Knowledge is true belief based on argument.

Plato, Theaetetus, 201 c-d Is Justified True Belief

Knowledge? Edmund Gettier, Analysis 23:
121123,
bronze winning essay from International
Philosophy Olympiad 2014 by Janko Zekovic

Introduction
Imagine the following situation:
My friend wants to buy a car, so Im having a conversation about it
with him. In one moment I ask him about the color of my car. I
might suppose that hes embarrassed not to know it, but he
doesnt want to admit. Suddenly he says: Red. I smile and say
that it is right.
Let us consider the situation. Does he know the color, or he just
had a guess? Is it the real knowledge?
He might believe and have an argument such as that red is my
favorite color, but still it isnt knowledge
since he has never seen my car. In these terms I will argue about
the topic:

Knowledge is true belief based on argument. Plato

Is justified true belief knowledge? Edmund Gettier
Also I will consider the validity of arguments, the problem of true
knowledge considering the material world as a source. I will

compare rationalists and empiricists and give an overall

conclusion about the subject.
Examining the words which correlate to knowledge: true,
justified, belief, argument, validity
a) The paradox of lottery
Knowledge is said to be true, justified belief. How do we know
whether something is true or not? How can we be sure of it? We
can justify our belief, but to consider it as knowledge, it can be
tricky. If I play the lottery ticket, I can say that I know I wont get
the numbers on a ticket as the odds are over 0,9999 not to get
them. But I also know that the winner will be pulled out. Who
knows? Maybe I am the winner. But, at the same time I know two
things which are paradoxical. I cant win and lose at the same
time. What is here knowledge? My justified belief because of odds,
or the true fact that there will be a winner? If I dont win, can I say:
I knew it.? I cant, because there was a chance for me to win.
b) Epistemic luck
Does the knowledge exist without a person to acknowledge it? We
can agree that the knowledge is true, justified belief, but we might
not have it. How? I am the astrophysicist, and Im searching for a
new planet similar to Earth. My colleague is doing the same job,
but separately and not in the same time. We both have justified
belief that a few light years away there is planet which is equally
distant from its sun as the Earth is, we suppose that the size is
also similar Simply, all parameters indicate that we are right.
Next, I wait for clear night to see it through the telescope. I am
astonished because I havent found the planet. Next day, my
colleague finds it. How to explain this?

This is called an epistemic luck. I had a bad and my colleague a

good one. What is the difference between me and him? He had an
opportunity to gain a knowledge, and I didnt. He has completed
his theory and I havent. Let us summarize. This example goes
along with the assumption that knowledge is true, justified belief.
We both had justified belief, but we werent hundred percent sure.
In order to join the word true, we had to search for a planet. We
even had the arguments for believing. However, because of my
bad epistemic luck I cant say I have knowledge of the planet now.
c) The criterion for knowledge
Imagine we say that there are not rich people because there is no
one with 1 000 000 000 000 000 dollars, euros or any other
valute? Can you say that there are not fast people because they
cant run 5 meters in 1 second? No, we must have certain criterion
which is not exaggerated. If there is no man over three meters
tall, it doesnt mean that there are not tall people in this world.
Furthermore, it cannot be true as it is impossible for a person to
run 5 meters in one second or to be tall over three meters. So, it
would be knowledge if these faculties were possible, because they
would have been true. As they are not possible, not true ,they
cant consist a knowledge.

The validity of arguments and correlation with Plato and

Descartes
When we believe in something, we believe because we have the
good reasons for it. We have arguments. Yet, how to check the
validity of our arguments? Can we know something without having
the arguments? Knowledge cant be just a base of information as

the information can be true or not, and knowledge must be true,

otherwise it would not be knowledge.. Why are the arguments so
important? We can say that we know something but it can be
based on wrong arguments as you accidentally acknowledge it
( typical example- school lesson). It is like puzzle. You can have a
greater picture of what you are supposed to put together, yet to
complete it for a real you have to put all the parts together. It is
like you are doing the car puzzle and you miss the parts of the
front wheel. It is not anymore a car but a wheel-missing car. The
same works for knowledge. We can have greater perspective of it,
but it is not completed. ( I will argue about this relativity later in
the essay).
Plato gave an example which goes along with his philosophy and
we can use it as an argument. Man was drawing over the sand the
squares and triangles in order to show that a slave, who had never
studied geometry before, knew to calculate complex length of
them. He didnt indicate the answers, he was just posing the
questions. The slave got it right based on arguments and drawings
in the sand. Having arguments is necessary to have a knowledge.
Knowledge is true because of something and this something
must be an argument. If the argument is invalid, then the
knowledge isnt true, therefore we cant even name it as a
knowledge. I have discussed about Plato because I will make some
comparison between rationalists and empiricists later in this
essay.
How to have valid arguments which carry the truth of
knowledge? Descartes posed four steps how to gain episteme.
First we start with the truths that are clear and indubious. Second,
we split the problem in as many parts as we need to solve the

problem ( analogy of posing the equation). Third, we identify the

variables and solve them using the other parts of problem
(analogy of solving the equation). And the last step is to check
whether solution is appropriate. This is named as scientific
method or deductive conclusioning. We start from something that
cannot be false. Based on this fact, we gain the true knowledge.
Why is this so important-to have a strong basis for knowledge? If
someone asks us why we believe in something and consider it as
true, you are supposed to give your reasons so:
How do you know R1? Because of R2.
How do you know R2? Because of R3.

How do you know Rn? Because of Rn+1.

Imagine the facial expression of person who finds out that his or
her acknowledgment of R99 is based on invalid arguments (R100).
The whole knowledge is not anymore a knowledge. This is why
Descartes posed these four steps. It is important that every link
works. On every why, we must have valid because. If R1>R2
we cannot say we know R2, therefore we know R1.
The problem of episteme due to the external world-source
of episteme
Could we be deluded? Descartes went to the point that even there
is a demon who deludes us. Maybe an alien has put my brain in
the computer and controls me. How to prove it is not true? How to
deny this possibility? The fact is that I think to have certain

knowledge, but I cant reject this possibility no matter how

unthinkable it might be. I dont know whether I am writing this
essay, I dont know whether I am abroad. It seems scary that you
cant be sure of anything.

The major views of epistemology in philosophy are rationalism

and empiricism. And their major preoccupation is the source of our
episteme. Do we have innate ideas as rationalists thought or we
gain episteme only through our experiences from the external
world? How did the slave from Platos story come to the solution?
According to rationalists- via innate ideas, an argument-the slave
wasnt taught. If we perceive things from the external world and
acknowledge situations based on these things, we might only
think it is true and categorize it as knowledge. This is the relativity
I will talk about. Is the knowledge true, justified belief only in our
world, which is full od delusions or it has to have a unique, overall
truth? If we have a problem of material world, then we have a
problem with our episteme.
Let consider three empiricists:
Locke argued about ideas and qualities. He asserts that primary
qualities are representing things in their reality and secondary
depend on our senses, perception. Berkeley opposed by asserting
that we are only in touch with our ideas and material world cannot
be proven to exist. Hume indicated the problem of causality and
induction. Three different opinions.
Lockes representative realism is the major objection of other
empiricists. We cant know whether the qualities we perceive are

real, as we cant prove the external world. And our senses might
be the deceptive (consider the example od daltonism, or a person
who is hallucinating- he/she sees what no other person sees, and
yet that is real for hallucinating people). Even though Berkeley
considers that we are in touch only with our ideas, how to explain
what we perceive? It can be delusion , but even then we perceive
something which comes from the outside- it cannot be neglected.
Humes main preoccupation is the problem of causality. If after A
always comes B, do we have to make conclusion that A causes B.
If we see B and not A, do we have to assume that before B there
was A, or if we see A do we have to make assumption there will be
B? Do we know it? Is it true? It is only our experience which tells
us that we know the relation between A and B. For any other
person it is true, justified belief (therefore a knowledge) that fire
will burn you every time you are so near to the candle. According
to Hume, it doesnt represent knowledge as we cant be sure of
causality. This leads to the problem of induction, as we tend to
generalize things, and we must not do that. If you throw away a
gamble and get number six 100 times, we cant conclude that it
will be still number six the very 101sttime. We do not know that.
Anyway, that is fine according to Hume, as we work perfectly in
this world (positive thesis), no matter whether we are sure of our
knowledge through perception. If I play with the coin in my room,
when I put it in front of me, it looks round, and when I look at it at
different angle, it might look elliptical. So, in one situation we have
quality 1 of the coin, and in the other we have quality 2 of it. What
is here knowledge? Is it round or is it elliptical? It doesnt matter,
because depending on situation, we can adjust our perception and
knowledge of the coin.

Conclusion
We are like fish in a round aquarium. It perceives differently than
we do because of the shape of aquarium . What is the straight line
for us, it is not for the fish. Moreover, if it were rational, it would
have created the laws for its reality and it would work perfectly
well in it. In Kants philosophy the perceptions are arranged in
categories. These categories are a priori, and they seem like a
keyhole of what we perceive. We can see what is inside the room,
but through the shape of a keyhole-nothing more, nothing less.
There are certain things we cannot know, which are transcendent
according to Kant and other things we are often unsure of, but we
do well with our knowledge.
We have considered so far the gaining of knowledge, its features,
the truth of it, its source And we have come to the conclusion
that the knowledge is indeed true ,justified believe based on
argument with emphasizing the word true, as it might be arguable
in the means of reality and our perception.