Intro to Epistemology #2b: The Gettier Problem (continued)

In this second lecture on the Gettier problem, I canvass four popular attempts to define "knowledge." We begin with the "conclusive reasons" account and the alternative "contextualist" account offered by Fred Dretske. And we also cover the course of the development of Alvin Goldman's "reliabilism." Lastly, Gilbert Harman's "defeasibility" account of knowledge is presented and explained in detail.

[artyomukhov]

Great review of the attempts to resolve the Gettier's cases!

[sackclothandashes]

Excellent video! Must be tough trying to be pithy with subjects such as these. A whole lot of info packed into one half-hour!

[abdein]

What’s the difference if the paper was red because of the red light projected on it, red color, or the redness perception (subjectively)?

[joefromzohra]

In all the cases presented, the person making a claim about his/her knowledge did not have all of the facts - there was a missing piece of information that was given in the situation that you and I knew about, except for the person making the knowledge claim. And so the only conclusion one can make is that you have only degrees of certainty in knowledge. As we discovered more facts, the more we know. However, Quantum Mechanics - which claims that for incompatible observables, such as position and momentum, the greater the certainty in knowing one brings about a greater uncertainty in knowing the other - puts a limit on the "more facts we have, the more we know".

[keaco]

If you can't show it, you don't know it :). -AR

[acvarthered]

Why are modern phylosophers arguing over a bronze age definition of knowledge that self detonated several centuries ago?  Do phylosophers have some sick fetish for beating dead horses?

[eltouristoduo]

wow awesome donkey pics ! lol. After some thought on all this history, going back for decades, this is all seems a juvenile framework. It's like they are all 'folk thinkers'. I don't see any challenges at all .Wtf have they been doing all these years? Context is obviously relevant, etc. But when you just simply consider the requirements for empirical knowledge, off course you are going to have an explosion of considerations and modifications of theorize based in such a non-empirical approach. It's like they are playing some perverse elaborate, non-rigorous semantic game. I just don't see the value in it. They seem utterly lost in little modifications and internal-reality processes. How is this a science? I guess there is a scientific side to epistemology, and then there's all this, whatever it is. I will rephrase my view: Knowledge is JTB with empirical justification. Why on earth would we approach the concept of 'everyday knowledge' ANY different than we could the concept of ''scientific knowledge'? They are EXACTLY the same process. We could call them both 'sciences' but the 'everyday' version according to these guys must work some other way. We could also say that 'everyday' process are just less rigorous science. This is why 'everyday' people can
so much more easily have false beliefs than science. Everyday people are more subject to all the biases, distortions, assumptions etc. that we could say separate that process from
a rigorous scientific process. Funny thing is, I don't think it needs to be that way. If we applied a more rigorous approach to everyday life, one thing that might happen right away is we would suddenly think we knew a lot less. You can imagine some other implications. But that wouldn't render everyday life impractical. On the contrary, we could be more discerning and less easily fooled by ourselves or others. You wouldn't have to investigate everything in a rigorous scientific way to still use good inference and not go any farther than is reasonable. It seems there may be little point it trying to model this in the terms attempted by all these philosophers. It may inform in something, but it doesn't seem to be any kind of actually attempt at some reasonable comprehensive framework. (it seems more a debate-game)
I say that the everyday version that people apply is simply 'non-rigorous' science. But these thinkers imply there is some other process. The quality of knowledge gathered is all based on the quality of its rigorous, and it becomes the reliable the more 'justified by fact and proper inference' it is. Just like in scientific knowledge. Matters of individual 'petty' processes in little constructed scenarios...what is that? What can you learn from that? It's not like we are missing some fundamental tools to interpret ALL of those scenarios correctly in PRACTICAL terms, like a criminal investigator for example. They don't need ANY of what is being discussed here, or analyzed here. It seems the reverse is true, that what investigators and scientists do could inform this discussion. That's what good scientists or good investigators already do. So WHAT IS this kind of philosophy for'? Or is it just me? Am I missing something fundamental and important? Or is this what gives philosophy a bad name. Is this sort of philosophy often spectacularly non-rigorous?
I think I might be just about done with whatever this is. I've tried really hard to have an open mind about it. I've tired to falsified my view that it is non-rigorous. I'm having so much trouble finding that falsification I'm just about ready to apply the brain calories elsewhere. But if someone can help me see some 'validity' in it, I'm all ears.