Abstract
This article examines whether people share the Gettier intuition (viz. that someone who has a true justified belief that p may nonetheless fail to know that p) in 24 sites, located in 23 countries (counting Hong Kong as a distinct country) and across 17 languages. We also consider the possible influence of gender and personality on this intuition with a very large sample size. Finally, we examine whether the Gettier intuition varies across people as a function of their disposition to engage in “reflective” thinking.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See also Alai 2015 for further discussion.
In Colombia, the 100-point confidence scales for Knowledge 1 and Knowledge 2 were replaced with 7-point scales.
In Korea the 18-item NFC scale was replaced with the standardized 15-item NFC scale in Korean (Kim 2007).
While our scale ranged from 1 to 7, the data from Germany ranged from 1 to 8. We do not know where the disagreement comes from. Assuming a coding error, we decided to transform the 8’s into 7’s.
TIPI codes for emotional stability, the inverse of neuroticism. So high scores correspond to a low neuroticism.
References
Adleberg, T., Thompson, M., & Nahmias, E. (2015). Do men and women have different philosophical intuitions? Further data. Philosophical Psychology, 28, 615–641.
Alai, M. (2015). Regimenting the ordinary notions of knowledge and justification after Gettier. In M. L. Bianca & P. Piccari (Eds.), Epistemology of ordinary knowledge (pp. 247–261). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
Antognazza, M. R. (2015). The benefit to philosophy of the study of its history. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23, 161–184.
Antony, L. (2012). Different voices or perfect storm: Why are there so few women in philosophy? Journal of Social Philosophy, 43, 227–255.
Bengson, J. (2013). Experimental attacks on intuitions and answers. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86, 495–532.
Buckwalter, W., & Stich, S. (2014). Gender and philosophical intuition. In J. Knobe & S. Nichols (Eds.), Experimental philosophy (Vol. 2, pp. 307–346). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Kao, C. F. (1984). The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, 306–307.
Colaço, D., Buckwalter, W., Stich, S. P., & Machery, E. (2014). Epistemic intuitions in fake-barn thought experiments. Episteme, 2, 199–212.
Dutant, J. (2015). The legend of the justified true belief analysis. Philosophical Perspectives, 29, 95–145.
Feltz, A., & Cokely, E. T. (2009). Do judgments about freedom and responsibility depend on who you are? Personality differences in intuitions about compatibilism and incompatibilism. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 342–350.
Feltz, A., & Cokely, E. T. (2012). The philosophical personality argument. Philosophical Studies, 161, 227–246.
Feltz, A., & Cokely, E. (2013). Predicting philosophical disagreement. Philosophy Compass, 8, 978–989.
Frederick, S. (2005). Cognitive reflection and decision making. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19, 25–42.
Friesdorf, R., Conway, P., & Gawronski, B. (2015). Gender differences in responses to moral dilemmas. A process dissociation analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41, 696–713.
Gerken, M., & Beebe, J. R. (2016). Knowledge in and out of contrast. Nous, 50, 133–164.
Gettier, E. L. (1963). Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis, 23, 121–123.
Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528.
Holtzman, G. (2013). Do personality effects mean philosophy is intrinsically subjective? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 20, 27–42.
Holtzman, G. S. (2016). Rejecting beliefs, or rejecting believers? On the importance and exclusion of women in philosophy. Hypatia, 31, 293–312.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A new name for some old philosophy, old ways of thinking: Popular lectures on philosophy. Longmans: Green.
Kauppinen, A. (2007). The rise and fall of experimental philosophy. Philosophical explorations, 10, 95–118.
Kim, W. (2007). The efficient assessment for need for cognition: K-NfC-S. Korean Journal of Consumer and Advertising Psychology, 8, 127–133.
Kim, M., & Yuan, Y. (2015). No cross-cultural differences in the Gettier car case intuition: A replication study of Weinberg et al. 2001. Episteme, 12, 355–361.
Livengood, J., Sytsma, J., Feltz, A., Scheines, R., & Machery, E. (2010). Philosophical temperament. Philosophical Psychology, 23, 313–330.
Ludwig, K. (2007). The epistemology of thought experiments: First person versus third person approaches. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 31, 128–159.
Machery, E. (2017). Philosophy within its proper bounds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Machery, E., Stich, S. P., Rose, D., Chatterjee, A., Karasawa, K., Struchiner, N., Sirker, S., Usui, N., & Hashimoto, T. (forthcoming a). Gettier across cultures. Nous. doi: 10.1111/nous.12110.
Machery, E., Stich, S. P., Rose, D., Chatterjee, A., Karasawa, K., Struchiner, N., Sirker, S., Usui, N., & Hashimoto, T. (forthcoming b). Gettier was framed. In M. Mizumoto, S. Stich, & E. McCready (Eds.), Epistemology for the rest of the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nadelhoffer, T., Kvaran, T., & Nahmias, E. (2009). Temperament and intuition: A commentary on Feltz and Cokely. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 351–355.
Nagel, J., Juan, V. S., & Mar, R. A. (2013). Lay denial of knowledge for justified true beliefs. Cognition, 129, 652–661.
Rose, D., Machery, E., Stich, S. P., Alai, M., Angelucci, A., Berniunas, R., Buchtel, E. E., Chatterjee, A., Cheon, H., Cho, I.-R., Cohnitz, D., Cova, F., Dranselka, V., Lagos, A. E., Ghadakpour, L., Grinberg, M., Hannikainen, I., Hashimoto, T., Horowitz, A., Hristova, E., Jraissati, Y., Kadreva, V., Karasawa, K., Kim, H., Kim, Y., Lee, M., Mauro, C., Mizumoto, M., Moruzzi, S., Olivola, C. Y., Ornelas J., Osimani, B., Romero, C., Rosas Lopez, A., Sangoi, M., Sereni, A., Songhorian, S., Sousa, P., Struchiner, N., Tripodi, V., Usui, N., Vazquez del Mercado, A., Volpe, G., Vosperichian, H. A., Zhang, X., & Zhu, J. (forthcoming). Nothing at stake in knowledge. Nous.
Sartwell, C. (1991). Knowledge is merely true belief. American Philosophical Quarterly, 28, 157–165.
Seyedsayamdost, H. (2015). On gender and philosophical intuition: Failure of replication and other negative results. Philosophical Psychology, 28, 642–673.
Shafir, E. (1994). Uncertainty and the difficulty of thinking through disjunctions. Cognition, 50, 403–430.
Shope, R. K. (1983). The analysis of knowing: A decade of research. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Starmans, C., & Friedman, O. (2012). The folk conception of knowledge. Cognition, 124, 272–283.
Starmans, C., & Friedman, O. (2013). Taking “know” for an answer: A reply to Nagel, San Juan, and Mar. Cognition, 129, 662–665.
Thompson, M. (forthcoming). Explanations of the gender gap in philosophy. Philosophy Compass.
Thompson, M. M., Naccarato, M. E., Parker, K. C. H., & Moskowitz, G. (2001). The Personal Need for Structure (PNS) and Personal Fear of Invalidity (PFI) scales: Historical perspectives, present applications and future directions. In G. Moskowitz (Ed.), Cognitive social psychology: The Princeton symposium on the legacy and future of social cognition (pp. 19–39). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Turri, J., Buckwalter, W., & Blouw, P. (2015). Knowledge and luck. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 378–390.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211, 453–458.
Weatherson, B. (2003). What good are counterexamples? Philosophical Studies, 115, 1–31.
Weinberg, J. M., Alexander, J., Gonnerman, C., & Reuter, S. (2012). Restrictionism and reflection: Challenge deflected, or simply redirected? The Monist, 95, 200–222.
Weinberg, J. M., Nichols, S., & Stich, S. (2001). Normativity and epistemic intuitions. Philosophical Topics, 29, 429–460.
Colaço, D., Kneer, M., Alexander, J., & Machery, E. (ms). On second thought: A refutation of the reflection defense.
Mizumoto, M., Stich, S. P., & McCready, E. (Eds.), Epistemology for the rest of the world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgements
This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the Fuller Theological Seminary/Thrive Center in concert with the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Fuller Thrive Center or the John Templeton Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Machery, E., Stich, S., Rose, D. et al. The Gettier Intuition from South America to Asia. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 34, 517–541 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-017-0113-y
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-017-0113-y