Talk:Gettier problem

message: Is it really necessary that both Smith and Jones change in gender between the first two examples and the third? It just confused me. I'll make the switch but if there is a genuine reason why the gender change takes place... IDX 15:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gender bending 

message: Counterexample is a perfectly legitimate means of ruling something out. In this case Gettier's counterexamples rule out the JTB notion. --172.199.93.84 19:55, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're currently banned from editing outside your case. You're kidding yourself if you think I'm going to have a discussion with you. Rhobite 20:40, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

text: WP:NPOV --causa sui talk 20:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Counterexample 

message: Why is this article named the Gettier 'problem'? Wouldn't "theorum" or "proposition" be more accurate? This may seem like nitpicking, but referring to this proposition as a problem presupposes a conclusion for which this is an obstacle. If Gettier called this a 'problem', then the title may be appropriate. Is this the case?
--Heyitspeter 22:48, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's what they're called in the literature. As for your suggestions, a proposition is that which has a truth value. A theorem is a mathematical or (formal) logical proposition proved from some starting assumptions. A Gettier problem, on the other hand is a vignette that serves as a counterexample to the thesis that justified, true belief is knowledge. It's not a proposition of any sort. Simões (talk/contribs) 23:08, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your assessment, but I understand Heyitspeter's confusion; take a look at the first sentence of the article, and I think you'll understand it, too. The article's lead text really needs to be rewritten to accord with the normal sense of the phrase "Gettier problem". —RuakhTALK 00:39, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Title Choice 

message: I posted the following on the talk page for Epistemology, but since there are multiple articles that refer to Gettier, and there is a merger proposal as well, is it appropriate in this occasion to repost same here? Referring to Gettier problems,
Surely Gettier must distinguish in some way between the following cases ;
I know I had ten coins in my pocket yesterday (I counted them).
I know I have ten coins in my pocket today (I counted them).
I know I will have ten coins in my pocket tomorrow (I can't possibly have counted them so I am guessing, not knowing).
I am making a FORECAST that I will have ten coins in my pocket tomorrow ( so I am guessing, not knowing).
Given that each statement suffers in at least some way from verifiabilty worries, is it still not so that the hallmark of scientific method is that experiments must be carried out before conclusions are drawn. So, on what basis one could one be tricked into thinking that a prediction about the future has the same evidentiary status as a conclusion drawn from the results of observations already made?Newbyguesses 23:51, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Responses to Gettier problem (see also other articles which discuss Gettier problems) 

message: Are they really counterexamples? (as in the lead sentence?). Thought experiment is better? And there are other words (I can not recall right now). Counterfactuals applies, but isn't quite the same thing? the cases (I), (II) are "speculative scenarios" or "word-plays" or "simulcrum scenarios", (That is, Smith is a fictional character.) How should this be expressed, as it brings into focus the distinct role played by the setter of the problem in asserting to Smith's statements. Any suggestions?Newbyguesses 06:12, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * All of these links have a bearing on the Gettier analysis, and in discussing exemplars such as case (I), the modes of speech (linguistics) are employed. Thus Epistemology,Epistemic modality, modes of speech, linguistics, as well as JTB, in discussing JTB, come into play. There is extensive literature, is there not, but I do not know where to find it at present and, it (imho) is quite pertinent. In discussing "justified true belief" encyclopediacally and comprehensively, these thinks perhaps should be considered as relevant, at least to look at.
* I am not suggesting any or all links go in, nor where they go, since that is down to research. So, any additions I made, someone who has this page on the watchlist can lookat , and make any suggestions on Usertalk:Newbyguesses, please. I have no additions, deletions are fine, to make for now, as I said, ro did I? Some links need to go in?
* I am enrolled in WikipediaProject:Philosophy, so I look forward to collaborateing would be nice.
* Why would these links not be relevant?
* In particular, what is the agency, what type of agency is assigned to Smith by the writer, and by us unconciously, in discussing,
* of Smith, in believing, such and such?
* Agent (grammar)
Agent noun
Human agency
Rational agent
Assertion
is
has
particular
entails
Epistemic modality - judgement of confidence in belief
Epistemic mood - indicates probability of utterence being true
Evidentiality - in linguistics, indication of evidence existing ( a grammatical element) I hear that,i think that, it seems, it looks like reportedly"
Pragmatics
Pragmatism
Foundations of mathematics
Framing
Has-a - computers
Human agency
human self-reflection
language, Truth, and Logic(1936) - Alfred Ayer - Logical positivism - verification principle - sentence either verifiable or falsifiable
Stipulative definition- this may be Law, but there are disambiguation pages too.
Counterfactual conditional if that had been the case, then...
if, what precisely is the status at any particular point in the discussion, of the counterfactualal conditional if which is pertaining to Smith?
* Please, someone check my edits, I made a few, and I am new, so I will be not making any more for now, although I would like to see some links go in, or other suggestions. Sorry to talk so long, and some of the links I might get the markyup wrong, apologies, just try search at left of screen , under linguiistics and modes of speech ( a lot of Latin ones, but none, I think, in Law definitions do apply). Thankyou, now.Newbyguesses 08:00, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Counterfactuals, thought experiment, counter-examples

message: :It is my understanding (from wikireading only, I am not yet able to consult in the original and accompanying literature) that:
* Gettier originally proposed case(s) I and II, substantially in these words?
* Gettier has later refined these exemplars, in new words then?
* The settings of these cases supplied presently in the article may appear somewhat perfunctory, it is not I think meant that the form of words be attributed as a quote to Gettier, but is it possible to identify where in the literature this particular set of words derives from? (or who claims to have written it, and make ensuing claims about JTB?).
* My suggestion: that expansion of the article, researched (sourced) in the literature is required. There are numerous Philosophy articles impacted by this question, and as a very new contributer to wiki, I hope my suggestion will lead to improvement in these set of articles, by contribution from knowledgable persons via the talkpage. Please criticise my above conclusions if I have gone astray in this reasoning. I hope by posting here that my attention, and that of others, can be drawn to possibilites that enhance the Philosophy articles, which I must say, do present a wealth of interesting and informative reading.
Newbyguesses 20:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: case I and case II

message: The grammar in the following sentence from the article is so bad that I cannot actually understand it:  "Therefore, justified true belief may be defined singly is a problematical proposition presently, or that be the purpose of Gettier's theses to confound."  If someone can make out what the meaning of this sentence is please fix it and reinsert it into the article, but I am going to remove it for the time being. b4hand (talk) 14:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can anybody understand this sentence? 

message: The article mentions a "Grandma Case," but there is no further information given anywhere as to what the "Grandma Case" is, which is likely to confuse readers (including me).  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.35.93.22 (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was also confused. I think this might be a reference to Tom's grandmother, as described here: http://www.niu.edu/~gpynn/311_H3.pdf Tom Grabit. Professor Black clearly sees her student Tom Grabit grab a library book from the shelf, stick it in his coat pocket, and sneak out the back door of the library. It seems clear that Black knows that Tom stole the book. Suppose the story continues: Tom Grabit,con’t. Tom’s grandmother is hospitalized hundreds of miles away, and is in the grip of many paranoid delusions. At the very moment that Black sees Tom steal the book, Tom’s grandmother is ranting to her nurse, and says,“My grandson Tom has an identical twin brother at Tom’s university who frequently uses the library and is a compulsive shoplifter.” This is false; Tom is an only child. Tom’s grandmother’s delusional rant hundreds of miles away couldn’t possibly affect whether Black knows that Tom stole the book. But now consider the following true proposition:  (7) Tom’s grandmother said that Tom has an identical twin brother at Tom’s university who frequently uses the library and is a compulsive shoplifter. If Black learned (7), she would no longer be justified in believing that Tom stole the book. Hence, (7) is a defeater for that belief, and according to nd, Black doesn’t know that Tom stole the book. But this is a very unwelcome result. Defenders of nd have attempted to respond by saying that “misleading” defeaters (like (7)) don’t undermine knowledge. They say that defeaters like (7) are themselves defeated by further defeaters, and that only undefeated defeaters undermine knowledge. We will not be pursuing this strategy68.100.140.33 (talk) 23:39, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grandma Case 

message: Please try to read the second sentence of the second paragraph in the section "Gettier's counterexamples". This sentence contains a long sentence and it appears that there is a grammatical error in it which makes it hard to read. Its hard to read anyway because its so long. 
Anyway: I think the error is that the second clause does not contain a verb in the right place. The phrase "....counter-example: that is,..." appears to me that for consistency with the earlier part of the clause the verb "is" should appear instead "...counter-example, is ...". However I'm not going to correct it because I don't know what meaning was intended.
mildly_odd (talk) 19:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammatical error 

message: I don't understand the need for the depth of commentary in this article. It seems that it really boils down to what one means by "justified". Is this correct, really? If thats the case, why not just say that and cut out 80% of the article? How about this:
 JTB = Knowledge when one is "really" justified 
 JTB <> Knowledge when one "thinks one is justified but isn't really, perhaps because one hasn't thought it through"
As another point, one would only have to express this topic in another language which had different words for the two meanings of "justified" and the problem wouldn't exist at all. Alternatively, maybe this is too simple, maybe it depends upon what one means by "knowledge". Again, I think this could just be spelt out if it is the case.
Apologies for being so blunt. I did say I was an outsider. 
mildly_odd (talk) 19:59, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: My impression is that your comments on the Gettier problem more properly pertain to the philosophers' discussion itself than to the Wikipedia article whose task is merely to provide an account of that discussion. In other words, if you could find a philosopher whom you could cite as saying that 80% of philosophers' discussions of the Gettier problem could be eliminated by distinguishing between two senses of "justified", then that view could be cited in the article, though it couldn't be used as justification for cutting 80% out of the article. (I'm not saying that there are no other reasons to edit the article down, instead I have no opinion on that.) The Tetrast (talk) 20:14, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for your reply, you are partly right - taking your sentences one at a time: (1) you have correctly identified my motivation but I think this page is about JTB, the Talk page is an account of the discussion. There could be another regular page about that subject too, e.g. entitled "long discourses about the Gettier problem", but the page on the Gettier problem itself can be quite short. Sentence (2) unless there is a special definition of philosopher, I need only cite myself in this case. My suggestion that it could all be wrapped up with some better definitions of "Justified" would have to go in another page called "short discorses about the Gettier problem". And then there is your 3rd sentence, which I have no problems with. Regards mildly_odd (talk) 20:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Outsider's comment 

message: At first I though that  but now I see that. Nevertheless my revert is correct. The Gettier problem is a philosophical problem, and mention of an artist's painting touching on it does NOT belong in an introductory section; mention of a little-known artist does not belong in the article at all. And it did come off like a promotional mention. The Tetrast (talk) 00:23, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand -  There may be a Gettier problem out there that is not based on a fallacy but it will have to survive much more serious study. Joseane (talk) 11:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert of  mention 

message: The first line of this article is at fault for stating that the Gettier problem is "a problem in modern epistemology". The Modern era took place from 1500 to 1960, and the problem was introduced in 1963, therefore it should be recognized as a part of the Postmodern/Contemporary era.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.105.207 (talk) 20:50, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: —Tom Morris (talk) 11:35, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Technically Not Modern 

message: Wouldn't being justified in one's belief also entail the correct methodology of thought that allows one to come to those conclusions? wouldn't the pan-rational portion of the theory of justification show that a true conclusion confirmed by an outside source, despite being true, would also be un-justified, because one's observation used to achieve the aforementioned justification would have been incorrect, in the case of the farmer's prized cow, the mistake of a black and white piece of paper for the cow would cause the farmer to be un-justified in his belief due to the fact that he lacks the correct observation required for a pan-rational justification.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.8.55.45 (talk) 16:34, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query From a Layman 

message: Is this problem basically the same as right for the wrong reason and false basis fallacy? Seems like it to me. Ranze (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, except Gettier counterexamples aren't really "fallacies"—they are really intended more as counterexamples to the "traditional" account of knowledge. The poor sucker in the examples aren't being held up as examples of fallacious thinking but as pretty natural mistakes that show traditional epistemology to be inadequate. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:34, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Synonymous expressions

message: **Copied from main page. Seems to be a legitimate concern based on my understanding of Gettier. Have deleted this from the main page.**
[Please change this opening sentence; this is not the Gettier problem AT ALL. On the face of it, no epistemologist would classify beliefs based on invalid reasons and faulty premises as knowledge. That's not what's at issue. What is taken for granted in the Gettier examples is that the individual meets all the typical requirements for knowledge, but clearly does not have knowledge. THIS IS A PROBLEM; this is the Gettier Problem. What amendments do we make to our theoretical conditions for knowledge (this is a philosophical question, but who cares that it is--it just has to do with what we want in a theory of knowledge).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.92.85.188 (talk) 06:56, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copying and pasting someone else's talk topic that seems to have been accidentally put on the main page itself 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: At some point this section must have been larger, because as is it doesn't fit in very well with the rest of the article. However, I am planning on deleting it unless anyone objects because it gives an inaccurate statement of the main idea of Gettier exampmles, which is not about flawed justification. Rather, it is an argument that JTB is not necessary and sufficient for knowledge. Positing that the justification is flawed would be sufficient to defeat Gettier problem on its face, since no one claims that a true beliefs with a flawed justification is necessary and sufficient for knowledge.
Original Position (talk) 17:59, 18 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleting "Constructing Arbitrary Gettier Problems" section

message: Hi, the above person is the only one not presented with also his fist name in the article. Probably OK with Plato or Aristotle, but perhaps not with one of our near contemporaries? T 85.166.162.64 (talk) 09:34, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kaarlo Jaakko Juhani Hintikka 

message: I am new to editing wikipedia, so I don't want to just jump in and fix this, but this entry incorrectly states that Alvin Goldman's 1976 paper attributed the Fake Barn case to Carl Ginet. Although the case does seem to have come from Ginet, Goldman did not cite him in that paper. (If you search for Ginet's name, it doesn't come up at all.) He does mention in later papers that he took the case from Ginet.
Burton anatomy (talk) 18:01, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in this entry 

message: There is a good book by Les Valiant called Probably Approximately Correct (abbreviated PAC).  Wikipedia's current article about PAC presents it only as a topic in machine learning, but Valiant wrote about it as a theory of knowledge.  I have not researched whether the PAC theory of knowledge has gotten any traction among philosophers as an alternative to the JTB theory or in relation to the Gettier problem.  If it has, that probably deserves a mention in this article.  I might get around to looking into it sometime, but if someone else wants to do it sooner, that would be great.  2602:24A:DE47:B8E0:1B43:29FD:A863:33CA (talk) 01:12, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  alternative theory of knowledge 

message: Smith, it is claimed by the hidden interlocutor, has a justified belief that "Jones owns a Ford". Smith therefore (justifiably) concludes (by the rule of disjunction introduction) that "Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona", even though Smith has no information whatsoever about the location of Brown. In fact, Jones does not own a Ford, but by sheer coincidence, Brown really is in Barcelona. Again, Smith had a belief that was true and justified, but not knowledge.
Where did  - or Brown is in Barcelona" -  come from? There is no explanation of why Smith believes this. Has this been edited down until it makes no sense? 
I found a better explanation:
Smith possesses good evidence in favor of the proposition that Jones owns a Ford. Smith also has a friend, Brown. Where is Brown to be found at the moment? Smith does not know. Nonetheless, on the basis of his accepting that Jones owns a Ford, he infers — and accepts — each of these three disjunctive propositions:
# Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston.
# Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona.
# Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.
No insight into Brown’s location guides Smith in any of this reasoning. He realizes that he has good evidence for the first disjunct (regarding Jones) in each of those three disjunctions, and he sees this evidence as thereby supporting each disjunction as a whole. Seemingly, he is right about that. (These are inclusive disjunctions, not exclusive. That is, each can, if need be, accommodate the truth of both of its disjuncts. Each is true if even one — let alone both — of its disjuncts is true.) Moreover, in fact one of the three disjunctions is true (albeit in a way that would surprise Smith if he were to be told of how it is true). The second disjunction is true because, as good luck would have it, Brown is in Barcelona — even though, as bad luck would have it, Jones does not own a Ford. Accordingly, Smith’s belief that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona is true.
Source: https://iep.utm.edu/gettier/
A.A.Mcphee (talk) 01:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gettier's Case II Counter Example doesn't make sense