....Previous

1 .3  The first presupposition

Robert Almeder is the philosopher to question the first presupposi­tion.¹⁰ He denies that there can be false propositions which arc justified. Gettier held that there can be false but justified proposi­tions. This implies that there is a gap between the justication condition and the truth condition, that one can be fulfilled without the other being fulfilled, Almeder made it a point to show that there is no such independence. The justification condition is not independent of the truth condition. The satisfaction of the evidence condition entails, he says, the satisfaction of the truth condition.

Almeder offers three arguments to establish his position.¹¹ He argues that if the satisfaction of the truth condition is not entailed by the satisfaction of the justification condition, then we cannot truth condition is satisfied at all. To quote:
In the first place, if the satisfaction of justification condition does not entail the satisfaction of the truth condition, then how could the truth condition be satisfied at all?¹²

The presupposition would imply that after determining that a person's evidence is adequate there would be a separate task of determining the truth of the proposition which is claimed to be known. But, then, how could this task be achieved at all? Someti­mes it may be necessary to determine the truth of the proposition which a person professes to know. For instance, when there is an epistemological dispute over a proposition one is required to determine the truth of the proposition in question in order to settle the dispute. If the satisfaction of the evidence condition is, speaking generally, not enough we require a mystical or direct insight. But to allow for the possiblity of such an insight into truth is to rule out the necessity of evidence.

In his second argument against Gettier, Almeder refers to ordinary usage. He asks us to notice the fact that when we ask someone "How do you know?" we are satisfied when the hearer can satisfy us that he has adequate evidence. The reason why we stop from asking whether the proposition is true may be because the question "How do you know?", as it stands, is a question regarding the claimant's possible evidence. In other words, after knowing that the proposition which a person claims to know is true we may proceed to ascertain whether the person is in a position to know it. The reason why we do not question him on the truth of the proposition is that we already know it to be true. But though this may be a correct explanation in some cases, this does not cover all cases. For, in some cases, the point of asking this very question may be to ascertain whether the proposition claimed to be known is true. Let us imagine a case where something is stolen and everyone is making guesses as to who might be the thief. At this point, someone claims to know the thief. When, at this point, someone asks him "How do you know?", it is quite plain that the inquirer wants to ascertain whether the proposition is true. Even here he will not ask any further question if he is satisfied with the answer which the person concerned gives. What might be the explanation? One might venture an answer: We need not depend on the person concerned to ascertain the truth. One might independently try to determine that. But this will not hold ground for two reasons: (i) We have been asking the question "How do you know?", precisely because we wanted to know if the proposi­tion is true and (ii) secondly, we do not show any eagerness to determine independently whether the proposition is true once we are satisfied that the person concerned has enough evidence. Almeder seems to suggest that this is because the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condi­tion.

Finally, he argues that a justified proposition can always be used to justify other propositions.¹³ In other words, a justified proposi­tion may serve as an evidence for oilier propositions. To say that a false proposition may be justified is to admit that there may be false evidence. But this admission leads to paradoxical results. This, in fact, amounts to the assertion that any proposition may be used as an evidence for a proposition, provided the first proposition is relevant to the second. This turns the whole justifica­tory process into a fiasco. To justify means to prove a proposition to be true. How can a false proposition be used to prove a proposition to be true?

Next..