Two Questions on the Nature of Knowledge

Excerpts from the Paper

Two Questions on the Nature of Knowledge
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In discussion with Theaetetus, Socrates suggested that knowledge was best understood as true judgement with an account. (1863) The debate opens in Socrates’ remark that one has to distinguish between things that are knowable and things that are not. (McDowell 126 5) They move through different statements by Theaetetus to which Socrates responds, usually in a new question. It seems that knowledge is discussed as a matter of perception, then of ‘true judgement’ and then what Socrates insists should be true judgement but with an account. For example, a modern-day physician may have noticed something to be true in patients of a kind, may have seen an unusual drug improve a condition, but must be able...

.....ery slope’ assertions is plainly quite dangerous. It is probably safe to state that genuine knowledge is quite limited and usually one encounters collections of data that may or may not have significance and which should not be construed automatically.
The partial solution is to cultivate a habit of mind that seeks facts, however small, and accepts their fleeting nature according to contexts that include the arrival of new facts. Patterned thinking or assumptions seem destined to produce what is false.
Works Cited
Gettier, Edmund L. “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” {First appeared in Analysis. 23. 1963:
121-123}.
McDowell, John. trans. “Plato and the Concept of Knowledge” {from Theaetetus. Oxford at the
University Press, 1863, 94-109}.