Magnus Anderson wrote:You keep saying this, but is it really true?
Suppose that Socrates believes that "Unicorns exist." How do you verify that his belief is knowledge? Since knowledge is justified true belief, you have to verify that his belief is BOTH justified and true. In other words, you have to check off both J and T. But how do you do that? First, you have to ask him to justify his claim (or you have to figure out his rationale on your own) and determine whether his justification is a good one or a bad one. So let's say you ask Socrates to justify his belief. He tells you that, because he saw a bunch of unicorns once, he can conclude that unicorns exist.
Sigh. That's a terrible justification. That justification does not pass most people's sense of what is justified. And if fact whatever you do to see if something is true which Socrates must do also or HIS belief is not meeting the criteria, is looking at justification. And, as I have said, is there anything that shows the belief is false.
Further there is a difference between what is rational for a person to believe and what is to be considered knowledge. It may be quite rational for me to consider something knowledge that I cannot demonstrate to others.
If we are evaluating someone else's belief, then we are looking to see if it should be considered knowledge in general.
And when you evaluate a belief, someone elses, you do
NOT
look to see if it is true.
You look to see if it is justified. Exactly as scientists do. They check the protocols. They repeat them.
There is no list of truths they can check.
Now if you want to say one can directly check with 'obvious' things. Like is someone bald. Sure one can look at the person and see for oneself. Here the justification is as close to truth as we get. That kind of direct observing is no help with things like your unicorn example. Further, we also can be wrong. Further that person may have Hollywood makeup or we have been hypnotized. IOW there is always an asterisk. Even direct looking at is a kind of justification.
When I too looked at the man I also saw no hair.
Unless you are making claims to some kind of absolute knowing that is infallible, we are always talking about justification.
And when people talk about jtb in relation to knowledge they do not mean that any justification means one can check of J. Opinions vary on what one must do to have a good J, but they are always looking for a good J. And that J always stands inside other knowledge. What do we know in general and how would this idea fit with what we know. (tentatively, in the scientific way)
Here's other way to show the problem of your counterexample:
Let's say some Native americans who live on the East Coast of the US talk to others about these white men with ships the size of hills who could kill game with magical fire from their hands or whatever. Any part of that. (because you stacked the deck by choosing unicorns) they are correct. They did see these people, they did see the ships. The other native americans do not believe them, despite it being justified (accorrding to you). So they try to check the truth. Well, the ships are gone. They find no evidence.
But those first natives were correct. They did see Europeans. Unfortunately their justification is not one that carries over to be strong enough for non-witnesses. This does not mean they are wrong, obviously. But it means that their sighting cannot, according to most versions of jtb become part of general knowledge. Even though, it turns out, it was true.
But there was no way to check if it was true. And there is no way in general to see if something is true beyond what is looking into justification.
Yes, one can try to find MORE justification than the person in question offers us. We can seek to make the justification stronger. But we are always looking at justification. We are not looking at truth.
unless we want to claim direct aboslute knowledge.
The kinds of things one looks at as justification are the only things one can look at when one is trying to decide if it is true.
Yes, someone can have a belief that is founded on a blurry video tape of the woods. And someone who wants to evaluate the evidence can go to the woods and look for footprints or fur on twigs, but this is all just more justification. Reasons to believe. There is no other process to determine truth. They is no other category of evidence. Person B can look for more justification for person A's belief, but that is simply finding more justification or finding counterevidence. There is no...well, I have looked at the justification and now I will check the truth.