Gettier Argument: Justification in Believing
Answer each question with 250-300 words.
1.S’s watch has kept perfect time for years, so looking at her watch is a generally reliable way of finding out what time it is. Today, S looks at her watch at exactly 1 pm, and the watch shows 1:00. S believes correctly that it’s 1 pm. But the watch stopped the previous night at 1 am. So S doesn’t know that it’s 1 pm. This is sometimes taken to show the inadequacy of this proposal—does it?
2.S knows a barn when she sees one. But today, unbeknownst to her, she’s traveling in an area where they’re making a movie, and set designers have built a large number of barn-facades that look just like real barns from the road. By fortunate coincidence, S sees, however, what is the only real barn in the area, and believes (correctly) that there’s a real barn there. Does S know that there’s a (real) barn there? Is this true belief justified, given that S is an excellent barn-detector?
Question 1
Given that S’s watch has been perfect in keeping time for years and she has used it throughout the years to reliably tell what time it is, then she is justified in believing it is 1 pm even though the watch stopped 12 hours ago. In this case, S used a generally reliable method to arrive at her belief, although she does not know it is 1 pm. This shows the inadequacy of justified true knowledge because the existence of justification or evidence may not imply knowing.
Examining S’s assumption may yield a different perspective. When S looked at her watch, she assumed that it was working correctly. This assumption leads her to believe that the time is indeed 1 pm. Therefore, this assumption is necessary for her to believe the time her watch is showing. However, this assumption is not true as the watch stopped working 12 hours ago. In this sense, it would be correct to say that the assumption that led her to believe the time was 1 pm is false. This means that her belief is not justified. Therefore, one may argue that the justification is incorrect, and her case does not qualify for a true justified belief.
On the other hand, her history of relying on clocks may be thought of as good evidence to justify her belief. After all, the watch has been reliable in showing the correct time for years. Unfortunately, this still does not amount to knowledge bec...
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