Comments on: Real-World Deviant Gettier Case

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:08:14 +0000

The difference is just this: in the normal version of the story, the character doesn’t know that the clock is displaying the correct time. He’s basing his belief on the false assumption that the clock is correct. Tom did know that the clock was displaying the correct time; he based his belief on the truth that I had accurately set the clock.

By: danielwaweru

danielwaweru — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 01:57:51 +0000

Jonathan,

Maybe I’m just not paying attention closely enough, but it seems to me that if your deviant Gettier case isn’t a Gettier case after all, then neither is the original Gettier case.

Suppose the difference is that in the deviant case the method of belief-formation – believe whatever time the clock says immediately after Jonathan sets it to his phone – is both safe and reliable. But in the non-deviant Gettier case, the victim always looks at the clock at 3.05, so that the method can be specified as believe whatever time the clock says immediately after looking at it at 3.05. Isn’t that both reliable and safe, too?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:38:36 +0000

That’s fair, Priyedarshi. This sort of case does seem different from Gettier’s own in that respect. I think there’s a wider sense of “Gettier case” in which this is an example, although I do recognize some historical pressure towards reserving the name for the more limited class.

By: Priyedarshi Jetli

Priyedarshi Jetli — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:14:07 +0000

Jonathan,

This is the way you define ‘deviant Gettier cases’: “A deviant Gettier case (what Ben Jarvis and I have also called a ‘bad Gettier case’) is a situation in which the literal text used to describe a Gettier situation is satisfied, but in such a way so as to fail to provide a counterexample to JTB=K.” I essentially agree with this, but I would perhaps argue that a Gettier situation is not actually satisfied that is why the deviant Gettier case is not a Gettier case but a ‘Gettier like’ case. The reason why it is not satisfied is that in the two Gettier counterexamples and also in the ones to follow by Lehrer and others, there is a condition that a proposition p entails another proposition q and my justification for p is transferred by the principle of closure to my justification for q. In your clock case as in Russell’s clock case this requirement is not satisfied unless you can demonstrate how it is satisfied. What is the belief p here and what is the q that is entailed by p. It seems that p is ‘the time is 3:05′, which is a true proposition unlike the false propositions in both Gettier counterexamples. Some have argued in the post Gettier scenario that Gettier-type counterexamples can be generated even when p is true; but this is in the post-Gettier scenario, your example like that of Russell or Meinong and the harpist and others are in the pre-Gettier scenario, hence I do not thing that they can carry the label of even ‘deviant Gettier case’.

By: Daniel J. Singer

Daniel J. Singer — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:59:41 +0000

Well, even if reliablism were right (which I doubt), whether Tom was using a reliable method is dependent on how we answer the generality problem. One could equally well say that the method was believe whatever the broken clock says (regardless of whether Jonathan just set it). But, that’s not that point! I’ll grant that he’s justified. My claim above was merely that I don’t have the intuition that Tom knows in this case (but I’m willing to admit that my views may be influenced by the closeness of this case to the Russell case).