The town of fake barns

About this video

Henry is driving through the countryside with his son. "Look," he says, "a barn." He is right: it is a real barn, and he sees it clearly in good light. But he doesn't know that the people of this town have built hundreds of fake barns for a film - just fronts, painted to look real from the road. The one he looked at happens to be the only real barn for miles.

In the stopped clock, something was broken. Here nothing is: Henry's eyes work, the light is good, and the real barn is what makes him believe it. He believes it, it is true, and he has a good reason - all three legs of the stool. He even passes the stopped clock's test: if there had been no barn, he wouldn't have seen one. And yet many people feel he doesn't really know.

The case was told by the American philosopher Alvin Goldman in 1976, who heard it from Carl Ginet. It adds a second question: could I easily have been wrong, the way I came to believe this? Henry could. He was one glance away from a fake. "It looks like a barn from the road" is a good reason on most roads, but in this town it would lead him wrong almost every time.

So a good reason isn't only one that is usually reliable. It is one that wouldn't lead you wrong here, in the place and the situation you are actually in. If Henry's son had said "this is the town with the fake barns", Henry would have walked round it, and then he really would have known. This video goes with The Town of Fake Barns lesson of Knowledge Level 2 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00Henry drives past a barn. Look, a barn. It really is one.
2. 0:05His eyes work, the light is good, the barn is real.
3. 0:11But for a film, this town built hundreds of fake barn fronts.
4. 0:17He was one glance away from a fake. He could easily have been wrong.
5. 0:23Looks like a barn is a good reason on most roads. Not here.
6. 0:29A good reason must not easily lead you wrong, where you are.