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135-669: The terms "Gettier problem", "Gettier case", or even the adjective "Gettiered", are sometimes used to describe any case in the field of epistemology that purports to repudiate the JTB account of knowledge. Responses to Gettier's paper have been numerous. Some reject Gettier's examples as inadequate justification, while others seek to adjust the JTB account of knowledge and blunt the force of these counterexamples. Gettier problems have even found their way into sociological experiments in which researchers have studied intuitive responses to Gettier cases from people of varying demographics. Some others argue that

270-420: A conditional or implicational relationship between two statements . For example, in the conditional statement : "If P then Q ", Q is necessary for P , because the truth of Q is guaranteed by the truth of P . (Equivalently, it is impossible to have P without Q , or the falsity of Q ensures the falsity of P .) Similarly, P is sufficient for Q , because P being true always implies that Q

405-425: A JTB analysis of knowledge prior to Gettier. It is almost as if a distinguished critic created a tradition in the very act of destroying it. Despite this, Plantinga does accept that some philosophers before Gettier have advanced a JTB account of knowledge, specifically C. I. Lewis and A. J. Ayer . The JTB account of knowledge is the claim that knowledge can be conceptually analyzed as justified true belief, which

540-486: A Platonist or Pythagorean, in that such a one would have "the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research." British philosopher Alfred N. Whitehead is often misquoted of uttering the famous saying of "All of Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato." Many recent philosophers have also diverged from what some would describe as ideals characteristic of traditional Platonism. Friedrich Nietzsche notoriously attacked Plato's "idea of

675-488: A belief in the immortality of the soul, and several dialogues end with long speeches imagining the afterlife . In the Timaeus , Socrates locates the parts of the soul within the human body: Reason is located in the head, spirit in the top third of the torso , and the appetite in the middle third of the torso, down to the navel . Furthermore, Plato evinces a belief in the theory of reincarnation in multiple dialogues (such as

810-435: A belief that is sufficiently justified (on some analysis of knowledge) to be knowledge, which is true, and which is intuitively not an example of knowledge. In other words, Gettier cases can be generated for any analysis of knowledge that involves a justification criterion and a truth criterion, which are highly correlated but have some degree of independence. The Gettier problem is formally a problem in first-order logic , but

945-467: A clear barrier to analyzing knowledge". Alvin Plantinga rejects the historical analysis: According to the inherited lore of the epistemological tribe, the JTB [justified true belief] account enjoyed the status of epistemological orthodoxy until 1963, when it was shattered by Edmund Gettier... Of course, there is an interesting historical irony here: it isn't easy to find many really explicit statements of

1080-606: A counterexample should then be checked. He concludes that there will always be a counterexample to any definition of knowledge in which the believer's evidence does not logically necessitate the belief. Since in most cases the believer's evidence does not necessitate a belief, Kirkham embraces skepticism about knowledge; but he notes that a belief can still be rational even if it is not an item of knowledge. (See also: fallibilism ) Plato%27s dialogues Plato ( / ˈ p l eɪ t oʊ / PLAY -toe ; Greek : Πλάτων, Plátōn , born c.  428-423 BC, died 348 BC),

1215-400: A descendant of two kings, Codrus and Melanthus . His mother was Perictione , descendant of Solon , a statesman credited with laying the foundations of Athenian democracy . Plato had two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus , a sister, Potone , and a half brother, Antiphon. Plato may have travelled to Italy, Sicily , Egypt, and Cyrene . At 40, he founded a school of philosophy,

1350-489: A different doctrine with respect to Forms to Plato and Socrates. Aristotle suggests that Socrates' idea of forms can be discovered through investigation of the natural world, unlike Plato's Forms that exist beyond and outside the ordinary range of human understanding. The Socratic problem concerns how to reconcile these various accounts. The precise relationship between Plato and Socrates remains an area of contention among scholars. Although Socrates influenced Plato directly,

1485-401: A family tree structure. To say that P is necessary and sufficient for Q is to say two things: One may summarize any, and thus all, of these cases by the statement " P if and only if Q ", which is denoted by P ⇔ Q {\displaystyle P\Leftrightarrow Q} , whereas cases tell us that P ⇔ Q {\displaystyle P\Leftrightarrow Q}

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1620-483: A fellow disciple of Plato. A variety of sources have given accounts of Plato's death. One story, based on a mutilated manuscript, suggests Plato died in his bed, whilst a young Thracian girl played the flute to him. Another tradition suggests Plato died at a wedding feast. The account is based on Diogenes Laërtius's reference to an account by Hermippus, a third-century Alexandrian. According to Tertullian , Plato simply died in his sleep. According to Philodemus, Plato

1755-558: A few people were capable or interested in following a reasoned philosophical discourse, but men in general are attracted by stories and tales. Consequently, then, he used the myth to convey the conclusions of the philosophical reasoning. Notable examples include the story of Atlantis , the Myth of Er , and the Allegory of the Cave . When considering the taxonomic definition of mankind , Plato proposed

1890-404: A formula for generating Gettier cases: (1) start with a case of justified false belief; (2) amend the example, making the element of justification strong enough for knowledge, but the belief false by sheer chance; (3) amend the example again, adding another element of chance such that the belief is true, but which leaves the element of justification unchanged; This will generate an example of

2025-415: A man is driving in the countryside, and sees what looks exactly like a barn. Accordingly, he thinks that he is seeing a barn. In fact, that is what he is doing. But what he does not know is that the neighborhood generally consists of many fake barns — barn facades designed to look exactly like real barns when viewed from the road . Since, if he had been looking at one of them, he would have been unable to tell

2160-445: A man sibling is a necessary and sufficient condition for being a brother. Any conditional statement consists of at least one sufficient condition and at least one necessary condition. In data analytics , necessity and sufficiency can refer to different causal logics, where necessary condition analysis and qualitative comparative analysis can be used as analytical techniques for examining necessity and sufficiency of conditions for

2295-559: A necessary and sufficient condition for invertibility of a matrix M is that M has a nonzero determinant . Mathematically speaking, necessity and sufficiency are dual to one another. For any statements S and N , the assertion that " N is necessary for S " is equivalent to the assertion that " S is sufficient for N ". Another facet of this duality is that, as illustrated above, conjunctions (using "and") of necessary conditions may achieve sufficiency, while disjunctions (using "or") of sufficient conditions may achieve necessity. For

2430-472: A participant in any of the dialogues, and with the exception of the Apology , there is no suggestion that he heard any of the dialogues firsthand. Some dialogues have no narrator but have a pure "dramatic" form, some dialogues are narrated by Socrates himself, who speaks in the first person. The Symposium is narrated by Apollodorus, a Socratic disciple, apparently to Glaucon. Apollodorus assures his listener that he

2565-424: A particular outcome of interest. In the conditional statement, "if S , then N ", the expression represented by S is called the antecedent , and the expression represented by N is called the consequent . This conditional statement may be written in several equivalent ways, such as " N if S ", " S only if N ", " S implies N ", " N is implied by S ", S → N , S ⇒ N and " N whenever S ". In

2700-412: A primitive notion of knowledge, rather than vice versa. Knowledge is understood as factive, that is, as embodying a sort of epistemological "tie" between a truth and a belief. The JTB account is then criticized for trying to get and encapsulate the factivity of knowledge "on the cheap", as it were, or via a circular argument, by replacing an irreducible notion of factivity with the conjunction of some of

2835-474: A revision, which resulted in the alteration of (3) and (4) to limit themselves to the same method (i.e. vision): Saul Kripke has pointed out that this view remains problematic and uses a counterexample called the Fake Barn Country example , which describes a certain locality containing a number of fake barns or facades of barns. In the midst of these fake barns is one real barn, which is painted red. There

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2970-544: A sufficient condition (i.e., individually necessary and jointly sufficient ), as shown in Example 5. If P is sufficient for Q , then knowing P to be true is adequate grounds to conclude that Q is true; however, knowing P to be false does not meet a minimal need to conclude that Q is false. The logical relation is, as before, expressed as "if P , then Q " or " P ⇒ Q ". This can also be expressed as " P only if Q ", " P implies Q " or several other variants. It may be

3105-445: A third facet, identify every mathematical predicate N with the set T ( N ) of objects, events, or statements for which N holds true; then asserting the necessity of N for S is equivalent to claiming that T ( N ) is a superset of T ( S ), while asserting the sufficiency of S for N is equivalent to claiming that T ( S ) is a subset of T ( N ). Psychologically speaking, necessity and sufficiency are both key aspects of

3240-419: A tripartite class structure corresponding to the appetite/spirit/reason structure of the individual soul. The appetite/spirit/reason are analogous to the castes of society. According to Socrates, a state made up of different kinds of souls will, overall, decline from an aristocracy (rule by the best) to a timocracy (rule by the honourable), then to an oligarchy (rule by the few), then to a democracy (rule by

3375-616: A viable fourth condition have led to claims that attempting to repair the JTB account is a deficient strategy. For example, one might argue that what the Gettier problem shows is not the need for a fourth independent condition in addition to the original three, but rather that the attempt to build up an account of knowledge by conjoining a set of independent conditions was misguided from the outset. Those who have adopted this approach generally argue that epistemological terms like justification , evidence , certainty , etc. should be analyzed in terms of

3510-493: Is a central figure in the history of Western philosophy . Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism , he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy . In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of

3645-481: Is a liar). Gettier's cases involve propositions that were true, believed, but which had weak justification. In case 1, the premise that the testimony of Smith's boss is "strong evidence" is rejected. The case itself depends on the boss being either wrong or deceitful (Jones did not get the job) and therefore unreliable. In case 2, Smith again has accepted a questionable idea (Jones owns a Ford) with unspecified justification. Without justification, both cases do not undermine

3780-414: Is a necessary and sufficient condition that it contain no odd-length cycles . Thus, discovering whether a graph has any odd cycles tells one whether it is bipartite and conversely. A philosopher might characterize this state of affairs thus: "Although the concepts of bipartiteness and absence of odd cycles differ in intension , they have identical extension . In mathematics, theorems are often stated in

3915-400: Is a sufficient condition for N , while the second implication suggests that S is a necessary condition for N . This is expressed as " S is necessary and sufficient for N ", " S if and only if N ", or S ⇔ N {\displaystyle S\Leftrightarrow N} . The assertion that Q is necessary for P is colloquially equivalent to " P cannot be true unless Q

4050-800: Is already implicitly known, or at exposing the contradictions and muddles of an opponent's position." Karl Popper , on the other hand, claims that dialectic is the art of intuition for "visualising the divine originals, the Forms or Ideas, of unveiling the Great Mystery behind the common man's everyday world of appearances". During the early Renaissance, the Greek language and, along with it, Plato's texts were reintroduced to Western Europe by Byzantine scholars. Some 250 known manuscripts of Plato survive. In September or October 1484 Filippo Valori and Francesco Berlinghieri printed 1025 copies of Ficino's translation, using

4185-477: Is also referenced by Jewish philosopher and Talmudic scholar Maimonides in his The Guide for the Perplexed . The works of Plato were again revived at the times of Islamic Golden ages with other Greek contents through their translation from Greek to Arabic. Neoplatonism was revived from its founding father, Plotinus. Neoplatonism, a philosophical current that permeated Islamic scholarship, accentuated one facet of

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4320-484: Is always a mismatch between the information available to the person who makes the knowledge-claim of some proposition p and the information available to the evaluator of this knowledge-claim (even if the evaluator is the same person in a later time). A Gettierian counterexample arises when the justification given by the person who makes the knowledge-claim cannot be accepted by the knowledge evaluator because it does not fit with his wider informational setting. For instance, in

4455-417: Is argued that it seems as though Luke does not "know" that Mark is in the room, even though it is claimed he has a justified true belief that Mark is in the room, but it is not nearly so clear that the perceptual belief that "Mark is in the room" was inferred from any premises at all, let alone any false ones, nor led to significant conclusions on its own; Luke did not seem to be reasoning about anything; "Mark

4590-502: Is by no means universally accepted, though Plato's works are still often characterized as falling at least roughly into three groups stylistically. Plato's unwritten doctrines are, according to some ancient sources, the most fundamental metaphysical teaching of Plato, which he disclosed only orally, and some say only to his most trusted fellows, and which he may have kept secret from the public, although many modern scholars doubt these claims. A reason for not revealing it to everyone

4725-442: Is challenged by the difficulty of giving a principled explanation of how an appropriate causal relationship differs from an inappropriate one (without the circular response of saying that the appropriate sort of causal relationship is the knowledge-producing one); or retreating to a position in which justified true belief is weakly defined as the consensus of learned opinion. The latter would be useful, but not as useful nor desirable as

4860-404: Is identical to P ⇒ Q ∧ Q ⇒ P {\displaystyle P\Rightarrow Q\land Q\Rightarrow P} . For example, in graph theory a graph G is called bipartite if it is possible to assign to each of its vertices the color black or white in such a way that every edge of G has one endpoint of each color. And for any graph to be bipartite, it

4995-420: Is in the room" seems to have been part of what he seemed to see . The main idea behind Gettier's examples is that the justification for the belief is flawed or incorrect, but the belief turns out to be true by sheer luck. Linda Zagzebski shows that any analysis of knowledge in terms of true belief and some other element of justification that is independent from truth, will be liable to Gettier cases. She offers

5130-417: Is likely to be at least a little wrong or, if right, still right for not entirely the right reasons. Therefore, one is more veracious by being Socratic, including recognition of one's own ignorance and knowing one may be proved wrong. This is the case, even though in practical matters one sometimes must act, if one is to act at all, with a decision and complete confidence. The difficulties involved in producing

5265-475: Is necessary for that someone to be N amed. Similarly, in order for human beings to live, it is necessary that they have air. One can also say S is a sufficient condition for N (refer again to the third column of the truth table immediately below). If the conditional statement is true, then if S is true, N must be true; whereas if the conditional statement is true and N is true, then S may be true or be false. In common terms, "the truth of S guarantees

5400-517: Is not a necessary part of the definition of knowledge. Thus, knowledge does not require the three components of truth, justification, and belief, nor does it need a fourth element. Rather, it consists of only two elements, and its definition must shift to "awareness of facts." The question of what constitutes "knowledge" is as old as philosophy itself. Early instances are found in Plato's dialogues , notably Meno (97a–98b) and Theaetetus . Gettier himself

5535-401: Is one more piece of crucial information for this example - the fake barns cannot be painted red. Jones is driving along the highway, looks up and happens to see the real barn, and so forms the belief: Though Jones has gotten lucky, he could have just as easily been deceived and not have known it. Therefore, it doesn't fulfill premise 4, for if Jones saw a fake barn he wouldn't have any idea it

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5670-497: Is partially discussed in Phaedrus where Plato criticizes the written transmission of knowledge as faulty, favouring instead the spoken logos : "he who has knowledge of the just and the good and beautiful ... will not, when in earnest, write them in ink, sowing them through a pen with words, which cannot defend themselves by argument and cannot teach the truth effectually." It is, however, said that Plato once disclosed this knowledge to

5805-432: Is preserved by entailment , and secondly that this applies coherently to Smith's putative "belief". That is, that if Smith is justified in believing P, and Smith realizes that the truth of P entails the truth of Q, then Smith would also be justified in believing Q. Gettier calls these counterexamples "Case I" and "Case II": Smith's evidence for (d) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would, in

5940-504: Is rational ( S ) is sufficient but not necessary to x {\displaystyle x} being a real number ( N ) (since there are real numbers that are not rational). A condition can be both necessary and sufficient. For example, at present, "today is the Fourth of July " is a necessary and sufficient condition for "today is Independence Day in the United States ". Similarly,

6075-412: Is recounting the story, which took place when he himself was an infant, not from his own memory, but as remembered by Aristodemus, who told him the story years ago. The Theaetetus is also a peculiar case: a dialogue in dramatic form embedded within another dialogue in dramatic form. Some scholars take this as an indication that Plato had by this date wearied of the narrated form. In most of the dialogues,

6210-603: Is searching for water. He sees, in the valley ahead, a shimmering blue expanse. Unfortunately, it’s a mirage. But fortunately, when he reaches the spot where there appeared to be water, there actually is water, hidden under a rock. Did the traveller know , as he stood on the hilltop hallucinating, that there was water ahead? Various theories of knowledge, including some of the proposals that emerged in Western philosophy after Gettier in 1963, were debated by Indo-Tibetan epistemologists before and after Dharmottara. In particular, Gaṅgeśa in

6345-595: Is still problematical, on account or otherwise of Gettier's examples. Gettier, for many years a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst later also was interested in the epistemic logic of Hintikka , a Finnish philosopher at Boston University , who published Knowledge and Belief in 1962. The most common direction for this sort of response to take is what might be called a "JTB + G" analysis: that is, an analysis based on finding some fourth condition—a "no-Gettier-problem" condition—which, when added to

6480-416: Is that in none of the above cases was the belief justified because it is impossible to justify anything that is not true. Conversely, the fact that a proposition turns out to be untrue is proof that it was not sufficiently justified in the first place. Under this interpretation, the JTB definition of knowledge survives. This shifts the problem to a definition of justification, rather than knowledge. Another view

6615-472: Is that justification and non-justification are not in binary opposition . Instead, justification is a matter of degree, with an idea being more or less justified. This account of justification is supported by philosophers such as Paul Boghossian [1] and Stephen Hicks [2] [3] . In common sense usage, an idea can not only be more justified or less justified but it can also be partially justified (Smith's boss told him X) and partially unjustified (Smith's boss

6750-422: Is the whole of your conception of the object. From a pragmatic viewpoint of the kind often ascribed to James, defining on a particular occasion whether a particular belief can rightly be said to be both true and justified is seen as no more than an exercise in pedantry , but being able to discern whether that belief led to fruitful outcomes is a fruitful enterprise . Peirce emphasized fallibilism , considered

6885-467: Is then of how to know which premises are in reality false or true when deriving a conclusion, because as in the Gettier cases, one sees that premises can be very reasonable to believe and be likely true, but unknown to the believer there are confounding factors and extra information that may have been missed while concluding something. The question that arises is therefore to what extent would one have to be able to go about attempting to "prove" all premises in

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7020-492: Is to say that a justified true belief counts as knowledge if and only if it is also the case that there is no further truth that, had the subject known it, would have defeated her present justification for the belief. (Thus, for example, Smith's justification for believing that the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket is his justified belief that Jones will get the job, combined with his justified belief that Jones has ten coins in his pocket. But if Smith had known

7155-624: Is to say that the meaning of sentences such as "Smith knows that it rained today" can be given with the following set of conditions, which are necessary and sufficient for knowledge to obtain: The JTB account was first credited to Plato , though Plato argued against this very account of knowledge in the Theaetetus (210a). This account of knowledge is what Gettier subjected to criticism. Gettier's paper used counterexamples to argue that there are cases of beliefs that are both true and justified—therefore satisfying all three conditions for knowledge on

7290-399: Is true if and only if the latter is true. That is, the two statements must be either simultaneously true, or simultaneously false. In ordinary English (also natural language ) "necessary" and "sufficient" indicate relations between conditions or states of affairs, not statements. For example, being a man is a necessary condition for being a brother, but it is not sufficient—while being

7425-476: Is true" or "if Q is false, then P is false". By contraposition , this is the same thing as "whenever P is true, so is Q ". The logical relation between P and Q is expressed as "if P , then Q " and denoted " P ⇒ Q " ( P implies Q ). It may also be expressed as any of " P only if Q ", " Q , if P ", " Q whenever P ", and " Q when P ". One often finds, in mathematical prose for instance, several necessary conditions that, taken together, constitute

7560-407: Is true, but P not being true does not always imply that Q is not true. In general, a necessary condition is one (possibly one of several conditions) that must be present in order for another condition to occur, while a sufficient condition is one that produces the said condition. The assertion that a statement is a "necessary and sufficient" condition of another means that the former statement

7695-477: Is virtue. In the Republic , Plato poses the question, "What is justice?" and by examining both individual justice and the justice that informs societies, Plato is able not only to inform metaphysics, but also ethics and politics with the question: "What is the basis of moral and social obligation?" Plato's well-known answer rests upon the fundamental responsibility to seek wisdom, wisdom which leads to an understanding of

7830-525: The Gorgias and his ambivalence toward rhetoric expressed in the Phaedrus . But other contemporary researchers contest the idea that Plato despised rhetoric and instead view his dialogues as a dramatization of complex rhetorical principles. Plato made abundant use of mythological narratives in his own work; It is generally agreed that the main purpose for Plato in using myths was didactic. He considered that only

7965-529: The Laws features Socrates, although many dialogues, including the Timaeus and Statesman , feature him speaking only rarely. Leo Strauss notes that Socrates' reputation for irony casts doubt on whether Plato's Socrates is expressing sincere beliefs. Xenophon 's Memorabilia and Aristophanes 's The Clouds seem to present a somewhat different portrait of Socrates from the one Plato paints. Aristotle attributes

8100-663: The Republic was prototypically totalitarian ; this has been disputed. Edmund Gettier famously demonstrated the Gettier problem for the justified true belief account of knowledge. That the modern theory of justified true belief as knowledge, which Gettier addresses, is equivalent to Plato's is, however, accepted only by some scholars but rejected by others. Primary sources (Greek and Roman) Secondary sources Necessary and sufficient conditions In logic and mathematics , necessity and sufficiency are terms used to describe

8235-645: The Academy . It was located in Athens, on a plot of land in the Grove of Hecademus or Academus , named after an Attic hero in Greek mythology . The Academy operated until it was destroyed by Sulla in 84 BC. Many philosophers studied at the Academy, the most prominent being Aristotle. According to Diogenes Laërtius , throughout his later life, Plato became entangled with the politics of

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8370-527: The Meno , Socrates uses a geometrical example to expound Plato's view that knowledge in this latter sense is acquired by recollection. Socrates elicits a fact concerning a geometrical construction from a slave boy, who could not have otherwise known the fact (due to the slave boy's lack of education). The knowledge must be of, Socrates concludes, an eternal, non-perceptible Form. Plato also discusses several aspects of epistemology . In several dialogues, Socrates inverts

8505-448: The Phaedo and Timaeus ). Scholars debate whether he intends the theory to be literally true, however. He uses this idea of reincarnation to introduce the concept that knowledge is a matter of recollection of things acquainted with before one is born, and not of observation or study. Keeping with the theme of admitting his own ignorance, Socrates regularly complains of his forgetfulness. In

8640-649: The Renaissance , George Gemistos Plethon brought Plato's original writings to Florence from Constantinople in the century of its fall. Many of the greatest early modern scientists and artists who broke with Scholasticism , with the support of the Plato-inspired Lorenzo (grandson of Cosimo), saw Plato's philosophy as the basis for progress in the arts and sciences. The 17th century Cambridge Platonists , sought to reconcile Plato's more problematic beliefs, such as metempsychosis and polyamory, with Christianity. By

8775-735: The Scholastic philosophers referred to Aristotle as "the Philosopher". The only Platonic work known to western scholarship was Timaeus , until translations were made after the fall of Constantinople , which occurred during 1453. However, the study of Plato continued in the Byzantine Empire , the Caliphates during the Islamic Golden Age , and Spain during the Golden age of Jewish culture . Plato

8910-610: The justified true belief definition in the Theaetetus , concluding that justification (or an "account") would require knowledge of difference , meaning that the definition of knowledge is circular . In the Sophist , Statesman , Republic , Timaeus , and the Parmenides , Plato associates knowledge with the apprehension of unchanging Forms and their relationships to one another (which he calls "expertise" in dialectic), including through

9045-457: The metaphysical tradition that strongly influenced Plato and continues today. Heraclitus viewed all things as continuously changing , that one cannot "step into the same river twice" due to the ever-changing waters flowing through it, and all things exist as a contraposition of opposites. According to Diogenes Laërtius, Plato received these ideas through Heraclitus' disciple Cratylus . Parmenides adopted an altogether contrary vision, arguing for

9180-426: The subjunctive or truth-tracking account. Nozick's formulation posits that proposition p is an instance of knowledge when: Nozick's definition is intended to preserve Goldman's intuition that Gettier cases should be ruled out by disacknowledging "accidentally" true justified beliefs, but without risking the potentially onerous consequences of building a causal requirement into the analysis. This tactic though, invites

9315-435: The "twin pillars of Platonism" as the theory of Forms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the doctrine of immortality of the soul. In the dialogues Socrates regularly asks for the meaning of a general term (e. g. justice, truth, beauty), and criticizes those who instead give him particular examples, rather than the quality shared by all examples. "Platonism" and its theory of Forms (also known as 'theory of Ideas') denies

9450-439: The 14th century advanced a detailed causal theory of knowledge. Russell's case, called the stopped clock case, goes as follows: Alice sees a clock that reads two o'clock and believes that the time is two o'clock. It is, in fact, two o'clock. There's a problem, however: unknown to Alice, the clock she's looking at stopped twelve hours ago. Alice thus has an accidentally true, justified belief. Russell provides an answer of his own to

9585-464: The 19th century, Plato's reputation was restored, and at least on par with Aristotle's. Plato's influence has been especially strong in mathematics and the sciences. Plato's resurgence further inspired some of the greatest advances in logic since Aristotle, primarily through Gottlob Frege . Albert Einstein suggested that the scientist who takes philosophy seriously would have to avoid systematization and take on many different roles, and possibly appear as

9720-571: The 1st century AD: Axiochus , Definitions , Demodocus , Epigrams , Eryxias , Halcyon , On Justice , On Virtue , Sisyphus . No one knows the exact order Plato's dialogues were written in, nor the extent to which some might have been later revised and rewritten. The works are usually grouped into Early (sometimes by some into Transitional ), Middle , and Late period; The following represents one relatively common division amongst developmentalist scholars. Whereas those classified as "early dialogues" often conclude in aporia ,

9855-769: The European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." There is a traditional story that Plato ( Ancient Greek : Πλάτων , Plátōn , from Ancient Greek : πλατύς , romanized :  platys , lit.   'broad') is a nickname . According to Diogenes Laërtius, writing hundreds of years after Plato's death, his birth name was Aristocles ( Ἀριστοκλῆς ), meaning 'best reputation'. "Platon" sounds like "Platus" or "Platos", meaning "broad", and according to Diogenes' sources, Plato gained his nickname either from his wrestling coach, Ariston of Argos, who dubbed him "broad" on account of his chest and shoulders, or he gained it from

9990-742: The Form of the Good. Plato views "The Good" as the supreme Form, somehow existing even "beyond being". In this manner, justice is obtained when knowledge of how to fulfill one's moral and political function in society is put into practice. The dialogues also discuss politics. Some of Plato's most famous doctrines are contained in the Republic as well as in the Laws and the Statesman . Because these opinions are not spoken directly by Plato and vary between dialogues, they cannot be straightforwardly assumed as representing Plato's own views. Socrates asserts that societies have

10125-553: The Forms are the causes of everything else, he [i.e. Plato] supposed that their elements are the elements of all things. Accordingly, the material principle is the Great and Small [i.e. the Dyad], and the essence is the One ( τὸ ἕν ), since the numbers are derived from the Great and Small by participation in the One". "From this account it is clear that he only employed two causes: that of the essence, and

10260-607: The Forms were the truths of geometry , such as the Pythagorean theorem . The theory of Forms is first introduced in the Phaedo dialogue (also known as On the Soul ), wherein Socrates disputes the pluralism of Anaxagoras , then the most popular response to Heraclitus and Parmenides. For Plato, as was characteristic of ancient Greek philosophy, the soul was that which gave life. Plato advocates

10395-537: The Islamic context, Neoplatonism facilitated the integration of Platonic philosophy with mystical Islamic thought, fostering a synthesis of ancient philosophical wisdom and religious insight. Inspired by Plato's Republic, Al-Farabi extended his inquiry beyond mere political theory, proposing an ideal city governed by philosopher-kings . Many of these commentaries on Plato were translated from Arabic into Latin and as such influenced Medieval scholastic philosophers. During

10530-487: The JTB account of knowledge. Other epistemologists accept Gettier's conclusion. Their responses to the Gettier problem, therefore, consist of trying to find alternative analyses of knowledge. They have struggled to discover and agree upon as a beginning any single notion of truth, or belief, or justifying which is wholly and obviously accepted. Truth, belief, and justifying have not yet been satisfactorily defined, so that JTB (justified true belief) may be defined satisfactorily

10665-447: The JTB account—but that do not appear to be genuine cases of knowledge. Therefore, Gettier argued, his counterexamples show that the JTB account of knowledge is false, and thus that a different conceptual analysis is needed to correctly track what we mean by "knowledge". Gettier's case is based on two counterexamples to the JTB analysis, both involving a fictional character named Smith. Each relies on two claims. Firstly, that justification

10800-451: The Qur’anic conception of God—the transcendent—while seemingly neglecting another—the creative. This philosophical tradition, introduced by Al-Farabi and subsequently elaborated upon by figures such as Avicenna , postulated that all phenomena emanated from the divine source. It functioned as a conduit, bridging the transcendental nature of the divine with the tangible reality of creation. In

10935-448: The above situation of "N whenever S," N is said to be a necessary condition for S . In common language, this is equivalent to saying that if the conditional statement is a true statement, then the consequent N must be true—if S is to be true (see third column of " truth table " immediately below). In other words, the antecedent S cannot be true without N being true. For example, in order for someone to be called S ocrates, it

11070-409: The argument before solidifying a conclusion. In a 1966 scenario known as "The sheep in the field", Roderick Chisholm asks us to imagine that someone, X, is standing outside a field looking at something that looks like a sheep (although in fact, it is a dog disguised as a sheep). X believes there is a sheep in the field, and in fact, X is right because there is a sheep behind the hill in the middle of

11205-461: The assertion of absolute certainty a barrier to inquiry, and in 1901 defined truth as follows: "Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth." In other words, any unqualified assertion

11340-454: The assumption in the Gettier problem — that knowledge cannot be based purely on luck — is flawed. Mousavirad contends that knowledge is fundamentally the recognition of facts. Therefore, if one happens to know certain facts purely by luck, they still possess knowledge, even though they cannot prove the truth of these facts. The role of justification, according to Mousavirad, is to establish the truth of propositions we assume to be knowledge, but it

11475-547: The breadth of his eloquence, or his wide forehead. Philodemus , in extracts from the Herculaneum papyri , corroborates the claim that Plato was named for his "broad forehead". Seneca the Younger , writing hundreds of years after Plato's death, writes "His very name was given him because of his broad chest." According to the traditional story, Plato was originally named after his paternal grandfather, supposedly called Aristocles;

11610-448: The case of the fake barn the evaluator knows that a superficial inspection from someone who does not know the peculiar circumstances involved isn't a justification acceptable as making the proposition p (that it is a real barn) true. Richard Kirkham has proposed that it is best to start with a definition of knowledge so strong that giving a counterexample to it is logically impossible. Whether it can be weakened without becoming subject to

11745-417: The case that several sufficient conditions, when taken together, constitute a single necessary condition (i.e., individually sufficient and jointly necessary), as illustrated in example 5. A condition can be either necessary or sufficient without being the other. For instance, being a mammal ( N ) is necessary but not sufficient to being human ( S ), and that a number x {\displaystyle x}

11880-480: The causation of good and of evil". The most important aspect of this interpretation of Plato's metaphysics is the continuity between his teaching and the Neoplatonic interpretation of Plotinus or Ficino which has been considered erroneous by many but may in fact have been directly influenced by oral transmission of Plato's doctrine. A modern scholar who recognized the importance of the unwritten doctrine of Plato

12015-491: The character of a writer were attributed to that writer even when the actual author was unknown. The works taken as genuine in antiquity but are now doubted by at least some modern scholars are: Alcibiades I (*), Alcibiades II (‡), Clitophon (*), Epinomis (‡), Letters (*), Hipparchus (‡), Menexenus (*), Minos (‡), Lovers (‡), Theages (‡) The following works were transmitted under Plato's name in antiquity, but were already considered spurious by

12150-420: The city of Syracuse , where he attempted to replace the tyrant Dionysius , with Dionysius's brother-in-law, Dion of Syracuse , whom Plato had recruited as one of his followers, but the tyrant himself turned against Plato. Plato almost faced death, but was sold into slavery. Anniceris , a Cyrenaic philosopher, bought Plato's freedom for twenty minas , and sent him home. Philodemus however states that Plato

12285-413: The classical view of concepts. Under the classical theory of concepts, how human minds represent a category X, gives rise to a set of individually necessary conditions that define X. Together, these individually necessary conditions are sufficient to be X. This contrasts with the probabilistic theory of concepts which states that no defining feature is necessary or sufficient, rather that categories resemble

12420-484: The common man's intuition about what is knowable and what is real. Reality is unavailable to those who use their senses. Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind. While most people take the objects of their senses to be real if anything is, Socrates is contemptuous of people who think that something has to be graspable in the hands to be real. In the Theaetetus , he says such people are eu amousoi (εὖ ἄμουσοι), an expression that means literally, "happily without

12555-542: The complete written philosophical work of Plato, based on the first century AD arrangement of Thrasyllus of Mendes . The modern standard complete English edition is the 1997 Hackett Plato: Complete Works , edited by John M. Cooper. Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters (the Epistles ) have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, though modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of at least some of these. Jowett mentions in his Appendix to Menexenus, that works which bore

12690-410: The concept of form as distinct from matter, and that the physical world is an imitation of an eternal mathematical world. These ideas were very influential on Heraclitus, Parmenides and Plato. The two philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides , influenced by earlier pre-Socratic Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Xenophanes , departed from mythological explanations for the universe and began

12825-486: The conditions of justification, truth, and belief, will yield a set of separately necessary and jointly sufficient conditions. One such response is that of Alvin Goldman (1967), who suggested the addition of a causal condition: a subject's belief is justified, for Goldman, only if the truth of a belief has caused the subject to have that belief (in the appropriate way); and for a justified true belief to count as knowledge,

12960-435: The difference, his "knowledge" that he was looking at a barn would seem to be poorly founded. The "no false premises" (or "no false lemmas") solution which was proposed early in the discussion has been criticized, as more general Gettier-style problems were then constructed or contrived in which the justified true belief is said to not seem to be the result of a chain of reasoning from a justified false belief. For example: It

13095-487: The doctrines that would later become known as Platonism . Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas) , which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals . He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras , Heraclitus , and Parmenides , although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself. Along with his teacher Socrates , and Aristotle , his student, Plato

13230-522: The end, be selected and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones's pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (d) entails: (e) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (d) to (e), and accepts (e) on the grounds of (d), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (e) is true. In both of Gettier's actual examples (see also counterfactual conditional ),

13365-453: The famous Euthyphro dilemma in the dialogue of the same name: "Is the pious ( τὸ ὅσιον ) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" ( 10a ) In the Protagoras dialogue it is argued through Socrates that virtue is innate and cannot be learned, that no one does bad on purpose, and to know what is good results in doing what is good; that knowledge

13500-413: The field. Hence, X has a justified true belief that there is a sheep in the field. Another scenario by Brian Skyrms is "The Pyromaniac", in which a struck match lights not for the reasons the pyromaniac imagines but because of some unknown "Q radiation". A different perspective on the issue is given by Alvin Goldman in the "fake barns" scenario (crediting Carl Ginet with the example). In this one,

13635-400: The first belief is not knowledge and the second is knowledge. In the first chapter of his book Pyrronian Reflexions on Truth and Justification , Robert Fogelin gives a diagnosis that leads to a dialogical solution to Gettier's problem. The problem always arises when the given justification has nothing to do with what really makes the proposition true. Now, he notes that in such cases there

13770-431: The following two examples: A fire has just been lit to roast some meat. The fire hasn’t started sending up any smoke, but the smell of the meat has attracted a cloud of insects. From a distance, an observer sees the dark swarm above the horizon and mistakes it for smoke. "There’s a fire burning at that spot," the distant observer says. Does the observer know that there is a fire burning in the distance? A desert traveller

13905-418: The form " P is true if and only if Q is true". Because, as explained in previous section, necessity of one for the other is equivalent to sufficiency of the other for the first one, e.g. P ⇐ Q {\displaystyle P\Leftarrow Q} is equivalent to Q ⇒ P {\displaystyle Q\Rightarrow P} , if P is necessary and sufficient for Q , then Q

14040-533: The good itself" along with many fundamentals of Christian morality, which he interpreted as "Platonism for the masses" in Beyond Good and Evil (1886). Martin Heidegger argued against Plato's alleged obfuscation of Being in his incomplete tome, Being and Time (1927). Karl Popper argued in the first volume of The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) that Plato's proposal for a " utopian " political regime in

14175-768: The idea of a changeless, eternal universe and the view that change is an illusion. Plato's most self-critical dialogue is the Parmenides , which features Parmenides and his student Zeno , which criticizes Plato's own metaphysical theories. Plato's Sophist dialogue includes an Eleatic stranger. These ideas about change and permanence, or becoming and Being, influenced Plato in formulating his theory of Forms. In Plato's dialogues, Socrates and his company of disputants had something to say on many subjects, including several aspects of metaphysics . These include religion and science, human nature, love, and sexuality. More than one dialogue contrasts perception and reality , nature and custom, and body and soul. Francis Cornford identified

14310-535: The influence of Pythagoras , or in a broader sense, the Pythagoreans, such as Archytas also appears to have been significant. Aristotle and Cicero both claimed that the philosophy of Plato closely followed the teachings of the Pythagoreans . According to R. M. Hare , this influence consists of three points: Pythagoras held that all things are number, and the cosmos comes from numerical principles. He introduced

14445-411: The introduction by Gettier of terms such as believes and knows moves the discussion into the field of epistemology. Here, the sound (true) arguments ascribed to Smith then need also to be valid (believed) and convincing (justified) if they are to issue in the real-world discussion about justified true belief . Responses to Gettier problems have fallen into three categories: One response, therefore,

14580-496: The justified true belief came about, if Smith's purported claims are disputable, as the result of entailment (but see also material conditional ) from justified false beliefs that "Jones will get the job" (in case I), and that "Jones owns a Ford" (in case II). This led some early responses to Gettier to conclude that the definition of knowledge could be easily adjusted, so that knowledge was justified true belief that does not depend on false premises . The interesting issue that arises

14715-546: The material cause; for the Forms are the cause of the essence in everything else, and the One is the cause of it in the Forms. He also tells us what the material substrate is of which the Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and the One in that of the Forms ;– that it is this the duality (the Dyad, ἡ δυάς ), the Great and Small ( τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρόν ). Further, he assigned to these two elements respectively

14850-405: The muses". In other words, such people are willingly ignorant, living without divine inspiration and access to higher insights about reality. Many have interpreted Plato as stating – even having been the first to write – that knowledge is justified true belief , an influential view that informed future developments in epistemology. Plato also identified problems with

14985-482: The name "Plato" was only used as a nickname; and the philosopher could not have been named "Plato" because that name does not occur previously in his family line. Modern scholarship tends to reject the "Aristocles" story. Plato always called himself Platon . Platon was a fairly common name (31 instances are known from Athens alone), including people named before Plato was born. Robin Waterfield states that Plato

15120-660: The other hand, if one derives one's account of something by way of the non-sensible Forms, because these Forms are unchanging, so too is the account derived from them. That apprehension of Forms is required for knowledge may be taken to cohere with Plato's theory in the Theaetetus and Meno . Indeed, the apprehension of Forms may be at the base of the account required for justification, in that it offers foundational knowledge which itself needs no account, thereby avoiding an infinite regression . Several dialogues discuss ethics including virtue and vice, pleasure and pain, crime and punishment, and justice and medicine. Socrates presents

15255-547: The people), and finally to tyranny (rule by one person, rule by a tyrant). Several dialogues tackle questions about art, including rhetoric and rhapsody. Socrates says that poetry is inspired by the muses , and is not rational. He speaks approvingly of this, and other forms of divine madness (drunkenness, eroticism, and dreaming) in the Phaedrus , and yet in the Republic wants to outlaw Homer's great poetry, and laughter as well. Scholars often view Plato's philosophy as at odds with rhetoric due to his criticisms of rhetoric in

15390-465: The primary speaker is Socrates, who employs a method of questioning which proceeds by a dialogue form called dialectic. The role of dialectic in Plato's thought is contested but there are two main interpretations: a type of reasoning and a method of intuition. Simon Blackburn adopts the first, saying that Plato's dialectic is "the process of eliciting the truth by means of questions aimed at opening out what

15525-577: The printing press  [ it ] at the Dominican convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli  [ it ] . The 1578 edition of Plato's complete works published by Henricus Stephanus ( Henri Estienne ) in Geneva also included parallel Latin translation and running commentary by Joannes Serranus ( Jean de Serres ). It was this edition which established standard Stephanus pagination , still in use today. The text of Plato as received today apparently represents

15660-483: The problem. Edmund Gettier's formulation of the problem was important as it coincided with the rise of the sort of philosophical naturalism promoted by W. V. O. Quine and others, and was used as a justification for a shift towards externalist theories of justification. John L. Pollock and Joseph Cruz have stated that the Gettier problem has "fundamentally altered the character of contemporary epistemology" and has become "a central problem of epistemology since it poses

15795-420: The processes of collection and division . More explicitly, Plato himself argues in the Timaeus that knowledge is always proportionate to the realm from which it is gained. In other words, if one derives one's account of something experientially, because the world of sense is in flux, the views therein attained will be mere opinions. Meanwhile, opinions are characterized by a lack of necessity and stability. On

15930-492: The properties that accompany it (in particular, truth and justification). Of course, the introduction of irreducible primitives into a philosophical theory is always problematical (some would say a sign of desperation), and such anti-reductionist accounts are unlikely to please those who have other reasons to hold fast to the method behind JTB+G accounts. Fred Dretske developed an account of knowledge which he called "conclusive reasons", revived by Robert Nozick as what he called

16065-609: The public in his lecture On the Good ( Περὶ τἀγαθοῦ ), in which the Good ( τὸ ἀγαθόν ) is identified with the One (the Unity, τὸ ἕν ), the fundamental ontological principle. The first witness who mentions its existence is Aristotle, who in his Physics writes: "It is true, indeed, that the account he gives there [i.e. in Timaeus ] of the participant is different from what he says in his so-called unwritten teachings ( Ancient Greek : ἄγραφα δόγματα , romanized :  agrapha dogmata )." In Metaphysics he writes: "Now since

16200-695: The reality of the material world, considering it only an image or copy of the real world. According to this theory of Forms, there are these two kinds of things: the apparent world of material objects grasped by the senses, which constantly changes, and an unchanging and unseen world of Forms, grasped by reason ( λογική ). Plato's Forms represent types of things, as well as properties , patterns, and relations , which are referred to as objects. Just as individual tables, chairs, and cars refer to objects in this world, 'tableness', 'chairness', and 'carness', as well as e.g. justice , truth , and beauty refer to objects in another world. One of Plato's most cited examples for

16335-465: The riposte that Nozick's account merely hides the problem and does not solve it, for it leaves open the question of why Smith would not have had his belief if it had been false. The most promising answer seems to be that it is because Smith's belief was caused by the truth of what he believes; but that puts us back in the causalist camp. Criticisms and counter examples (notably the Grandma case ) prompted

16470-456: The so-called "middle dialogues" provide more clearly stated positive teachings that are often ascribed to Plato such as the theory of Forms. The remaining dialogues are classified as "late" and are generally agreed to be difficult and challenging pieces of philosophy. It should, however, be kept in mind that many of the positions in the ordering are still highly disputed, and also that the very notion that Plato's dialogues can or should be "ordered"

16605-475: The subject must also be able to "correctly reconstruct" (mentally) that causal chain. Goldman's analysis would rule out Gettier cases in that Smith's beliefs are not caused by the truths of those beliefs; it is merely accidental that Smith's beliefs in the Gettier cases happen to be true, or that the prediction made by Smith: "The winner of the job will have 10 coins", on the basis of his putative belief, (see also bundling ) came true in this one case. This theory

16740-488: The term "featherless biped", and later ζῷον πολιτικόν ( zōon politikon ), a "political" or "state-building" animal ( Aristotle 's term, based on Plato's Statesman ). Diogenes the Cynic took issue with the former definition, reportedly producing a recently plucked chicken with the exclamation of "Here is Plato’s man!" (variously translated as "Behold, a man!"; "Here is a human!" etc.). Plato never presents himself as

16875-589: The truth of N ". For example, carrying on from the previous example, one can say that knowing that someone is called S ocrates is sufficient to know that someone has a N ame. A necessary and sufficient condition requires that both of the implications S ⇒ N {\displaystyle S\Rightarrow N} and N ⇒ S {\displaystyle N\Rightarrow S} (the latter of which can also be written as S ⇐ N {\displaystyle S\Leftarrow N} ) hold. The first implication suggests that S

17010-457: The truth that Jones will not get the job, that would have defeated the justification for his belief.) Pragmatism was developed as a philosophical doctrine by C.S.Peirce and William James (1842–1910). In Peirce's view, the truth is nominally defined as a sign's correspondence to its object and pragmatically defined as the ideal final opinion to which sufficient investigation would lead sooner or later. James' epistemological model of truth

17145-432: The unchanging definitions of scientific concepts such as momentum. Thus, adopting a causal response to the Gettier problem usually requires one to adopt (as Goldman gladly does) some form of reliabilism about justification . Keith Lehrer and Thomas Paxson (1969) proposed another response, by adding a defeasibility condition to the JTB analysis. On their account, knowledge is undefeated justified true belief —which

17280-486: Was Heinrich Gomperz who described it in his speech during the 7th International Congress of Philosophy in 1930. All the sources related to the ἄγραφα δόγματα have been collected by Konrad Gaiser and published as Testimonia Platonica . Plato's thought is often compared with that of his most famous student, Aristotle , whose reputation during the Western Middle Ages so completely eclipsed that of Plato that

17415-435: Was a fake barn. So this is not knowledge. An alternate example is if Jones looks up and forms the belief: According to Nozick's view this fulfills all four premises. Therefore, this is knowledge, since Jones couldn't have been wrong, since the fake barns cannot be painted red. This is a troubling account however, since it seems the first statement I see a barn can be inferred from I see a red barn ; however by Nozick's view

17550-614: Was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy , and was the founder of the Platonic Academy , a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught

17685-510: Was buried in the garden of his academy in Athens, close to the sacred shrine of the Muses. In 2024, a scroll found at Herculaneum was deciphered, that confirmed some previous theories. The papyrus says that before death Plato "retained enough lucidity to critique the musician for her lack of rhythm", and that he was buried "in his designated garden in the Academy of Athens". Plato never speaks in his own voice in his dialogues ; every dialogue except

17820-478: Was not a nickname, but a perfectly normal name, and "the common practice of naming a son after his grandfather was reserved for the eldest son", not Plato. According to Debra Nails, Plato's grandfather was the Aristocles who was archon in 605/4. Plato was born in Athens or Aegina , between 428 and 423 BC. He was a member of an aristocratic and influential family. His father was Ariston, who may have been

17955-576: Was not actually the first to raise the problem named after him; its existence was acknowledged by both Alexius Meinong and Bertrand Russell , the latter of which discussed the problem in his book Human knowledge: Its scope and limits . In fact, the problem has been known since the Middle Ages , and both Indian philosopher Dharmottara and scholastic logician Peter of Mantua presented examples of it. Dharmottara, in his commentary c.  770 AD on Dharmakirti 's Ascertainment of Knowledge , gives

18090-604: Was sold as a slave as early as in 404 BC, when the Spartans conquered Aegina, or, alternatively, in 399 BC, immediately after the death of Socrates. After Dionysius's death, according to Plato's Seventh Letter , Dion requested Plato return to Syracuse to tutor Dionysius II , who seemed to accept Plato's teachings, but eventually became suspicious of their motives, expelling Dion and holding Plato against his will. Eventually Plato left Syracuse and Dion would return to overthrow Dionysius and rule Syracuse, before being usurped by Callippus ,

18225-423: Was that which works in the way of belief, and a belief was true if in the long run it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our semihospitable world. Peirce argued that metaphysics could be cleaned up by a pragmatic approach. Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects

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