philosophy papers

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My prof's email is down so the following are the papers that I couldn't send him. This was the easiest way to get it to him.

In her book, Virtues of the Mind, Part III, Linda Zagzebski explains her belief that her virtue theory escapes Gettier problems. She claims that any view of knowledge that holds that knowledge is truth plus something that doesn't entail truth will be subject to Gettier examples (Zagzebski 283). She says that the knowledge theories that involve warranted or justified belief are such theories that cannot escape Gettier problems.

For justified true belief, she gives the classic Gettier example of the disjunction: "Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona." In this case, Ford gives someone by the name of Juniper evidence of his purchase of a Ford. Thus Juniper can conclude that the disjunction, "Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona," is true since they are justified in believing that Smith owns a Ford, when, in fact, Smith is lying, but the disjunction is still true because Brown is, in fact, in Barcelona. Therefore, Juniper is justified in believing the disjunction but for the wrong reasons (284).

Zagzebski doesn't believe that Plantinga's theory of warranted belief escapes Gettier problems either. This theory is that a person is warranted in believing something to be true if the belief is formed by a properly functioning process in an appropriate environment.

Zagzebski points out that if a woman, Mary, has fairly good vision and sees what looks like her husband in a room, when, in fact, the man is her husband's brother who looks very much like her husband, then Mary is warranted in her belief that her husband is in the room. It turns out the husband is in the room after all, hiding around the corner, thus making this a Gettier example (286-287).


Rohrs, p. 2

So how does Zagzebski get around Gettier problems in virtue epistemology? She makes a parallel to virtue ethics. She gives the scenario of an Italian judge who finds a Mafia hit man guilty when he is actually innocent of the crime for which he is accused (294). In this case, the judge is acting with virtues in place such as justice and scrutiny, but nevertheless, he is mistaken. This is not an act of virtue and we would not say that the judge acted virtuously because we withhold a certain moral praise when success is not achieved. He did nothing wrong and he was virtuous but in spite of that we would not call his action an act of virtue because an act of virtue requires success. But even if the hit man were switched with the real culprit before sentencing, making this an ethical Gettier case, we would still withhold labeling this an act of virtue, even though the end result is good, because an act of virtue must be the result of a virtuous action rather than the result of an accident.

Zagzebski applies this to her virtue epistemology. Knowledge here is the result of an act of intellectual virtue and since acts of intellectual virtue cannot fail to provide knowledge without ceasing to be acts of intellectual virtue, they cannot be the subjects of Gettier examples. Zagzebski points out that a Gettier case occurs only when two mistakes occur, the first thwarting justification and the second leading to the result justification sought, as opposed to justification leading to it. Since the first mistake negating knowledge cannot happen without the loss of the designation of "epistemically virtuous," no Gettier problem can begin to arise. Without at least the possibility of failure, no Gettier case can occur.
 
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In Richard Fumerton's essay, "The Internalism/Externalism
Controversy," he expresses a concern that philosophers lack understanding regarding the two views and that, in fact, the controversy has not been clearly defined. He attempts to clarify "technical definitions" between the two in several ways. As he said,

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>My primary concerns are to define the controversy in such a way that it a) involves a fundamentally important distinction, and b) articulates the
source of the underlying dissatisfaction that internalists feel toward paradigm externalist analyses of epistemic concepts (Fumerton 404).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fumerton admits his own interest in the following:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>"converting philosophers to my own brand of internalism and the extreme version of foundationalism that it involves . . . [so that] philosophers...will come home to a version of foundationalism that has been neglected too long (404).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Fumerton says internalism might suggest that "s's knowing that p or having a justified belief that p, consists in s being in some internal state." The externalist, he says, is "committed to the view that two individuals could be in 'internal' states of mind while one . . . has a justified belief, while the other does not" (404).

He says an internalist "identifies knowledge and justifed belief with internal states of mind, meaning non-relational properties of a mind" (404). The externalist believes, "two individuals could exemplify the same non-relational properties while one knows or has a justified belief and the other does not" (405).

The different variations of externalism, he says, depend on how "the relevant nomological relations are characterized." An internalist "identifies
Rohrs, p.2
knowledge and justified belief with internal states of mind" i.e. "non relational properties of a mind (405). The externalist, again, "maintains that ...two individuals could exemplify the same nonrelational properties which one knows or has a justified belief and the other does not" (405).

In Jack Crumley's Introduction to Epistemology, referring to traditionalists, he says that Richard Fumerton "claims that justification arises because of a complex of acts of acquaintance, where acquaintance is an unanalyzable relation (Crumley 214). According to Crumley, the traditionalist says agents have properties necessary for the understanding of epistemic properties which cannot be explained by appealing to natural properties. As Fumerton puts it, they are "sui generis." As near as I could tell, from the Latin dictionary on line which was incomplete, the phrase means "relative of a pig." Surely not.

So what does all this mean?
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Without a good definition of "relational properties" from either the essay or a text book or a proper definition of the Latin phrase above, I cannot draw any original observations or conclusions from the writings of Fumerton. He said he would define the distinctions in the controversy, but he did not do so in a way that clarifed the issues for this reader.
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lightuser

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I can't really agree or disagree on it right now. I haven't ever been asked that question either. I am just working on getting a third LS to not cook the nylon standoffs too much. I really want to run that high juice thru it so it'll kick the Mag AA out of the race-but I refuse to put that fan under it, period. Any thoughts?
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
 

lightlover

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cyclops942:
So, are you thinking of making your philosophy prof into a CPF member?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Kris, all we need is to wait for one of Walt Welch's impenetrable "explanations" to top those posts ......

lightlover
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