# Edmund Gettier American philosopher (1927-2021); author of the famous three-page paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" (*Analysis* 23:6, June 1963) that produced the **Gettier Problem** in epistemology. The paper precipitated 60+ years of analytic-epistemology engagement with what knowledge is. ## Biography - **1927**, Born in Baltimore, Maryland - **1957**, PhD from Cornell (with Max Black, Norman Malcolm) - **1957-1967**, Wayne State University - **1967-2001**, University of Massachusetts Amherst - **1963**, Published "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", three pages, two examples, vast influence - **2021**, Died at age 93 Gettier is famous for that one three-page paper. He published almost nothing else. He reportedly resisted retiring from teaching despite his short publication record because he simply enjoyed teaching philosophy. ## The 1963 paper ### The classical analysis (pre-Gettier) Plato's *Theaetetus*, knowledge as **justified true belief (JTB)**: - *S* knows *p* iff: 1. *p* is true 2. *S* believes *p* 3. *S* is justified in believing *p* This analysis dominated philosophy from Plato through the mid-20th century. See [Justified True Belief](/codex/justified-true-belief/) for full treatment. ### Gettier's counterexamples Gettier presented two short cases showing that JTB conditions can all be satisfied without genuine knowledge: **Case I, Smith and Jones / the job interview** Smith and Jones have applied for the same job. Smith has *strong evidence* for the conjunction: - *Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket* Smith's evidence: the company president told him Jones would get the job, and Smith counted Jones's coins. Smith therefore believes: - *The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket* But, unknown to Smith, *Smith himself* will get the job. And Smith *also* happens to have ten coins in his pocket. So: - *The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket*, TRUE - Smith BELIEVES it - Smith is JUSTIFIED in believing it (his evidence was reasonable) But Smith does *not* know it, his belief is true *by accident* relative to his justification. **Case II, Brown in Barcelona** A similar structure with disjunctive reasoning leading to true belief by accidental coincidence. ### The Gettier Problem The cases show JTB is **not sufficient** for knowledge. Some additional condition is needed to rule out *accidentally true* beliefs from counting as knowledge. ## The Gettier industry, 60 years of attempted solutions ### Major proposed solutions **1. No-false-grounds (Lehrer, Paxson 1969)** Knowledge requires JTB *plus* the absence of any false essential lemma in the justification chain. Gettier cases involve a false lemma (e.g., Smith's belief that Jones will get the job). **Problem:** subsequent counterexamples (Goldman 1976, the fake-barn case) showed Gettier-like problems can arise without false lemmas. **2. Defeasibility (Lehrer 1965; Klein)** Knowledge requires that no "defeater" exists, no true proposition such that, if added to the agent's evidence, would defeat the justification. **Problem:** specifying which defeaters count without circularity is hard. **3. Causal theory (Goldman 1967)** Knowledge requires that the truth of *p* be appropriately *caused* (or counterfactually-connected) to the agent's belief. **Problem:** abstract / mathematical knowledge has no clear causal connection. **4. Reliabilism (Goldman 1979 onwards)** Knowledge requires that the belief be produced by a *reliable* belief-forming process. **Problem:** the "new evil demon" thought experiment, agents in a Cartesian-demon world have unreliable processes but seem to have justification (if not knowledge). **5. Tracking accounts (Nozick 1981, *Philosophical Explanations*)** Knowledge requires that: - If *p* were false, *S* would not believe *p* (sensitivity) - If *p* were true (in nearby possible worlds), *S* would believe *p* (adherence) **Problem:** sensitivity has counterintuitive consequences in some cases. **6. Safety theory (Sosa 1999, 2007, *Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge*)** Knowledge requires that *S*'s belief is *safe*, could not easily have been wrong. **7. Plantinga's proper function (1993)** Knowledge requires that the belief be produced by *cognitive faculties* functioning *properly*, *aimed at truth*, in a *congenial environment*. See [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/) and [Argument from the Reliability of Reason](/codex/argument-from-the-reliability-of-reason/). **8. Virtue epistemology (Sosa, Greco, Zagzebski)** Knowledge as a cognitive *achievement*, true belief that succeeds *because of* the agent's intellectual virtues, not by accident. **9. Knowledge-first epistemology (Williamson 2000, *Knowledge and Its Limits*)** Reverses the analytic order: knowledge is taken as primitive; belief / justification analyzed in terms of knowledge. Treats Gettier cases as showing that JTB analysis was misguided from the start. ### Modern consensus (rough) There is no decisive resolution. The dominant moves: - Most epistemologists agree JTB is necessary but not sufficient - Some additional condition is needed to rule out accidental truth - Various candidates have problems - Many epistemologists work within one of the above frameworks pragmatically without claiming a final solution ## Why this matters apologetically The Gettier problem has theological-apologetic relevance: 1. **Limits of pure rationalism**, even with apparently good justification, knowledge can fail. This humbles purely-evidentialist approaches to faith. 2. **Defense of Reformed [Epistemology](/codex/epistemology/)**, Plantinga's *proper-function* / *warrant* alternative emerged partly in response to the Gettier impasse. Properly-basic Christian belief, on Plantinga's view, doesn't require JTB-style justification because it is produced by the *sensus divinitatis* + Holy Spirit's witness, properly functioning cognitive faculties. 3. **Apologetic for the testimony tradition**, Christian belief ordinarily comes through testimony (apostolic / scriptural / personal) rather than independent inference. Gettier-style problems with inference-based knowledge make testimony-based knowledge more pragmatically defensible. 4. **Anti-evidentialism**, the demand that all rational belief must be justified by independent evidence (Clifford's evidentialism; modern atheist apologetics) is itself epistemologically vulnerable. Gettier shows that *justification + truth + belief* still doesn't deliver knowledge, making the evidentialist standard suspicious. ## Gettier in this corpus - [Justified True Belief](/codex/justified-true-belief/), primary engagement - [Argument from the Reliability of Reason](/codex/argument-from-the-reliability-of-reason/), Plantinga's response to JTB inadequacy - [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/), Reformed [Epistemology](/codex/epistemology/) as Gettier-response ## Major secondary literature - Robert Shope, *The Analysis of Knowing* (1983) - John Greco & John Turri (eds.), *Virtue [Epistemology](/codex/epistemology/)* (2012) - Linda Zagzebski, *Virtues of the Mind* (1996) - Stephen Hetherington (ed.), *[Epistemology](/codex/epistemology/) Futures* (2006) - Hilary Kornblith, *Knowledge and Its Place in Nature* (2002) - Michael Williams, *Problems of Knowledge* (2001) ## See also - [Justified True Belief](/codex/justified-true-belief/), primary concept hub - [Plato](/codex/plato/), *Theaetetus* origin of JTB - [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/), proper-function alternative - [Argument from the Reliability of Reason](/codex/argument-from-the-reliability-of-reason/) - Hubs Roadmap