Knowledge Is Justifiable True Information

Abstract

According to an attempted definition of knowledge, knowledge is justified true belief. But a belief is ultimately justified only by its being true. Hence instead of belief we should speak information. Now, for an item of information p to be known to be true, it does not suffice for the knower to be aware that there exists a conclusive method of verification. One has to know some particular method that conclusively verifies p. Since Skolem functions can be thought of as strategies of verification, this is a distinction in the order of the knowledge operators and existence operators over such functions, between knowing that there is some conclusive method of verification and there being a known conclusive method of verification, only the second of which qualifies as knowledge.