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In Gettier Is Justified True Belief Knowledge

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In Gettier's Is Justified True Belief Knowledge, his main conclusion is having a justified true belief is not necessary and sufficient for having knowledge. Gettier gives the following reasons in support of his conclusion: Smith is justified in believing the following proposition: (d) Jones is the man who will get the job and Jones has ten coins in his pocket. He is justified in this belief because he has good evidence: the president of the company told him that Jones would get the job and he just counted the coins in Jones's pocket.

From proposition (d) the following proposition can be deduced: (e) the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Because (e) follows from (d) and because Smith is justified in believing (d), he is also justified in believing (e).

However, it turns out that, unbeknownst to Smith, he himself will get the job and he also has ten coins in his pocket. So, though (d) is false, (e) is true. Smith believes (e), he is justified in believing (e), and (e) is true; but Gettier claims that Smith doesn't know (e).

The claim is that Smith doesn't know (e) because he doesn't know that he's the man who will get the job and he doesn't know that he has ten coins in his pocket. And he must know these two things in order to KNOW (e).

I disagree with Gettier's premise that if Smith doesn't know that he is getting the job then he doesn't know (e). Gettier's conclusion is based on a broad justification of Smith's evidence. He is using a supposition to justify his proposition to the fact that whomever got the job has 10 coins in his pocket.

Since Gettier made the statement that Smith's evidence was" that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end get the job and that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket". That would mean that Smith had "Knowledge" of the situation at that point in time. Then circumstances changed and he got the job. If Smith was given all the information up front then he would have arrived at a different premise. Then Smith would know all of (e). By only giving a limited example Gettier set himself up for failure. According to the definition of knowledge, Knowledge is acquaintance with facts, truths or principles as from study or investigation. Smith was given "strong evidence" that (d) "Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has 10 coins. If Gettier had said whomever had 10 coins would get the job then his theory would have been true.

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