What counts as ‘knowledge’?
What are the requirements of knowledge? What makes ‘knowing’ different from merely ‘getting it right’?
Introduction
We think we know a lot of things. The different stages of the star cycle. The capital of India. The value of the gravitational constant. The process of making a good cup of coffee. And so on.
What makes all of these ‘knowledge’?
In philosophy, knowledge has commonly been defined as a ‘justified true belief’. The branch of philosophy that is concerned with knowledge and belief is called epistemology. It discusses questions concerning the nature and acquisition of knowledge, what makes a belief justified, and what the limits of knowledge are. In short — it deals with the analysis of sources, methods and criteria for knowledge, through various concepts and theories.
I will be using Duncan Pritchard’s excellently written book — What is This Thing Called Knowledge? as a reference for this blog.
Different Types of Knowledge
Duncan Pritchard defines the two types of knowledge as:
- Knowledge-That (Propositional Knowledge): It involves knowing whether a particular statement/proposition is true. For example — knowing the freezing temperature of water.
- Knowledge-How (Ability Knowledge): It involves the knowledge of a certain skill or performing a certain action. For example — knowing how to bake a cinnamon roll.
The Two Basic Requirements for Knowledge
Truth
Truth corresponds to the way things actually are in the world. If the belief in question does not accurately reflect reality, then it cannot be counted as knowledge.
For example — for my belief that the sun is currently in the main sequence star stage of a star’s life to count as knowledge, it needs to be true.
We cannot know a false proposition. If a belief that we had turns out to be false, it means that we did not know it in the first place. To say that a person has knowledge about something is to credit that person with having gotten things right, and to know truth apart from falsity (in that particular case). This excludes the cases in which a person’s belief merely happens to be true by luck (in a quiz, for example).
It is important to note that while truth is a necessary condition for knowledge, it is not a sufficient condition.
Belief
Belief refers to the mental state of being convinced of the truth of something. For an individual to have knowledge about something, it is important that they believe in it.
For example — I cannot know that black coffee has health benefits if I do not believe that it does.
Thus, acceptance/conviction of the truth of a proposition is a necessary condition for knowledge.
Pritchard adds here that often believing something and knowing something are held in contrast. They needn’t be, because when one claims to have knowledge of something, what they mean is that they not only believe that it is true, but that they also know that that is the case.
Difference between ‘knowing’ something and merely ‘getting it right’
Why is it that we do not describe ‘knowledge’ as simply a true belief? If what I believe is true — then there is a match between what we think is true and what is actually true. But this mere true belief cannot be called knowledge because (amongst other reasons) it does not take into consideration factors like luck and accident.
To elucidate this, Pritchard gives two examples:
- The Lucky Lass Example: Harry believes that the horse Lucky Lass will win in the next horse race. His basis for forming this belief is his liking for the name ‘Lucky Lass’ — which is clearly not a good enough reason to form a belief. Suppose Lucky Lass does end up winning the race. Will we credit Harry with having a prior knowledge of this victory? The answer ‘no’ is intuitive. A horse’s name has no correlation with its performance. Harry’s belief being true is merely a matter of luck — and such matters of luck do not merit crediting the believer as being the knower. On the other hand, if Mr. Big, who has drugged all the horses other than his own — Lucky Lass, holds the belief that his horse will win (and it so happens), then he can be credited with knowing it.
- The Archery Example: A skilled archer would, in normal conditions, hit the bull’s eye when they shoot. An amateur might also hit the bull’s eye on occasion. While the former’s success is a result of skill, the latter's is based on luck.
Pritchard remarks — “To have knowledge, one’s success must genuinely be the result of one’s efforts, rather than merely being by chance. Only then is that success creditable to one.”
The key distinction, it seems, between knowing and ‘getting it right’ with respect to the above distinction, is the presence or absence of justification. Knowing implies that the belief held by someone is not only true but is also supported by adequate evidence/reason. Even with this realization, the quest for defining what knowledge is continues.
Knowledge and Justification
For any belief that we hold to count as knowledge, we must also consider this belief to be rightly held — or justified. But what counts as justification for a belief — what is the criteria that a belief must fulfil in order to be justified? The answer — for there to be sufficient evidence, is not satisfactory enough, as it raises a few problems of its own.
This is explored in detail in the blog — Agrippa’s Trilemma and the Positions of Infinitism, Coherentism and Foundationalism
Additionally, Gettier cases show us that even adding justification to ‘true belief’ does not constitute as a perfect and complete definition of knowledge.
You can read more about Gettier cases in this blog.
The Justification Mystery
Pritchard compares a belief to a house. A house would fall down without a solid foundation. So would a belief. If a good foundation is eliminated as a requirement, then there would be no distinction between the beliefs held by rational and irrational agents. But the problem as what supports this foundation arises. A house cannot have an infinite foundation. Nor can it have a circular one. Each supporting belief would require another supporting belief to support itself, and so on. This could go on till infinity, or be a circular chain of justifications, or have a base belief that would not require justification at all. The first two seem intuitively wrong, and if one were to believe the last one, it would be a slippery slope — as that could just easily mean that the condition of justification could be removed not just from the base belief, but from every belief in a pursuit for knowledge. And that, again, is epistemically disastrous.
Conclusion and Takeaway
Truth, belief and justification — all three are necessary conditions for knowledge. But even combined, they do not make for a sufficient criteria for knowledge. The epistemological quest for defining knowledge continues.
