Being right is not enough
The challenge of epistemology “It’s Difficult to Make Predictions, Especially About the Future” — Yogi Berra A thief goes through the window in the middle of the night to make a grand jewelry heist. While tiptoeing inside the apartment, he sees the longcase clock with the time 1.05. He knows that the owners will be back at 1.15 AM. He decides that the safest thing for him is to exit and escape without getting the precious necklace. He can try again later. Unbeknownst to him, the clock had stopped working 12 hours ago, but at that moment, it just happened to be 1.05 AM. After the American philosopher Edmund Gettier, our thief experienced what has been dubbed a Gettier problem. These problems’ archetypes challenge the classical criteria for knowledge: justification, truth, and belief. In our example, the thief is justified in believing it’s 1.05 AM, and it is 1.05 AM, and he believes it. Yet he doesn’t have knowledge because the instrument he relies on is faulty. I recently ha...