The Gettier-illusion

Gettier-partialism and infallibilism

Stephen Hetherington

pp. 217-230

in: Claudio de Almeida, Stephen Hetherington (eds), Topics in contemporary epistemology, Synthese 188 (2), 2012.

Abstract

Could the standard interpretation of Gettier cases reflect a fundamental confusion? Indeed so. How well can epistemologists argue for the truth of that standard interpretation? Not so well. A methodological mistake is allowing them not to notice how they are simply (and inappropriately) being infallibilists when regarding Gettiered beliefs as failing to be knowledge. There is no Gettier problem that we have not merely created for ourselves by unwittingly being infallibilists about knowledge.