“What does it take to know something?” Well, I guess it would depend on what it is we are trying to know. I know that I ordered brunch about 30 minutes ago from the local diner and I am now “enjoying” a mediocre meal that appears to have been put together at some military mess hall by a disgruntled soldier on KP duty or at a prison facility by a jolly inmate, as I write this paper. I now know, and have in the past as well, that it is true that if I submit a request through the electronic application (small computer program) on my smartphone that, eventually, my food will arrive at my door. I did not know at what time of day my food would arrive nor that my order would consist completely and accurately of the items I had requested. I did, however, believe, based on previous experiences and the variables involved, that my order would be fine and would arrive within the time-range proposed by the application, which was stated to be within 30 to 40 minutes. There have been a handful of times when my order did not arrive within the time proposed by the application and by the restaurant and there have also been a couple of times when my order was incorrect; items missing etc.
So, what have I learned? What do I know? I know with certainty that I cannot know with certainty what time my food will arrive nor that my food will always be correct. But the instances in which my order was late and/or wrong, compared to the amount of times when my order was on time and correct, served as justification for my belief that the likelihood of my order being fine was greater than the alternative. So, although my expectations are limited to beliefs with regards to the timeliness and accuracy of possible future orders, based on past orders, I have gained, through knowledge (compiled by previous data), access to a certain truth: food orders will not always arrive on-time nor always be correct; there is just no guarantee for that to happen. The actual food provider knows this to be true as well, “Your order will arrive in approximately 30-40 minutes. Thank you!”—further evidence to that fact.
Let’s have some more fun with this, shall we? Riding on a pretty good and satisfactory experience with my food provider, I propose, nonetheless, the following (as already stated above): p food orders will not always arrive on-time nor will always be correct. j I’ve been ordering the same items from the same provider at an average frequency of four times a month, totaling perhaps thirty-six times a year for the last four years with a success rate of roughly 90%. That is, out of one hundred times (orders and respective deliveries) there have been maybe ten times altogether when my order was either late or incorrect or both (though both has never actually happened simultaneously, the more I think about it). No restaurant has ever professed an exact time of arrival for the food because that would be foolish given the nature of all the variables involved: weather and traffic conditions, quality and skill level of the driver, heavy order activity at the restaurant, etc. So then, I or S, am/is therefore justified in knowing p.
“Do the three traditional components of knowledge proposed by philosophers — justified true belief — offer a compelling response, from your point of view?” Although I offered the above quite on-the-fly, and rather playfully at that, I do believe JTB does work and is an excellent tool and does offer a compelling response especially today in the face of a heavily non-thinking populace. In the reading material, “Even a necessary biconditional linking knowledge to some state j would probably not be sufficient for an analysis of knowledge, although just what more is required is a matter of some controversy.” (SEP) Why? If j is not enough and does not contain the list of conditions for S to know p then j is NOT j. Or am I misunderstanding this? Justification only has one function—to justify S knows that p. If what is contained in j is not enough or insufficient then valid data must be found for j to be j; otherwise what is the point? If a celebrity hires a bodyguard for protection and gets knocked out unconscious in his first encounter, guess what? He just lost his job because he failed to protect his boss; he failed his purpose. I may well be over simplifying this, but smoke doesn’t always indicate fire. Get an oscillating fan to clear said smoke and check your premises because one of them is surely wrong. I know that there exists in this world many things that we have a great deal of difficulty understanding but there is also a great deal that we do understand and can know. I defend that which we know, and I endeavor continuously in that regard by growing and loading my intellectual toolbox with more and more wonderful tools of understanding. I feel that, not only at my job, but in our country, we are on the precipice of great change. Never before has this country, since the American Civil War, been so divided. There is a great pushback or resistance to knowledge that has spread like a California wildfire which has subsequently created this rift in society between those that adhere to emotions and those that rely on true knowledge. I realize I have gone off topic here but, ironically, reading further into “The Analysis of Knowledge” I am somehow reminded of my own skepticism or pessimism as of late; that is, this heavy sense of fear and my perceived futility of these great works. I can’t help but feel that all this wonderful work is going to waste on the ignorant. And, so with that I have said my peace.