Epistemology Part 1: Defining Knowledge and the Gettier Problem

What is knowledge? This is the simplest question of epistemology. The simplest answer is that knowledge is justified true belief, but this definition has limits. Ever since Edmund Gettier wrote his essay ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’, any set of circumstances in which it is shown that justified true belief is not knowledge has come to be known as a Gettier problem. In his essay ‘Thought’, Gilbert Harman mentions Gettier problems where justified true belief is not knowledge because a subject does not have access to all the evidence. There is an example of this type of Gettier problem in one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta.

In the movie, the Norsefire conservative political party has taken over the government of England. V is a terrorist who fight against this regime, and Detective Eric Finch has been assigned with the task of locating and capturing V. While investigating V, Finch comes across evidence that the government released a deadly virus that killed many thousands of people and framed it as a terrorist attack in order to gain power. His suspicions are eventually confirmed when he is contacted by a man named Rookwood, who tells him that there was indeed a government conspiracy covering up that event. Therefore, Finch forms the true justified belief that the Norsefire party killed thousands of people in order to gain power. However, this belief is not knowledge because what Finch doesn't know is that the Rookwood he spoke to was actually V in disguise. Finch soon recieves confirmation that the real Rookwood is dead, and instantly distrusts his former belief under the assumption that V was lying. Finch does not know that the Norsefire party committed genocide until the end of the movie, when Evey Hammond convinces him that V was telling the truth. Thus we see that justified true beliefs cannot always be considered knowledge.