display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
| 5430 | A true belief is not knowledge if it is reached by bad reasoning [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A true belief cannot be called knowledge when it is deduced by a fallacious process of reasoning. If I know all Greeks are men, and Socrates was a man, I cannot know that Socrates was a Greek, even if I falsely infer it. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Another very nice 'Gettier' example, fifty years before Gettier. There is a danger of circularity here, between knowledge, fallacy and truth. Giving them three independent definitions does not look promising. |
| 5429 | True belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from false belief [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief (as when deducing that the late Prime Minister's name began with B, believing it was Balfour, when actually it was Bannerman). | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this the 'Gettier Problem'? It raises the central question of modern epistemology, which is what will be counted as adequate justification to make a true belief qualify as knowledge. How high do we set the bar? |
| 6444 | True belief about the time is not knowledge if I luckily observe a stopped clock at the right moment [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Not all true beliefs are knowledge; the stock example to the contrary is that of a clock which has stopped by which I believe to be going and which I happen to look at when, by chance, it shows the right time. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.15) | |
| A reaction: [in his 1948:112] Russell had spotted Gettier-type problems long before Gettier. The problem of lucky true beliefs dates back to Plato (Idea 2140). This example is also a problem for reliabilism, if the clock is usually working fine. |