In his short essay, "Into the Lair of the Relativist", Stephen Law (2004) presents a concise account of the relativists account of knowledge, in particular, he gives the sort of answer that Plato attributes to Protagoras in answer to Socrates' question at the beginning of the Theaetetus: "What is knowledge?" In discussing Protagoras's answer, Plato also has to discuss the same topics that appear in Law's essay: truth, belief (or opinion) and justification (or how we come to know and support our beliefs).
As Law himself explicitly tells us, his opposing arguments to some of the relativists also come directly from Plato. In his discussion, Plato eventually has Socrates and Theaetetus reach a definition of knowledge as "justified true belief" towards the end of the dialogue. This understanding of what knowledge is was largely accepted by Western philosophy until 1963, when a very short paper, less than three pages, by Edmund Gettier upset things a lot. In his paper, Gettier did exactly what Roong did in her discussion with Liu when they were arguing about how best to define murder: he presented two counter examples that appear to show that the traditional definition of knowledge, in whatever form, was not good enough.
We don't need to worry about what came next. But the ideas of truth, belief and justification continue to be important in all academic work, and they are worth some reflection. That was one reason I set Law's short essay as our first class reading. For the exam this morning, I wrote the question to focus our attention on the meaning of those central ideas of truth, belief and justification; although it doesn't ask you about it, this inevitably also has implications for our understanding of knowledge: what it is, how it's acquired, when it is and is not possible, and so on. Again, no matter what academic area you study, these questions are central.
I also wrote the question because I was pretty sure the only way to write a good answer was to have read and understood Law's essay. The alternative is to have read Plato's Theaetetus, which is a bit longer and more challenging.
As Law himself explicitly tells us, his opposing arguments to some of the relativists also come directly from Plato. In his discussion, Plato eventually has Socrates and Theaetetus reach a definition of knowledge as "justified true belief" towards the end of the dialogue. This understanding of what knowledge is was largely accepted by Western philosophy until 1963, when a very short paper, less than three pages, by Edmund Gettier upset things a lot. In his paper, Gettier did exactly what Roong did in her discussion with Liu when they were arguing about how best to define murder: he presented two counter examples that appear to show that the traditional definition of knowledge, in whatever form, was not good enough.
We don't need to worry about what came next. But the ideas of truth, belief and justification continue to be important in all academic work, and they are worth some reflection. That was one reason I set Law's short essay as our first class reading. For the exam this morning, I wrote the question to focus our attention on the meaning of those central ideas of truth, belief and justification; although it doesn't ask you about it, this inevitably also has implications for our understanding of knowledge: what it is, how it's acquired, when it is and is not possible, and so on. Again, no matter what academic area you study, these questions are central.
I also wrote the question because I was pretty sure the only way to write a good answer was to have read and understood Law's essay. The alternative is to have read Plato's Theaetetus, which is a bit longer and more challenging.
__________
References
Law, S. (2004). The Philosophy Gym. London: Headline Books Publishing.
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