可错论的合理证明与碰巧为真的运气

[摘要]

葛梯尔问题是如何解决知识论上存在的悖论的问题，并非仅仅是寻找第四条件的问题；葛梯尔问题的实质在于可错论的合理证明与运气的结合，而非仅仅是推理的前提有误，更非语词的误用。可错论的合理证明始终会为信念之碰巧为真保留一定的可能性，运气使这种可能性成为现实；可错论的合理证明原则不可废，否则，怀疑论将不可避免，因此，消除运气的影响就成了解决葛梯尔问题的关键。

[关键词] 可错论； 合理证明； 运气； 葛梯尔问题； 敏感性； 安全性； 知识论

Fallibilist Justification and Veritic Epistemic Luck： The Essence

of Gettier Problem and Misunderstandings in It

Wen Xueping

Abstract：

More than half a century ago， the American philosopher Edmund Gettier proposed two classic counterexamples against the traditional tripartite analysis of knowledge. These counterexamples have brought a great problem for the definition of knowledge， which is called ″the Gettier problem.″ There has been endless debate among epistemologists about how to understand and solve it and a lot of misunderstandings of that problem have thus arisen.

Secondly， some epistemologists think that the Gettier problem results from the false premise of deduction， which directly leads to the nofalse premise solution （NFPS） to the problem. NFPS can either be strict or moderate. As a strong advocate of strict NFPS， the Chinese epistemologist Chen Jiaming interprets epistemic justification as ″verification，″ and then views Gettiers counterexample of the tencoin case not as an epistemic case but as the case of misusage of words. In fact， the strict NFPS is a disguised form of infallibilism which directly results in skepticism while the proponents of the moderate NFPS fail to make clear the meaning of ″essentially″ in the condition that ″Ss justification for p does not essentially depend on any false premise.″ The failure of NFPS arises from the misconception about the fundamental structure of the Gettier problem， which is a combination of fallibilist justification and veritic epistemic luck. Fallibilist justification may cause the justifiers of proposition to separate from the facts asserted by the proposition. That is to say， the justifiers of proposition are inconsistent with its truthmaker， which will usually induce a falsehood. But the good luck called ″veritic epistemic luck″ makes you magically avoid the falsehood and get the truth. In order to solve the Gettier problem， we should eliminate either the inconsistency between justifier and truthmaker or the effect of veritic epistemic luck. But you cannot eliminate the inconsistency completely； otherwise you will get into infallibilism. So it is a preponderant solution to the Gettier problem to eliminate the effect of veritic epistemic luck by means of the condition of ″safety.″ Finally， some epistemologists think that knowledge can be lucky， which means that the epistemic agents in Gettiers counterexamples actually know the target propositions instead of not knowing. The claim is based on the idea that knowledge varies in degree. Lucky knowledge is at the edge of ″knowing，″ but it is still ″knowing″ instead of ″not knowing.″ This argument hardly holds water because it begs the question. It is the case that knowledge is incompatible with veritic epistemic luck， but it is not the case that knowledge is incompatible with all kinds of luck. Furthermore， it is our universal intuition and daytoday practice that knowledge excludes veritic epistemic luck.

Key words： fallibilism； justification； luck； the Gettier Problem； sensitivity； safety； epistemology

一、 何谓“葛梯尔问题”

日常意义上的“知识”（knowledge）一词至少有两层意思：一是指作为过程的内在状态，即“知道”（knowing）的状态；二是指认识活动的真理性成果。“知道”的状态必定蕴含着真理性的认知成果；获得真理性认知成果必然蕴含着“知道”的状态。因此，哲学家们对“知识”概念的分析通常就是对“知道”这一意向状态的分析。

知识概念的传统定义是“有合理证明的真信念”（justified true belief）“Belief”一词与“knowledge”一样，有相同类型的过程/结果歧义，既可指一种作为过程的内在的意向状态，即“相信”的状态，也可指作为“相信”之结果的状态，即“信念”。这两层含义也是相互蕴含的，因而经常相互替换。，即S知道p，当且仅当：

（1）p是真的；

（2）S相信p；