In 1963, the philosopher Edmund Gettier published an article in the Journal Analysis called "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" The article, although quite short, had a profound effect on epistemology by challenging the long-held traditional definition of knowledge as proposed by Plato almost two and a half thousand years before.

Gettier's objections go something like this. Imagine a situation where all the traditional conditions for knowledge were fulfilled - and yet you could not say that it constituted knowledge. For instance, take the following situation:

1. Fred believes that Sam is in his room;
2. Fred sees Sam in his room;
3. Fred is justified in believing Sam is in his room.

This fulfils the traditional conditions of knowledge. Sam is in his room, Fred believes that he is and is justified in doing so. However, unknown to Fred, what he sees in Sam's room is not Sam at all, but his twin brother Tim. Also, Sam is hiding under the bed.

From this point of view, it would appear that Fred is right, but only by coincidence. Sam is in the room (albeit under the bed), Fred is justified in believing he is, except that it cannot be said to be a genuine case for knowledge because Fred is only correct through coincidence. Does this mean that the tripartite definition of knowledge is incorrect?

Exercise

Can you think of any other situations in ordinary life where it might be said that the tripartite conditions of knowledge were met, and yet you would not say that someone actually had knowledge? Try to list 3 examples.