Knowledge, Justification, and Reason-Based Belief

Is knowledge definable as justified true belief ("JTB")? We argue that one can legitimately answer positively or negatively, depending on how the notion of justification is understood. To facilitate our argument, we introduce a simple propositional logic of reason-based belief. We show that this logic is sufficiently flexible to accommodate various useful features, including quantification over reasons. We use our framework to contrast two notions of JTB: one internalist, the other externalist. We argue that Gettier cases essentially challenge the internalist notion but not the externalist one. In particular, we may equate knowledge and JTB if the latter is grounded in what we call "adequate" reasons.Comment: v3 edits acknowledgment

Knowledge as de re true belief?

Kratzer proposed a causal analysis of knowledge in which knowledge is defined as a form of de re belief of facts. In support of Kratzer's view, I think the de re/de dicto distinction can be used to integrally account for the original Gettier cases, but in contrast to Kratzer, I think such an account does not fundamentally require a distinction between facts and true propositions. I then discuss whether this account might give us a reductive analysis of knowledge as de re true belief. Like Kratzer, I think it will not, in particular the distinction seems inadequate to account for Ginet-Goldman cases of causally connected but unreliable belief. Nevertheless, I argue that the de re belief analysis allows us to account for a distinction Starmans and Friedman recently introduced between apparent evidence and authentic evidence in their empirical study of Gettier cases, in a way that questions their claim that a causal disconnect is not operative in the contrasts they found