In his 1981 essay “Knowledge” published in “Philosophical Explanations” Robert Nozick deals with two major problems of epistemology: firstly what is knowledge or what does it mean to say that someone knows a proposition p? Secondly, what can we say to the skeptic who holds the view that we cannot know anything?
It was widely agreed among philosophers that knowledge is justified true belief. This standard analysis was defeated in 1963 by the brief but powerful essay “Is justified true belief knowledge?” by Edmund Gettier. Using thought experiments Gettier developed counterexamples to the standard analysis of knowledge by describing situations in which we would not say that someone knows "that p" although he has a well justified and true belief about p. In the following years philosophers tried to substitute or add to conditions of the standard analysis in order to find a theory which is strong enough to rule out Gettier counterexamples. This is what Nozick tries. After explicating his account of knowledge he shows how it can handle the skeptic’s objections.
In this essay I will first give a description of Nozick’s truth-tracking-theory of knowledge and what this means with regard to philosophical skepticism. After this I evaluate Nozick’s account and show that his theory is not as strong as it looks. My thesis is that Nozick overlooks that knowledge is more than true belief which varies with the truth value of p. Nevertheless, Nozick draws attention to an important connection which is in itself not sufficient for knowledge but which should be attended to by developing a theory of knowledge.
Inhaltsverzeichnis (Table of Contents)
- Introduction
- Robert Nozick's Theory of Knowledge
- The Conditions of Knowledge
- The "possible world" Account
- Skepticism and Nonclosure
- The Skeptic's Contradiction
- Critical Assessment of Nozick's Theory of Knowledge
- The Cost of Giving Up the Closure Principle
- The Circularity of the "possible world" Approach
- Truth-tracking is not enough: The Missing Link between Belief and Facts
- Conclusion.
Zielsetzung und Themenschwerpunkte (Objectives and Key Themes)
This essay aims to analyze Robert Nozick's theory of knowledge, focusing on the conditions necessary for someone to be considered to know a proposition. It further aims to examine the theory's efficacy in addressing skeptical arguments.
- Conditions for Knowledge
- The "possible world" Account
- Skepticism and Nonclosure
- The Skeptic's Contradiction
- Critical Assessment of Nozick's Theory
Zusammenfassung der Kapitel (Chapter Summaries)
- Introduction: Introduces the subject of knowledge, the standard analysis of knowledge as justified true belief, and the Gettier problem that undermines this standard analysis. The essay sets out to explore Robert Nozick's truth-tracking theory of knowledge and evaluate its effectiveness.
- Robert Nozick's Theory of Knowledge: This chapter introduces Nozick's truth-tracking theory, which proposes that knowledge is not simply justified true belief, but requires that a belief "tracks the truth." It outlines the four conditions for knowledge and uses examples to illustrate the concept of truth-tracking.
- The Conditions of Knowledge: This section explains the four conditions for knowledge proposed by Nozick: (1) Belief in the proposition, (2) Truth of the proposition, (3) The belief would not be held if the proposition were false, and (4) The belief would be held if the proposition were true. It uses a Gettier example to demonstrate the need for condition (3).
- The "possible world" Account: This section elaborates on the concept of truth-tracking by using the "possible worlds" model. It explains how the truth value of subjunctive conditionals (those that refer to hypothetical scenarios) is determined by examining close possible worlds where the proposition in question is false.
Schlüsselwörter (Keywords)
This essay focuses on epistemology, knowledge, truth-tracking, skepticism, and Robert Nozick's theory of knowledge. It examines the conditions for knowledge, the "possible world" account, and the limitations of Nozick's theory. The discussion includes concepts like justified true belief, Gettier problems, and the importance of belief sensitivity to truth.
- Quote paper
- Anonym (Author), 2012, Does Knowledge mean to Track-the-Truth?, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/907040
