The Gettier Problem and the Problem of Justification

Abstract

The Gettier problem concerns the definition of knowledge as justified true belief. In the paper I argue that Gettier's cases are not cases of justified true belief because Gettier's examples rely on some problematic assumptions. The first is rather elementary definition of justification and the other is that justification is preserved by entailment, that is, (A) for all agents X, if X is justified in believing that p, and X realizes that the truth of p entails the truth of q, then X would also be justified in believing that q. For the simplistic conception of justification has some alarming consequences we pursue more adequate definition of justification which would satisfy the idea that a necessary condition of justification is to entail or to be entailed by a true proposition. We also show that the (A) is not necessary to provide an elegant counter-example to the definition of knowledge if the elementary definition of justification is adopted.