Gettier Problem and the Nature of Knowledge

Edmund Gettier in his 1963 paper presents two cases of justified belief formation, and claims to contradict the justified true belief (JTB) account of knowledge. The Gettier problem is considered an influential example of how the nature of knowledge is unclear, and cannot be understood as JTB. This article analyzes the wording of belief in the two cases posed by Gettier, showing that the beliefs in both the cases are unjustified, thus cannot form JTB. Hence the conclusion “JTB is not knowledge” in both cases is incorrect once Gettier’s wording is taken into account. Using the concept of epistemic quality of belief, I further show that knowledge can be merely justified belief for sufficiently strong justification. The article concludes with a discussion of the merits of understanding knowledge as sufficiently justified belief.