Talk:Epistemology

"The justified true belief definition is very common, but there are flaws. The most common objection is the 'Gettier problem' or 'Barn problem': Suppose a man looks at a large field, and he sees a cardboard cutout of a barn in that field. His eyesight being poor due to drinking bathtub moonshine, he believes the cardboard cutout to be an actual barn. Suppose further that there is a barn in the field, but so far away he couldn't possibly see it, or maybe behind a hill or something. Then the man will believe that there is a barn in the field, and his belief will be both true and justified (since he has reason to believe that there is a barn, and there is a barn). But is this really different from the man who believes there is a fine cheese in orbit around Jupiter and happens to be right? And we did not call that knowledge."

This argument appears incorrect to me. Suppose there are two barns in a field, barns RB and CB. RB is the real barn, while CB is a cardboard cutout. If the man makes a general statement, "there is a barn in the field," then he would be correct, but only incidentally. If he were to point to barn CB and say "that is a barn" then he would be incorrect. Furthermore, if RB were to be struck by lightning and razed, then the statement "there is a barn in the field" would no longer be true. I believe that this example fails the second test of knowledge - what he believes to observe is untrue.

Padillac (talk) 07:51, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Cheese round Jupiter
I think Io proves that point? Scherben (talk) 23:17, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Nice picture! Though, the fact that moons generally are made of cheese was proven as early as 1989, in the following documentary;


 * Further reading . Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:57, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * My favourite Nick Park doc. Though some claim that he left clues in his later work hinting that it was all hoaxed... Scherben (talk) 00:46, 22 September 2016 (UTC)