Open inquiry11 min4 historical perspectives

What can we claim to know?

Examine the differences among true belief, certainty, experience, and luck through three cases and four historical moments, then revisit the grounds for your first judgment.

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Enter the historical conversation.

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1Probably around 369 BCEPlato — A dialogue that leaves the definition open
Plato · Theaetetus
If knowledge is perception, true judgment, or true judgment with an account, why does the dialogue stop without settling on one?
The Theaetetus successively tests candidates that identify knowledge with perception, true judgment, and true judgment with an account.
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Theaetetus
Plato · Perseus Digital Library text with Stephanus pagination
Locator: Stephanus 151d–187a, 187b–201c, 201d–210a
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Plato on Knowledge in the Theaetetus
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Sections 6–8
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The dialogue ends in aporia without endorsing any of the three candidates as its final definition of knowledge.
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Theaetetus
Plato · Perseus Digital Library text with Stephanus pagination
Locator: Stephanus 210a–b
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Plato on Knowledge in the Theaetetus
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Introduction and section 9
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The dialogue is commonly dated to around 369 BCE; no exact place of composition is asserted.
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Plato on Knowledge in the Theaetetus
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Introduction, date and dramatic frame
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1. The Theaetetus is commonly dated to around 369 BCE.
  c. 369 BCE
21641Descartes — Using doubt as a method
René Descartes · Meditations on First Philosophy
Should every belief be withheld whenever error is possible, or is doubt a test used for a particular purpose?
The First Meditation uses a method of withholding assent from prior opinions whenever there is any reason for doubt.
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Meditationes de prima philosophia
René Descartes · 1641 · Adam–Tannery VII, Corpus Descartes digital edition with page markers and original-edition images
Locator: Meditation I, AT VII 17–18
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Descartes' Epistemology
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Section 2.2
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The Second Meditation argues that existence cannot be denied while the very act of being deceived or doubting is occurring.
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Meditationes de prima philosophia
René Descartes · 1641 · Adam–Tannery VII, Corpus Descartes digital edition with page markers and original-edition images
Locator: Meditation II, AT VII 25
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Descartes' Epistemology
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Section 4.1
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Immediately afterward, the meditator limits the result by saying that what this existing self is has not yet been adequately understood.
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Meditationes de prima philosophia
René Descartes · 1641 · Adam–Tannery VII, Corpus Descartes digital edition with page markers and original-edition images
Locator: Meditation II, AT VII 25–27
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Descartes' Epistemology
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Section 4.1
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The first Latin edition was published by Michael Soly in Paris in 1641.
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Meditationes de prima philosophia
René Descartes · 1641 · Paris: Michael Soly, first Latin edition
Locator: Title page and imprint
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1. The first Latin edition is published in Paris.
  1641 · Paris · 출판
31748Hume — Can experience carry us into the future?
David Hume · An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
Can we speak of knowledge in ordinary life when our grounds fall short of complete proof?
Hume divides the objects of human reason into relations of ideas and matters of fact.
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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering
Locator: E 4.1–4.2
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He argues that judgments about cause and effect are learned from experience rather than obtained by a priori reasoning alone.
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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering
Locator: E 4.4–4.6
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Hume argues that using experience to prove that past experience will continue into the future makes the reasoning circular.
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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering
Locator: E 4.18–4.21
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Hume explains the principle that leads us to expect the future after repeated experience as custom or habit.
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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering
Locator: E 5.5–5.8
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The final section presents mitigated scepticism as joining doubt, caution, and modesty to judgment while fitting inquiry to human capacities.
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An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding
David Hume · 1748 · Hume Texts Online critical text with E/SBN paragraph numbering
Locator: E 12.24–12.26
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The first edition was published by A. Millar in London in 1748 under the title Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding.
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Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding — first-edition catalog record
Folger Shakespeare Library · 1748 · London: A. Millar, 1748; ESTC T4022
Locator: London: A. Millar, 1748; ESTC T4022
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Jean-Bernard Mérian's French translation, Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain, was published by J. H. Schneider in Amsterdam in 1758.
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Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain
David Hume; translated by Jean-Bernard Mérian · 1758 · Amsterdam: J. H. Schneider, 1758
Locator: Title page and volume metadata
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Essais philosophiques sur l'entendement humain — catalog record cb33991959k
Bibliothèque nationale de France · 1758 · Amsterdam: J. H. Schneider, 1758; Jean-Bernard Mérian translator attribution
Locator: Translator attribution and Amsterdam: J. H. Schneider, 1758 record
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1. The first edition is published in London.
  1748 · London · 출판
2. Jean-Bernard Mérian's French translation is published in Amsterdam.
  1758 · Amsterdam · 번역
41963Gettier — When truth and justification meet by luck
Edmund Gettier · Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
If truth, belief, and reasonable justification are all present but their connection is accidental, is it knowledge?
Gettier's paper appeared in June 1963 in Analysis, volume 23, issue 6, pages 121–123.
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Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
Edmund L. Gettier · 1963 · Analysis 23(6), 121–123
Locator: Article metadata, Analysis 23(6), 121–123
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The paper argues that a case may satisfy truth, belief, and justification while still not intuitively amounting to knowledge.
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Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
Edmund L. Gettier · 1963 · Analysis 23(6), 121–123
Locator: Pages 121–123
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The Analysis of Knowledge
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Section 3
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In Case I, Smith's evidence points to Jones, but the hiring and the coins that make the proposition true happen by chance to concern Smith.
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Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?
Edmund L. Gettier · 1963 · Analysis 23(6), 121–123
Locator: Case I, page 122
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The short paper was followed by extensive debate in contemporary epistemology over supplementing justified true belief or finding a different analysis.
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The Analysis of Knowledge
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Locator: Sections 3–8
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1. Gettier's short paper appears in Analysis.
  June 1963