00:03:26is basically a way of knowing certain truths or propositions.
00:03:28And then there are those who think
00:03:32that knowing how to do something is not the same as knowing
00:03:34those propositions at all, but it's
00:03:36something else which perhaps you may not even
00:03:38be able to articulate.
00:03:39I won't here be going to the arguments
00:03:40for and against those particular views.
00:03:43The important thing to keep in mind
00:03:45is that there is at least on the face of it,
00:03:46a distinction between that and the other two
00:03:48kinds of knowledge that I mentioned,
00:03:50knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge
00:03:52that something is true.
00:03:54So most of the rest of what I'll be saying
00:03:56will be concerned with knowledge that something is true.
00:03:57And I'll be discussing, as I said, various attempts
00:04:01to analyze that concept.
00:04:03OK, so let's now think a bit about what
00:04:06it is to know that something is the case,
00:04:08for instance, to know that today's Thursday
00:04:10or to know that the Battle of Waterloo took place in 1815.
00:04:12There's obviously a difference, it
00:04:17seems between knowing that something is true
00:04:19and simply having a true belief about it.
00:04:21One can have a true belief about something without knowing it,
00:04:24because, for instance, one might have made a lucky guess.
00:04:28Plato gives an example where he says
00:04:31that a skillful lawyer, for instance,
00:04:33might trick a jury into believing what's true,
00:04:34but we still wouldn't say that the jury knows
00:04:37the truth of the matter. It's
00:04:39just that they've been somehow fooled
00:04:40into believing something that happens to be true.
00:04:42So true belief is obviously not the same thing as knowledge.
00:04:45Knowledge is more than that.
00:04:48On the other hand, it seems as though you
00:04:50can-- if you do know something, then you must believe it,
00:04:52and that belief must be true.
00:04:55If I know, for instance, that the Battle of Waterloo
00:04:57took place in 1815, then it has to be true
00:04:59that I believe that to be the case,
00:05:01and it has to be true that it is, in fact, the case.
00:05:03So we can say that if you know something,
00:05:07if you know a proposition P, then you
00:05:08believe that proposition, and it is true.
00:05:11All of the things I've been saying so far,
00:05:15are sort of partial steps towards what you might
00:05:17call an analysis of knowledge.
00:05:20And that has been the aim great deal of epistemology
00:05:22since the time of Plato.
00:05:25What do I mean by an analysis.
00:05:27Well, in analyzing a concept what we seek to do,
00:05:28is we seek to give what you might
00:05:32call necessary and sufficient conditions for when it applies.
00:05:33What this means is that you would be able to say,
00:05:38for instance, a necessary condition for knowledge,
00:05:41that is what has to be true when you know something,
00:05:43and you can give sufficient conditions for it,
00:05:46that is you can give conditions which if they apply,
00:05:49then you do know something.
00:05:51If we can give conditions that are
00:05:54both necessary and sufficient for knowledge,
00:05:55then we've been able to say exactly when it is
00:05:57that somebody knows something.
00:06:00Another example where you might be
00:06:03able to give necessary and sufficient conditions
00:06:04for something would be in the case of, say being a square.
00:06:05So we could say that being square
00:06:08means having four equal sides that are at right angles.
00:06:09That's a necessary and sufficient condition
00:06:13for being a square.
00:06:15And as the example illustrates, there's
00:06:16a connection between knowing the necessary and sufficient
00:06:18conditions for something and being able to understand it.
00:06:21In fact, if you look at it a certain way,
00:06:24it seems plausible enough, that we
00:06:26have to be able to give necessary and sufficient
00:06:28conditions for knowledge, because after all we all understand
00:06:30how to use the term.
00:06:33All of us were probably taught the word knowledge
00:06:34and how to use it when we were pretty young.
00:06:37And we're all pretty confident in our judgments
00:06:39about a very large range of cases
00:06:41whether or not there are cases in which somebody
00:06:42knows or doesn't know this or that particular proposition.
00:06:44But how can we tell whether somebody knows or not?
00:06:48It seems very plausible to think that you have,
00:06:51when you learn the meaning of the word in your mind,
00:06:54some kind of template, or model, or set of rules,
00:06:56governing how you should be able to apply the word knowledge.
00:06:59But then the attempt to give necessary and sufficient
00:07:02conditions is just the attempt to make
00:07:04explicit what was already implicit in our minds
00:07:06all along.
00:07:09So when you learned the word, you grasp these rules,
00:07:10but we weren't able to put those rules themselves into words.
00:07:12And this aspect of--
00:07:15this motivation for analysis, is basically
00:07:17that it attempts to make that explicit.
00:07:19In many ways that's what philosophy does as a whole.
00:07:21It's an attempt to look at the things
00:07:23that guide us perhaps subconsciously
00:07:25or in some other implicit way and try and make them explicit,
00:07:27so that we can subject them to further analysis, criticism,
00:07:29and perhaps change the ways that we do things.
00:07:32It's very hard to change the way you do anything for the better or for the
00:07:34worse in any deliberate way if you can't
00:07:36say exactly what it is that you're doing
00:07:39and look at the reasons for doing it that way.
00:07:41So that's one reason for wanting to motivate the idea that we
00:07:43can have necessary and sufficient conditions
00:07:47for knowledge.
00:07:49I'll say a bit now about what kinds of things
00:07:51might go into these necessary and sufficient conditions.
00:07:54I've already mentioned that truth in belief count
00:07:57is necessary conditions for knowledge.
00:07:59So it seems plausible to think that if you know something,
00:08:01then you believe it, it's true, and some third
00:08:04or fourth or other condition is also in place.
00:08:08And a lot of the trouble that's been devoted to epistemology
00:08:11has been based on the search for that additional condition.
00:08:15Now, before going on to say what those are,
00:08:20I'll say a little bit more about the truth condition
00:08:23and the belief condition.
00:08:25Probably, I don't need to say very much about the truth
00:08:27condition. It
00:08:29seems clear enough that if you know something,
00:08:30for instance, that today is Thursday,
00:08:32then it has to be true that today is Thursday.
00:08:33And that's all that's meant by the truth condition.
00:08:35It's worth saying a little bit more
00:08:37about the belief condition, because whilst it
00:08:39seems plausible enough that if you know something, then
00:08:41you believe it.
00:08:43There is a question as to exactly what it
00:08:45is to believe something, and what beliefs are supposed to be in the first
00:08:46place.
00:08:49We can think of beliefs, I think,
00:08:50reasonably enough, as a kind of representational state
00:08:52in your mind.
00:08:54So when you believe something, you
00:08:55are representing things to be this or that way.
00:08:56But actually, if you think about it
00:08:59a lot of the time, the distinction between believing
00:09:00something and not believing something, is just too
00:09:02crude to describe the state of mind
00:09:04that somebody has.
00:09:06It seems more plausible in a lot of cases
00:09:07to say that what state of mind somebody
00:09:09is in as far as they represent the world is in terms
00:09:12of their degree of confidence.
00:09:15So that for instance, we might say
00:09:17that I believe that today is Thursday and also
00:09:19I believe that Napoleon died in 1824.
00:09:21But, in fact, that glosses over
00:09:24a distinction, which is that I have a great deal more confidence that today
00:09:26is Thursday, than I do in the proposition
00:09:29that Napoleon died in 1824.
00:09:31And we can't capture that distinction simply
00:09:34in terms of the dichotomy between believing
00:09:36something and not believing it.
00:09:38So a much more useful, I think, and plausible way
00:09:40of representing people's own ways of representing the world,
00:09:43is in terms of degrees of confidence or degrees of belief
00:09:46on a scale which goes from perhaps 0% to 100%, with 0%
00:09:50implies zero confidence and 100% implies full confidence.
00:09:54Now, it's not at all clear where if we adopt that approach,
00:09:58we're going to fit it into the analysis of knowledge.
00:10:02It's not clear whether knowing something
00:10:04means that you should have at least 50% confidence in it, or
00:10:0575% confidence in it, or 99% confidence in it,
00:10:08or if actually it requires that you have
00:10:12100% full confidence in it.
00:10:13There are examples which put this kind of connection
00:10:16under pressure. If
00:10:18you think, for instance, about a lottery where
00:10:18you buy a ticket.
00:10:21If I buy a ticket to tomorrow's lottery,
00:10:22then my confidence that it isn't going to win,
00:10:24might be very high.
00:10:26It might be as close to 100% as you like.
00:10:27But still we'd hesitate to say that I believe
00:10:29that I'm not going to win.
00:10:31And even if, in fact, I'm not going to win,
00:10:32we'd hesitate to say that I know that I'm not going to win.
00:10:34So the connection between knowledge
00:10:37and this kind of degree of confidence that I talked about
00:10:39is unclear at best.
00:10:43Philosophers have spent a great deal of effort
00:10:44trying to make it clearer.
00:10:46But I would say it's not an area on which there's
00:10:47current agreement.
00:10:49For the moment then, let's stick with the idea that knowledge
00:10:51requires belief and well, I shall from now on in accordance
00:10:54with the tradition in modern epistemology until recently,
00:10:57true belief is a state that you either have or don't.
00:11:02So we can say that you know something if it's true,
00:11:05only if it's true, and you believe it.
00:11:08And if some further condition is fulfilled,
00:11:10then you do really know it.
00:11:13What is that further condition?
00:11:14Well, a number of ideas have been proposed.
00:11:16But the one that was undoubtedly most influential
00:11:18historically was the idea that to know
00:11:20something is to have a true justified belief in it.
00:11:22This means that the additional condition was justification.
00:11:26True belief with justification on this theory,
00:11:29what's called the tripartite theory, is knowledge.
00:11:32So what is justification?
00:11:36Well, we can think of it in various ways.
00:11:37But one very natural account of it,
00:11:40which probably is relatively close to the classical account
00:11:41that we find in Plato, is that a justification for a belief,
00:11:44is possession of an explanation as to why that belief is true.
00:11:47So that if you know something, then you believe it, it's true,
00:11:51and you possess some kind of explanation
00:11:55as to why it's true.
00:11:58That way of thinking about justification
00:12:00places a great deal of onus on what's
00:12:02going on in the mind of the person who knows something.
00:12:03In order to know something, I must
00:12:06be able to explain why it's true and
00:12:07that means that I should have more sophistication than just being
00:12:11able to understand the proposition.
00:12:13Do I know, for instance, the proposition
00:12:15that Napoleon died in 1824?
00:12:16Well, in a sense, I could explain why my belief is true,
00:12:19but it all depends on how demanding the requirement
00:12:22for an explanation is.
00:12:24Certain kinds of people, I probably
00:12:25couldn't justify it to.
00:12:27So the notion of justification itself can take various forms.
00:12:28Next time what we'll see is that actually
00:12:32on just about any plausible construal
00:12:35of the notion of justification.
00:12:37There are examples where it seems clear
00:12:39that justified true belief is not enough for knowledge.
00:12:42
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Ahmed, A. (2021, January 02). What is Knowledge? - Knowledge and its Analysis [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/what-is-knowledge
MLA style
Ahmed, A. "What is Knowledge? – Knowledge and its Analysis." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 02 Jan 2021, https://massolit.io/courses/what-is-knowledge