Diotima: The Marist Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
In Nagel’s detective thought experiment, the false belief was easily identifiable and eliminable from her justification for knowledge. In other occurrences, discerning which beliefs are operative to the agent's justification is far more nuanced, requiring us to delve deeper into the justification’s underlying epistemic structure. The following objection exemplifies this concern, superficially presenting an agent that appears to depend on a necessary false belief but still secures knowledge. Upon closer analysis, this objection ultimately unravels into another case comparable to Nagel and the detective, in which the false belief is merely eliminable. The false belief that I rely on in this scenario is that there are 53 kids, when in reality, there are only 52. To establish this as eliminable, we employ the necessary test. Is my miscount of 53 children, instead of 52, necessary for me to conclude that I have enough party hats for everyone? The answer is no, as without my error in calculation, I can still reasonably infer that I have enough party hats for the event. The necessary evidence that leads me to my conclusion is that I have 100 party hats, with far fewer children currently in my home, which is true. Whether I count 53, 54, 55, or 51, it’s an eliminable mistake, with my underlying necessary belief confirming that I will have enough hats, nonetheless. The miscount is in no way necessary to my conclusion. Therefore, because the false belief is eliminable, I am still empowered to achieve knowledge, thereby aligning with intuition and overcoming the objection. VI. Conclusion In this paper, I argued that Gettier successfully exposes the joint insufficiency of justified true belief for knowledge. However, upon the addition of a final component to knowledge, precluding the agent’s reliance on a necessary false belief, we revive the
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