RESEARCH PAPERS

Gettier's counterexamples and his presuppositions
Sutapa Saha

 

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Hoffmann next refers to another case which has all the features of the first case except that it was in a different place and a different time and the man is called Smith. However, in this case, when Smith moves across that point the floor gives way. Now, if this be the case should not we continue to say that Jones knew "The floor will bear my weight" and that Jones had enough evidence. But then Smith too had adequate evidence although in his case the floor caved in. In other words, in this case the proposition claimed to be known turned out to be false. At this juncture Almeder is faced with a dilemma. He would have to hold either that Jones did not have adequate evidence and in that case he is forced to admit that Jones did not know. But in that case, he would be going against ordinary usage which he takes to be the court of appeal or he would have to admit that Jones knew and had adequate evidence. But then Smith too had adequate evidence for he has the same evidence as Jones. But in Smith's case, the proposition did not turn out to be true. Almeder would either have to go against ordinary usage or he would have to forego his conclusion.

In fact, what Hoffmann intended to show was that Almeder's account fits well with those cases of knowledge which arc based on deductive inference but he could not cope with other kinds of knowledge. In all such cases of knowledge, there is a gap between the evidence condition and the truth condition. Satisfa­ction of the evidence condition cannot ensure the satisfaction of the truth condition.

This seems to be the most powerful argument against Almeder. Almeder however tries his best to defend himself against this argument. In his defence Almeder suggests that to say that the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition is not to say that the evidence be an entailing evidence. To quote Almeder:
The thesis in question is that the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition; and the truth of this thesis does not require that the satisfaction of the evidence condition demands entailing evidence.15

Perhaps, what Almeder had in mind is that to say that the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition is not to mean that the evidence entails the truth of the proposition in question. This defence however does not come to much for it seems that the satisfaction of the evidence condition cannot entail the satisfaction of the truth condition unless the evidence entails the truth of the proposition in question. Let us suppose that q is the proposition in question and evidence for q is the proposition p. The evidence condition is satisfied if p is true and the truth condition for q is satisfied if q is true. Thus, to say that the truth condition is satisfied if the evidence condition is satisfied is to say that q is true if p is true. In other words, we have to say that the evidence for q is an entailing evidence. Almeder's position is thus not quite comfortable for it makes us give up a large part of our knowledge, viz., a large portion of the different sciences.

Further, by 'truth' Almeder does not mean 'correspondence'. And he admits that under the assumption that truth is corresponde­nce it is possible for a proposition to be justified but not true, i.e., false. To quote Almeder again:
I hasten to add, of course, that as long as we continue to regard 'truth' in terms of the classical correspondence theory of truth, then where justifications are non-entailing although sufficient or adequate for knowledge, there will always be the infamous logical gap between being completely justified in believing a proposition and that belief being a picture of the way the world is.16

Thus, if by 'truth' we mean correspondence, then, as Chisholm shows, we make room for the possibility of there being an evident but false belief. Suppose one believes at time t1 that tomorrow it will rain. Now he may have adequate evidence for his belief at t}. But at t1 the fact that makes the belief true is yet to be. The adequate evidence for the belief does not include the fact that makes the belief true. It is therefore quite likely that there is adequate evidence but belief is false. To quote Chisholm:
If there are criteria for saying, with respect to the belief that it rained yesterday or the belief that it will rain tomorrow, that the belief is a belief in what is now evident, or that it is one for which we now have adequate evidence, these criteria do not themselves include the fact (if it is a fact) that it did rain yesterday or that it will rain tomorrow. Hence if we are not to be sceptics and if we are not to restrict the evident to what is directly evident, we must face the possibility that a belief may be a belief in what is evident, or a belief for which we have adequate evidence, and, at the same lime, be a belief in what is false.17

Chisholm observes that if one intends to hold that whatever is evident is also true then he would have to adopt some form of what is called a coherence theory. We find that Chisholm was justified in his observation, for this is exactly what Almeder who is a protagonist of this theory does.

 

 

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