The thing I always wondered about Gettier-type cases is, Who is the knower
who knows what is *really* on the other side of the hill, or the correct
make of car, or whatever? Where is this knower situated?

Just askin'.
Hilde


On 1/14/10 3:45 PM, "Emanuela Bianchi" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> As someone continentally trained I confess these "Gettier intuitions"
> are new to me but I have been following the thread with fascination.  It
> seems to me that it requires that in order to have "knowledge" one must
> be perfectly aware of all the most recent changes in circumstances (Anne
> now drives a Pontiac, silly!), or rather subscribe to something like a
> *fantasy* that one *could* be perfectly aware of all the most recent
> changes in circumstances in the world, i.e. a patriarchal fantasy of
> omniscience, most cogently and brilliantly critiqued (to my mind) from a
> feminist perspective by Donna Haraway in "Situated Knowledges: The
> Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective"
> as the "god-trick."  If we all know that that Americophile, Anne,
> wouldn't be seen dead in an Unamerican car, don't we know (to all
> intents and purposes) that she drives one?  ("She drives" is, after all,
> a habit, a disposition, not a singular act of driving at time t).  Might
> Gettier intuiters be further pushed into specifying their knowledge - do
> you know if she's driving one RIGHT NOW??  No? Ignoramus!!).  Which
> leads us to questions of what we might reasonably need to "know" in
> order to be said to "know" (the answers to which seem inherently and
> necessarily vague and context dependent).  This thought would also seem
> to have a bearing on the denial of certain sorts of ignorances that
> shore up power (precisely ignorances of the functioning of power, of
> class, race, gender supremacy etc. so skillfully thematized in the
> recent work of Mills, Tuana, etc.) that presumably are also at work in
> the construction of the Gettier intuitions.  Which is a short way of
> saying that it makes perfect sense to me, Kathryn, that those in more
> authoritative positions would be more inclined to "intuit" based on a
> claim to access to precise and certain knowledge of the most recent and
> up-to-date versions of "all that is the case."
> 
> All best and with thanks for a stimulating discussion,
> 
> Emma