Analyze the notion of epistemic dependence.

Is knowledge
based on trust?
The notion of epistemic dependence was formulated by John Hardwig in 1985 to try

and convince epistemologists that intellectual authority can constitute a justification

for belief and knowing and provide new question about our epistemic self and our

understanding of link between knowledge and knower.

Epistemic dependence is based upon two premises, one states that there are good

reasons to believe something if you have good reasons to believe someone else has

good reason to believe it and therefore there can be good reasons to believe

something without evidence regarding the truth of the proposition. The second

premise states that the expert is the epistemic superior of the layman, in the areas

where the expert has their expertise, and due to this it can be sometimes rational to

refuse to think for one’s self. Hardwig then applies these premises to the concept of

knowledge and shows that the relationship between expert and layman is crucial to

the scientific and scholarly pursuit of knowledge.

Hardwig starts by accepting the fact that you can have knowledge of certain things

and that he shall restrict himself to only talk about these propositions. He claims that

evidence, sound arguments or factual information, is what most people would

answer if asked what are good reasons to believe a proposition?. He also makes the

claim that this evidence is not always available for everyone to obtain and that for

most people some types of evidence would be impossible for them to understand.

The following hypothetical situation is supposed imagine A has good reasons to

believe that p and B has no evidence to believe that p but B does have good reasons

to believe that A has good reason to believe that p, the question is then asked

whether B has good reasons to believe p. Hardwig believes that B does have good
reasons to believe p but not because he has evidence establishing the truth of p but

evidence that A is better informed in p and has conducted the inquiry necessary to

have evidence to believe p. Now Hardwig explains that this is easy to accept when

the inquiry necessary is simple enough that anyone can easily understand A’s

reasons that p but when the inquiry necessary is so complex that an average person

could not check A’s reasons, we must still conclude that B’s belief that p is rationally

justified. His reason for this is the fact that if we don’t we must conclude that most of

the worlds knowledge is based on irrational or nonrational beliefs and that as a

complex culture learns more the less rational the beliefs in that knowledge are.

The second part of the epistemic dependence starts by accepting that there are

experts in certain areas and by showing how the idea that someone can only hold

rational beliefs of the things that they know themselves and not via dependency on

someone else’s knowledge, is just not true. He states that there are many things

which you can escape epistemic dependence of the experts but to never rely on

experts in every field would leave you with views which are mainly unrelated,

irrational and untested beliefs, so it is rational to sometimes depend on other

people’s knowledge as we believe more than we can ever be fully informed about.

Hardwig does accept the fact that if someone cannot understand the reasons an

expert gives, they cannot themselves know who the experts are and therefore must

rely on the ranking of experts, also he accepts when this is not possible rational

deference is not possible.

‘B can either believe that p either because B has good reasons to believe that A has

good reasons to believe that p or because B has good reasons to believe that C has

good reasons to believe that A has good reasons to believe that p. But, in either
case, B cannot have sufficiently good reason not to believe that p or to believe that

not p. ’1

Hardwig goes on to explain why the layman is inferior to the expert and even if the

layman does not trust a certain expert’s belief that p he must still accept that the

expert is rationally superior, if the layman acknowledges the expert as an expert, and

cannot rationally choose to defer what the expert says. This does not mean the

layman cannot gives objections to a theory but only that the expert is the only person

who can say whether the arguments, given by the layman, are valid or not. Hardwig

points out that there are certain Ad hominems that expert can commit which allow

the layman to rationally refuse to defer to the experts, like having a bias, covering for

peers, refusing to accept mistakes in his work or conforming to social pressure.

Hardwig notes that these Ad hominems are only important when it comes to the

relation to layman and the expert and not between peers, due to the fact that peers

can test the an argument on its own basis and the Ad hominems will be shown up.

Hardwig also points out the B can have good reasons to believe that A has good

reasons to believe that p even if p isn’t true because experts can still be wrong.

Hardwig concludes from this that sometimes it is irrational to think for oneself and

sometimes it is rational to depend on others in certain areas.

Hardwig concludes his essay on epistemic dependence by analysing the word

knowledge in the standard tripartite definition and applying the first two parts of the

argument to this. The tripartite definition of knowledge works on 3 basis 1. A believes

that P, 2. A has good reason to believe that P and 3. P is true. Now Hardwig accepts

this is not the best definition of knowledge as you can satisfy 1 and 2 and not 3 and

instead focuses on the second premise A has good reasons to believe that P. He

1
J, Hardwig,1985, ‘Epistemic Dependence’, The Journal of Philosophy, p342
states that there must be a progression from A having good reasons to believe that P

to A knows that P. If there isn’t you could write the phase ‘B has good reasons to

believe that A has good reasons to believe that P’ as ‘B knows that A knows that P’,

but this doesn’t seem initially right. Hardwig uses the example of the research done

on charm particles to show that knowledge may either be passed vicariously or that

community is the only on with knowledge. The experiment on charm particles took

many years and hundreds of people to complete and no-one person could have

done it on their own as it spanned different sections of expertise and the amount of

time it would take one person to collect data would be so long that the data collect

first would be useless by the time the last data collected.

‘A knows that M.

B knows that N.

C knows that A knows M and if M then O.

D knows that B knows N, C knows O and if N and O then P.

E and D know P.’2

Hardwig claims that there are only two conclusions you can take from this either

knowledge can be passed vicariously and you can know something without

possession of the evidence for it or that knowledge is held by the whole community

and not by individuals. If we choose the former we can keep our of epistemological

independence but we will have to change our concept of knowledge and learn to

accept that knowledge can be passed without the evidence being passed or we can

2
J, Hardwig,1985, ‘Epistemic Dependence’, The Journal of Philosophy, p348
accept the latter but we lose our epistemological independence while keeping our

concept of knowledge, that only the holder of the truth of p can ever know that p.

In conclusion its seems that most of the knowledge that we claim to know does not fit

into the definition of knowledge that most of us would agree on but as Webb as

shown trust is not only crucial in knowledge but in speech as well, so it seems that

while we might not think of knowledge in terms of trust we cannot escape the fact

that trust is foundation that holds all of language and knowledge together.

Words 1380
 Bibliography

Hardwig, J, 1985, ‘Epistemic Dependence’, The Journal of Philosophy, 335-349

Hardwig, J 1991, ‘The Role of Trust in Knowledge’, The Journal of Philosophy, 693-
708

Blais, M, 1987, ‘Epistemic Tit for Tat’ The Journal of Philosophy, 363-375

Webb, M, O, 1993, ‘Why I Know About As Much As You: A Reply to Hardwig’, The
Journal of Philosophy, 260-270
 Is Knowledge Justified True Belief?
In Theaeteus written by Plato, Socrates contemplates what knowledge actually is, he

concludes that it is true belief justified by reason. So if someone was sick and had no

medical training and believed that they would be fine it would not be classed as knowledge

due to the fact that there is no justified reason to believe it. This definition of knowledge was

seen as the correct definition of knowledge until the 1960’s when Edward Gettier, an

American philosopher, argued that reason alone was not enough to justify belief into

knowledge.

A formal way of writing Plato’s definition of knowledge is the tripartite definition which list

three components to knowledge; truth, belief and justification.

S knows that P IFF (i) P is true

(ii) S believes that P, and

(iii) S is justified in believing that P.

Gettier believes that the tripartite definition does not give an accurate description of

knowledge and constructs two examples where all three parts of the tripartite definition are

met but in which we would say that S did not know that P. Gettier’s first example is of Smith

and Jones, two men going for the same job. Smith has been told by the president of the

company that Jones will get the job, and Smith has beforehand counted ten coins in Jones’

pocket. Due to this Smith makes the following conjunctive proposition:

(1) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket.

From this Smith makes the proposition

(2) The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.

Gettier claims that as 2 is being derived from 1, for which Smith has strong evidence for,

Smith can be justified in believing 2. Gettier states that in fact Smith was given the wrong
information about Jones getting the job and unknown to him he also has ten coins in his

pocket at that time. As Smith believes 2 is true it fulfils all the criteria of the tripartite definition

and according to that Smith knows the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.

Gettier argues that Smith does not know this his reasons for being justified in believing 2

arise from him knowing the amount of coins in Jones’ pocket and it is just luck which makes

the proposition also true about him.

The second of Gettier’s examples is of Smith, Jones and Brown. Smith has strong evidence

to believe that Jones owns a Ford as he has seen him drive one many times and recently

offered Smith a ride in a Ford, from this Smith makes the following proposition:

(1) Jones owns a Ford

Smith’s other friend Brown is in a location unknown to Smith so Smith picks three places at

random and constructs the following propositions;

(2) Either Jones owns Ford or Brown is in Boston

(3) Either Jones owns Ford or Brown is in Barcelona

(4) Either Jones owns Ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk

Each of these propositions is entailed by 1 and as Smith has strong evidence to believe

1 he believes 2, 3 and 4 as well. Gettier again points out 2 others conditions first Jones

does not own a Ford and secondly Brown is in fact in Barcelona. Due to this all three

condition of the tripartite definition of knowledge are met 3 is true, Smith believes 3 and

Smith is justified in believing 3 but Smith does not know 3.

Due to these examples many people have tried to salvage the tripartite definition but no-

one has come up with an adequate revision which everyone else agrees on. John Dancy

in his book ‘Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology’ explains that there are three

ways to salvage the tripartite definition firstly show that Gettier’s examples do not work,

accept Gettier’s examples and add clauses to the tripartite definition to make it work, or
finally accept Gettier’s example and change the tripartite definition so the examples don’t

work anymore. Dancy discusses 5 ways in which the tripartite definition may be salvaged

each of which is not perfect and all have flaws. The reason there may be so many

different ways is due to the fact that we don’t know exactly is wrong with the tripartite

definition we just know that Gettier’s examples seem to show that something is wrong.

The first response to Gettier’s examples is the response from the presence of relevant

falsehood, which states that if your initial belief is false you can be justified in believing

any propositions which are inferred from it. This would fix the tripartite definition by

adding a fourth clause which states that nothing can be known which is inferred by false

beliefs. Dancy is quick to point out that this theory is flawed on to two points, firstly you

can change Gettier’s example enough to not involve inferential knowledge. Secondly, he

claims that this theory is maybe too harsh on its definition of knowledge and it makes it

likely that it would be impossible to have much or not any knowledge at all with this

example.

The second response to Gettier’s example is the response from defeasibility, which

states that there were truths that could have been known which would have ended the

justification of Smith’s belief, if they were known. This would have added a fourth clause

to the tripartite definition stating that for knowledge indefeasible justification is required.

The third response is from reliability, which states that you can have knowledge from

justified belief if that belief is from a reliable method. One problem with this method is

that you cannot be certain whether a method is wrong in theory or whether the person

who used the method applied it wrong, and as man is fallible it seems unlikely that he

has created a perfect method which is always reliable.

The fourth response is from conclusive reasons, which states that for knowledge justified

true belief be based upon conclusive reasons. The problem with this response is trying to

figure out what makes reasons conclusive, one solution to this is to say beliefs A-D are
conclusive reasons for E which means that A-D could not be true if E was true. Now this

does deal with Gettier’s examples but it also makes knowledge an extremely rare thing,

as we never have conclusive reasons in that sense in the empirical realm.

The fifth response is Goldman’s Causal Theory, which states that S’s belief in P must be

caused by P. There are many flaws to this response firstly you can know something even

if you belief wasn’t caused by that truth, James Chase was the first to point out this

problem and gave the following to prove his point. Omar dies from a heart attack and

then a madman who is passing by cuts off his head. Kasim is walking past later and sees

Omar’s dead body and head and concludes that Omar is dead, which is justified by him

seeing the body and the head separate. According to Goldman Causal Theory Kasim

does not know that Omar is dead because his decapitation was not the cause of his

death and as the truth did not cause the belief it is not knowledge according to Goldman.

It seems that knowledge is a very hard word to define and this may be because we use

the term is so many different ways that one definition may not work for all the different

ways we use it. The tripartite definition of knowledge is useful but not perfect so we still

have no conclusive way of defining what knowledge is. It seems that justified true belief

is the closest we can get to knowledge but the issue philosophers have seems not to be

with the question ‘whether justified true belief is knowledge?’ but rather what constitutes

as a justified true belief and until that question is answered we will still be arguing about

whether we can have knowledge or not.

Words 1340
 Bibliography

Gettier, E L, ‘Is justified True Belief Knowledge?’, First published in Analysis, Vol 23
1963 Oxford: Blackwell, reprinted in Griffiths, A P (ed.) (1967), Knowledge & Belief,
Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp133-46

Dancy, J, 1985, ‘Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology’, Oxford, Blackwell ch.

2

Hamlyn, D W 1970, ‘The Theory of Knowledge’, London; Macmillan, pp 78-112