According to a historical claim oft-repeated by contemporary epistemologists, the ‘traditional’ conception of knowledge prevailed in Western philosophy prior to the publication in 1963 of Edmund’s Gettier’s famous three-page article ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’. On this conception, knowledge consists of justified true belief. In this article, I critically consider evidence for and against this historical claim, and conclude with a puzzle concerning its widespread acceptance.

There is a traditional conception of knowledge but it is not the Justified True Belief analysis Gettier attacked. On the traditional view, knowledge consists in having a belief that bears a discernible mark of truth. A mark of truth is a truth-entailing property: a property that only true beliefs can have. It is discernible if one can always tell that a belief has it, that is, a sufficiently attentive subject believes that a belief has it if and only if it (...) has it. Requiring a mark of truth makes the view infallibilist. Requiring it to be discernible makes the view internalist. I call the view Classical Infallibilism. (shrink)

. This article analyzes the epistemic contributions of models by distinguishing three roles that they might play: an evidential role, a revealing role and a stimulating role. By using an account of learning based on the philosophical understanding of propositional knowledge as true justified belief, the paper provides the conditions to be fulfilled by a model in order to play a determined role. A case study of an economic model of the labor market—the DMP model—illustrates the usefulness of these conditions (...) in articulating debates over the epistemic contributions of a given model. (shrink)

Deploying distinctions between ignorance of \ and ignorance that \ , and between knowledge of \ and knowledge that \ , I address a question that has hitherto received little attention, namely: what is it to have knowledge of propositions? I then provide a taxonomy of ontological conceptions of the nature of propositions, and explore several of their interesting epistemological implications.

This paper explores different interpretations of the word ‘deep’ as it is used by mathematicians, with a large number of examples illustrating various criteria for depth. Most of the examples are theorems with ‘historical depth’, in the sense that many generations of mathematicians contributed to their proof. Some also have ‘foundational depth’, in the sense that they support large mathematical theories. Finally, concepts from mathematical logic suggest that it may be possible to order certain theorems or problems according to ‘logical (...) depth’. (shrink)

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in (...) outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history. (shrink)

It’s a cornerstone of epistemology that knowledge requires truth – that is, that knowledge is factive. Allan Hazlett boldly challenges orthodoxy by arguing thatthe ordinary concept of knowledge is not factive. On this basis Hazlett further argues that epistemologists shouldn’t concern themselves with the ordinary concept of knowledge, or knowledge ascriptions and related linguistic phenomena. I argue that either Hazlett is wrong about the ordinary concept of knowledge, or he’s right in a way that leaves epistemologists to carry on exactly (...) as they have, paying attention to much the same things they always did. (shrink)

Rik Peels has forcefully argued that, contrary to what is widely held, ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In doing so, he has argued against the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent, and argued for what he calls “the New View” according to which ignorance is equivalent (merely) to the lack or absence of true belief. In this paper, I defend the Standard View against Peels’s latest case for the New View.

Rik Peels has once again forcefully argued that ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In doing so, he endeavors to refute the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent, and to advance what he calls the “New View” according to which ignorance is equivalent (merely) to the lack or absence of true belief. I defend the Standard View against his new attempted refutation.

Rik Peels has ingeniously argued that ignorance is not equivalent to the lack or absence of knowledge. In this response, I defend the Standard View of Ignorance according to which they are equivalent. In the course of doing so, some important lessons will emerge concerning the nature of ignorance and its relationship to knowledge.

Edmund Gettier is Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. This short piece, published in 1963, seemed to many decisively to refute an otherwise attractive analysis of knowledge. It stimulated a renewed effort, still ongoing, to clarify exactly what knowledge comprises.