This essay attempts to capitalize on Goldman 's “What is justified belief?” to form an opinion about his ideas. Goldman makes a break from traditional views of knowledge to form a theory of externalism. He gives the reader a new point of view for observing the relationship between knowledge and justification. The following passage will weed out some important aspects of his theory and how they relate to his theory as a whole.
In the beginning of his paper Goldman makes it clear that he would be moving away from the classical approach to understanding the relation between knowledge and justification. In “What is Justified Belief?” he argues that justification is necessary, but not sufficient, for knowledge. In doing so, he rejects certain assumptions
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These concerns are the problem of 'generality ' and the problem of 'extent '. Before these concerns can be understood, we need to understand the two forms of belief forming processes, namely, belief forming process 'type ' and belief forming process 'token '. A 'type ' is a form of belief forming process whereas a 'token ' is individual sequence of events that lead to a certain belief formation. In other words a token is an instance of type. Between them only belief forming process type is repeatable and hence can be used for reliability test.
Consider an event that occurs at a precise time and place, in other words a product of a token causal process. But since there happen to be true unjustified beliefs and false justified beliefs, one cannot use the process token that generated the event to determine its justification status ( Goldman, 1979). Furthermore, assessing reliability is the characteristic of process types and not tokens. Now, if we categorize the process token into process types, we end up with numerous “types” each with its own degree of reliability by virtue of being defined too narrowly or too broadly(gold). It would be impossible to choose one process type to determine the reliability of the process token. Goldman solution can be understood via an example. He suggests that given the choice between just observing a tree and observing a tree at 12:00, on Sunday, 13th November, we should choose
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He answers the same question by: “A precise answer to this question should not be expected. Our conception of justification is vague in this respect” (Goldman, 1979). Goldman started out to carve out a theory that would remain true to the relationship between justification and knowledge but at the same would not be hindered by the limitations of classical viewpoint. Goldman admits, in the footnote, that the theory was meant to an ordinary, or “naïve”, account of conception of justification (Goldman 1979). And though the theory lacks satisfactory explanations for the problem of generality, problem of extent and it is open to the lottery paradox; as an ordinary account it has accomplished what it was meant to. Goldman also hints that if one would want a theory that would “do more than capture the ordinary conception of justification”(Goldman, 1979) the possibility is inherent in his
Throughout Kai Nielsen 's book: Ethics Without God, he attempts to use logic and reason to show that there can be ethics without God. Nielsen is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Calgary. Having written several books and holding a P.h.D, it seems that he is a credible source of knowledge. Yet despite his seemingly good arguments, they turn out to be statements that can 't take scrutiny.
“Reliability refers to consistency in terms of how well items in an instrument correlate with one another, providing justification for the creation of a scale or index (DeVillis, 2012), or consistency
Human beings’ belief systems don’t always work according to evidence. Belief is made up of
James, W. (2009, May 8). The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Will to Believe, by William James. Retrieved from The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/26659/pg26659.txt
Validity is essentially the degree to which a conception is founded and parallels accurately to the real world. Validity is the tool that measures what the particular research was anticipated to measure (Schmitt & Brown, 2012). There are several different types of validity but the ones that will be discussed in this paper are concurrent and predictive. Concurrent validity is taking an already validated point and testing it with another measurement tool. This means that there was already a hypothesis proven right or wrong and now the researcher will be testing this same hypothesis but will being using another type of tool to see if the result...
The purpose of this paper is to show that Goldman's causal theory of knowledge does not solve the Gettier problem. First, I will reiterate the Gettier problem. Second, I will show how Goldman's theory attempts to solve the Gettier problem. Next, I will show how over determination points out a major flaw for Goldman's theory. Finally, I will demonstrate that Goldman's theory does not work if the world we live in is not one of absolute truth and void of deception.
The role of faith has been debated among many theologians, scientists, and philosophers. It has been greatly discussed and depicted throughout history as whether faith is logical when it comes to religion or whether faith is completely absurd. In this essay, I will focus on the role of faith through the lenses of Christian philosophers Sorean Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich. Faith plays an important role in Kierkegaard and Tillich theology; I will critically examine their depiction of faith and compare and contrast their passages. Kiergarrd view of faith is that it is completely absurd where as Ti
However, both characteristics of reliability and validity are important and can be used in many studies, such as the self-rating and other- ratings of daily behavior. Reliability refers to the internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, test-retest, and standardized scoring. In other words reliability means that study scores have to be constant with repeatability of the findings. Validity also refers to convergent validity, discriminant validity, and predictive validity. Validity refers to the reliability or credibility of the research. If the findings in a study, reliability and validity are valid they must be reliable.
...finition is not guaranteed to fail,” we must understand that saying a definition is not guaranteed to fail is different from saying it satisfies the criteria for always working. Given a situation where the agent utilizes double luck to acquire knowledge when a virtue-based act replaces justification makes us dissect the aspect of arrival. If the agent arrived to the truth and the motivation for doing so was not virtuous, then the same double-luck example could occur, the truth could be arrived and the knowledge acquired could not be good true knowledge. This is because the component of arrival does not entail the virtue. Therefore, there is no truth involved, but just luck. In this account her definition seems incomplete. If the truth of knowledge is virtue-based and all people are not virtuous agents, then how to we account for the knowledge of the non-virtuous?
Pope John Paul II once said, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth – in a word, to know himself – so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.” (Fallible Blogma) Based on this significant and powerful quote, one can infer that faith and reason are directly associated and related. It can also be implied that the combination of faith and reason allows one to seek information and knowledge about truth and God; based on various class discussions and past academic teachings, it is understood that both faith and reason are the instruments that diverse parties are supposed to use on this search for truth and God. There are many stances and viewpoints on the issues of faith and reason. Some believe that both of these ideas cannot and should not be combined; these parties deem that faith and reason must be taken as merely separate entities. However, this writer does not understand why both entities cannot be combined; both terms are so closely compatible that it would make sense to combine the two for a common task. Based on various class discussions and readings, there are many philosophers and theologians who have certain opinions regarding faith, reason and their compatibility; these philosophers include Hildegard of Bingen, Ibn Rushd, Moses Maimonides, and St. Thomas Aquinas. The following essay will examine each of the previously stated philosopher’s viewpoints on faith and reason, and will essentially try to determine whether or not faith and reason are ultimately one in the same.
His critique is Firth’s description of an Ideal Observer being such and such a being. He states that “unless there is a God, and He is an Ideal Observer in Professor Firth’s sense, it is quite certain that nothing answers to the description of an ideal observer which Professor Firth has given” (Harrison 256). Since an Ideal Observer does not need to exist this as a solution by Firth trying to make us understand it is nothing more but just a thought experiment makes his proposition questionable. The unnecessary need for an Ideal Observer to exist brings a problem of null classes which are universal propositions regarding non-existent classes. “If A is an ideal observer, he will approve of X,' which can only be known to be true if in fact all ideal observers do approve of X, just as we can know that if A did not have an operation, he would have died, only if we know that all people who have A's disease, and are not operated upon, die” (Harrison 256.) If an Ideal Observer does not need to exist then an Ideal Observer approving that “X is right” does not mean anything if it is a thought experiment as Firth implies since there are no Ideal
Upon reading Will to Believe, there is no doubt we will all begin to question how we’ve gotten to our beliefs and why we believe what we do. William James argues against forced beliefs and expresses the importance of choice. The idea of choice is one I strongly agree with. Although we are easily influenced by others, when it comes to beliefs free will must come into play. As far as the science method, which I have discussed, a belief is just as valid whether there is evidence or not because most scientific methods will never be one hundred percent proven and they will change over
Robinson, R. R. (1994). Some methodological approaches to the unexplained points. Philosophy 2B/3B (pp. 27-34). Melbourne: La Trobe University.
justified in his belief that p at t if the belief is produced by some faculty
Some of the objections, such as the ones made by Edmund Gettier, claim that three conditions are not nearly enough to justify a true belief, and that at the very least a fourth must be added. Gettier presents a very valid criticism of the JTB theory of knowledge, and his counter examples highlight flaws in the JTB theory that make it an inadequate theory of knowledge. Gettier claims takes an issue with the third part of the JTB theory, which states that proposition P must be true. Gettier makes the interesting observation that person S may very well be justified in believing in proposition P even if P is false