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9/4/2006
Reading 2: Sober, pp149-158: “What is Knowledge”
Sober begins by laying out what he intends to do with this chapter. He defines
epistemology: “Epistemologists try to evaluate the commonsense idea that we… have
knowledge and that we are … rationally justified in the beliefs we have.” Philosophers
who challenge that belief are engaging in, “… some form of philosophical skepticism”.
fashion. The example given is “S knows that the Rockies are in North America”.
type of knowing. The example given is “S knows the president of the United States”.
You can know all kinds of propositional information about the president, you can even be
introduced to him at a cocktail party but that does not mean that you necessarily know
him.
Propositional knowledge of how to ride a bike is not enough for one to say that they
know how to ride a bike. Propositional knowledge isn’t required for one to know how to
The two requirements for knowledge are belief and truth. One can not know
something that they believe to be false. If one believes something that is objectively false
then they can know it subjectively. Whether it is objectively true or not is irrelavent.
In the Theaetetus Plato argues that knowledge requires justification. To sum up:
You have to believe the thing and it has to have some element of truth and you have to be
able to justify your belief logically. This is the JTB theory (which stands for Justified
True Belief).
each other. Justification can also be ‘noninferential’, in other words it is simply based on
the evidence at hand. For example, you can know in a noninferential way that you have a
There are counterexamples to the JTB theory that play with unexpected
phenomena. For example, according to the text you can be justified in believing that
your lottery ticket will not win because the odds are in favor of you loosing with your
lottery ticket. Even if you are right and you loose it would be inaccurate to say that you
words, “If S knows that p then it isn’t possible that S is mistaken in believing that p.” If
you don’t trust the senses then S can know nothing. Sober acknowledges that skepticism
is deductively valid but in the same breath he tries to attack skeptical arguments by
Sober could be trying to say any one many different things by using the words
‘common sense’ so I won’t even attempt to directly refute it. I will, however, state what I
believe right now: I believe that we can know what we are thinking. I know that I think
that I am reading this book in a noninferential way. I can not know that I am actually