The stopped clock

About this video

Mina comes down to the kitchen and looks at the clock on the wall. It says two o'clock, and it really is two o'clock. She has a good reason to believe it, too: the kitchen clock has always been right. But the clock stopped yesterday, at exactly two.

In Knowledge Level 1, knowledge was a stool with three legs: you believe it, it is true, and you have good reasons. Mina's belief stands on all three. Yet most people feel at once that she doesn't know the time. An hour later, a working clock says three. Mina's clock would still say two, and she would have believed that too.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote about a stopped clock in 1948, and in 1963 Edmund Gettier wrote a famous three-page paper full of cases like it. A true belief with good reasons that is still right only by luck is called a Gettier case; we call it lucky knowledge, which is not really knowledge at all.

What is missing? Most philosophers agree on the main idea: your good reason has to be connected to the truth in the case in front of you, not just usually. A test to add to the stool: if the truth had been different, would my reason have shown me? A working clock would have. A stopped clock is right twice a day, and still can't tell you the time. This video goes with The Stopped Clock lesson of Knowledge Level 2 on Knaph.

Transcript

1. 0:00Mina reads the kitchen clock. Two o'clock. And it really is two.
2. 0:05She believes it, it's true, and the clock has always been right.
3. 0:11But the clock stopped yesterday, at exactly two o'clock.
4. 0:17An hour later, a working clock says three. Hers still says two.
5. 0:23Three legs, and right only by luck. Philosophers call it a Gettier case.
6. 0:29Knowledge needs a reason connected to the truth, this time.