Nature of Knowledge Essay

In the study of cognition we distinguish between acquaintance by acquaintance, in essence to know mortal or know of something. Ability knowledge is for face to know how to swim or how to ride a bike. And, our main concern, propositional knowledge that is sentences or statements that can be either original or false. To have knowledge one brings to have a mental picture and for this principle to be true. The following text provide show how true belief, even if it is justify in a cerebral look, does not dress for knowledge. tackle Nina, she is walking by some expansion schedule gondolas in the casino. She feels drawn to one of the machines, and believes it is her successful mean solar day and that she go away win because of the nice appealing colors on the slot machine. She places her bet, the wheels spin and line up third lucky 7s, she wins and her belief turns out to be a true one. barely while her belief being true, intuitively this do not suffice for knowledge, as it is favorable to ascribe this winning to processed chance.Even if different suppositions may justify Ninas belief in winning, it is natural to think that what Nina lacks in this situation to have knowledge, is justification. And also for this justification to be strong enough for Nina to be a rational being in believing she ordain win, without need to turn to superstition or vagueness to explain her belief. But even if Nina where to have a justified true belief, which she form in a rational way, it is easy to show that this neither suffice for knowledge.Say Nina is a con girl, she has tricked the manager of the slot machine shaper to get out her a manual, showing all the results the machine can produce, together with a serial tot for each spin which is also displayed on the slot machine. So it is easy to look down in the manual what the next result will be. It is noonday and Nina is now standing in front of the slot machine in the casino. She reads the serial number in the display and matches it in her manual.The next spin will line up three lucky 7s and win. She places her bet and spins the wheel. Unbeknown to Nina there was an mistake when printing the manual so all the total are mixed up, making the manual useless. And this day the casino owner celebrates his 60th birthday by letting all the machines go off course at noon and give every placed bet at that time the three lucky 7s line up. Ninas justified belief turned out to be true, besides due to lucky and unlucky circumstances we do not ascribe knowledge to Nina in this situation.Nina was amenable and rational when forming her belief, considering she went the length to trick the boss to give her the manual to adopt which spins win. If her goal is to win at slots, she was responsible when gathering evidence and responsible and rational in believing her evidence.And even if this example showed that an operator with a justified true belief formed in a rational and responsible way, do not ne cessarily have knowledge. It is easy to see that even if the agent lacks knowledge, she will often be successful in reaching her goals, because of the rational way she gains justification for her beliefs. Though it is not sufficient or may not even be requisite to have justified true beliefs when trying to travail the nature of knowledge.BibliographyPritchard D. (2006) What is this thing called knowledge?, Routledge, Oxon