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All the ideas for 'Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?st1=Edmund L. Gettier', 'Calculus Ratiocinator' and 'Opus Maius (major works)'

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3 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism

12742	A whole is just its parts, but there are no smallest parts, so only minds and perceptions exist [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The whole, if it is assumed to be body or matter, is nothing other than all of its parts; but this is absurd, since there aren't any smallest parts. Therefore there really exist only minds and their perceptions.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Calculus Ratiocinator [1679], A6.4.279), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
	A reaction: Leibniz is sometimes labelled as an 'idealist', but this text is unusual in being so explicit, and he was mainly concerned to explain the reality of individual bodies. Monads were his final attempt to do this, not an attempt to escape into pure minds.

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / b. Gettier problem

8886	Being a true justified belief is not a sufficient condition for knowledge [Gettier]
	Full Idea: The claim that someone knows a proposition if it is true, it is believed, and the person is justified in their belief is false, in that the conditions do not state a sufficient condition for the claim.
	From: Edmund L. Gettier (Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? [1963], p.145)
	A reaction: This is the beginning of the famous Gettier Problem, which has motivated most epistemology for the last forty years. Gettier implies that justification is necessary, even if it is not sufficient. He gives two counterexamples.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / d. Knowing essences

16745	No one even knows the nature and properties of a fly - why it has that colour, or so many feet [Bacon,R]
	Full Idea: No one is so wise regarding the natural world as to know with certainty all the truths that concern the nature and properties of a single fly, or to know the proper causes of its color and why it has so many feet, neither more nor less.
	From: Roger Bacon (Opus Maius (major works) [1254], I.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
	A reaction: Pasnau quotes this in the context of 'occult' qualities. It is scientific essentialism, because Bacon clearly takes it that the explanation of these things would be found within the essence of the fly, if we could only get at it.