<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Gettier’s Paradox is considered a most critical problem for the presumably obvious philosophical view that knowledge is justified true belief. Such a view of knowledge, however, exposes the poverty of analytic philosophy. It wrongly assumes, for example, that knowledge must be conscious and explicit, and, to make matters worse, linguistic, as illustrated in Donald Davidson’s writings. To show why this philosophical view is wrong I will point to arguments by Ruth Barcan Marcus and, principally, Paul Churchland, as well as to work by the neuroscientist Paul Reber on intuitive knowledge. We will see, then, that much of our knowledge is neither explicit nor conscious, let alone linguistic. I will suggest that an approach that pays attention to biology is more likely to succeed in developing a proper account of our cognitive abilities. Thus, Gettier’s paradox becomes a mere curiosity.</p></abstract>

Gettier’s Paradox is considered a most critical problem for the presumably obvious philosophical view that knowledge is justified true belief. Such a view of knowledge, however, exposes the poverty of analytic philosophy. It wrongly assumes, for example, that knowledge must be conscious and explicit, and, to make matters worse, linguistic, as illustrated in Donald Davidson’s writings. To show why this philosophical view is wrong I will point to arguments by Ruth Barcan Marcus and, principally, Paul Churchland, as well as to work by the neuroscientist Paul Reber on intuitive knowledge. We will see, then, that much of our knowledge is neither explicit nor conscious, let alone linguistic. I will suggest that an approach that pays attention to biology is more likely to succeed in developing a proper account of our cognitive abilities. Thus, Gettier’s paradox becomes a mere curiosity.

Biology and Gettier’s Paradox

Studia Humana

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Biology and Gettier\u2019s Paradox"}

Gettier’s Paradox is considered a most critical problem for the presumably obvious philosophical view that knowledge is justified true belief. Such a view of...

Biology and Gettier’s Paradox

Published Online: Mar 30, 2019

Page range: 93 - 98

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sh-2019-0007

Keywords
Gettier’s paradox, justified true belief, non-linguistic knowledge, intrinsic learning, neural nets

© 2019 Gonzalo Munévar, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Biology and Gettier’s Paradox

Published Online: Mar 30, 2019

Page range: 93 - 98

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sh-2019-0007

KeywordsGettier’s paradox, justified true belief, non-linguistic knowledge, intrinsic learning, neural nets

© 2019 Gonzalo Munévar, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Gettier’s paradox, justified true belief, non-linguistic knowledge, intrinsic learning, neural nets