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Showing posts from September, 2010

More on Gettier: Accounting for Donnellan

John left a very thoughtful comment on a previous entry about Gettier . Following Donnellan, John presents two possible readings of (1) The man who gets the job has ten coins in his pocket. One reading is called "referential and the other is "attributive." I don't think either one creates a problem for my analysis of Gettier cases, though itdoes force me to clarify and elaborate upon my argument. If we take Smith to be using "The man who gets the job" in the referential sense, then (as John observes) what Smith says is true. It would mean that (1) is semantically equivalent to (2) Jones has ten coins in his pocket (3) The man whom I believe will get the job has ten coins in his pocket (4) The man whom I refer to as "the man who gets the job" has ten coins in his pocket. (2)-(4) are all justified true beliefs held by Smith. Thus, under a referential reading, (1) is a justified true belief held by Smith. However, a fact which John o

Bodings

I've got a lot on my plate at the moment--I've just started teaching a high school American Lit course, which I have yet to plan, and I've got a pretty full schedule of ESL students, too, as well as my graduate courses in European Studies, not to mention an idea for a book which I've barely gotten around to outlining, and also my two little ones to care for--so I doubt I'll have time to post much for a while. Here are some ideas I have for upcoming posts, in case anyone wants to check back in a month or two: A critique of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad , which was monumentally disappointing; An homage to my favorite composer, entitled "Flowers For Prokofiev"; A summation of my previous posts on the zombie and knowledge arguments, as well as my own incompatability argument, entitled "The Price Of Anti-Physicalism." That's TTFN.