Gettier mucking it all up

(Originally Written September 13, 2006 in Epistemology)

Math & Geometry
-involve necessary truths
-can't be conceived to be false
-apply universally

Logical Laws
-law of ideality
-law of the excluded middle

Innate ideas

Plato - encounter with the forms
Descartes - God implanted some innate ideas in us
Kant - we're all hard wired in a similar way

Knowledge = justified true belief. Gettier mucked it all up.

A personal Gettier problem

I have knowledge that my name is Chris. I have strong evidence for this because I have always gone by that name and seen a birth certificate that has the name Chris with my parents' signatures on their. Unbeknownst to me however, two children were born at 11:09 on December 30, 1983 at Holy Cross Hospital. Rob and Vickie Linehan named their son Chris. Rod and Valerie Little named their son Chris. Tragically, baby Chris Linehan and baby Chris Little were accidentally mixed up and given to the wrong parents. My name is Chris is thus, coincidentally true, but my justifying evidence doesn't prove this and therefore, I don't have knowledge that my name is Chris.

Attempted solutions to the Gettier problem:

1. The indefeasibility requirement
2. the conclusive reasons condition
3. the causal condition
4. no false belief

Internalism - in order to know something, I must know how I know it
Externalism - the conditions for knowledge are not necessarily known to the knower