S knows that p if and only if...

Picking up from my last post. The people of WF accept a traditional analysis of knowledge.

S knows that p if and only if :

1) S believes that p.

2) P is true.

3) S is maximally justified in believing that p. 

(Note 'S' is a variable that stands in for any potential subject/knower and 'p' stands in for any proposition).

Call this the MJTB (maximally justified true belief) account of knowledge. It is supposed to be an analysis of knowledge---that is by understanding the components (1-3) we have an informative account of what knowledge is (or when an S knows that p statement/proposition/locution is true). Further, an analysis is going to provide you the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of the analysandum (the thing being analyzed). In other words, anything fulfilling conditions 1) - 3) will necessarily count as knowledge, and anything lacking any of the 3 conditions, will, necessarily, fail to be knowledge. 

Gangadean spends a short time in his book speaking about a couple of Gettier cases. He takes it that he has solved the problems that Gettier has raised against the MJTB account. However, he ignores the plethora of Gettier cases that have been raised since the time that Gettier published his short piece (some 40 years ago). Some, if not many, of these new versions escape Gangadean's criticisms altogether. For instance, in the "Sheep on a hill" Gettier case, there is no shifting of senses going on whatsoever. Likewise, the stopped clock examples do not depend on the sort of ambiguity that Gangadean faults the original Gettier cases with. Now Gangadean, no doubt, will have something to say about these new cases. He is an infallibilist about knowledge and so he requires maximal justification for knowledge. Most of the new Gettier style cases suppose that knowledge does not require maximal justification and so Gangadean can exploit this to maintain his commitment to the traditional MJTB account. When I see what appears to be a sheep on the hill (but it is actually a sheep shaped rock hiding a real sheep behind it) and form the belief that there is a sheep on the hill, I form a belief based on my perception, which by Gangadean's lights does not provide maximal justification/certainty for my belief (that there is a sheep on the hill). This is likely what Gangadean would say about why there is no knowledge in such a case. S has a true belief in p, but condition 3) has not been fulfilled. 

I imagine that I will have a lot more to say about the traditional analysis of knowledge (and the Gangadean take on it/MJTB). I hinted in my previous post about how such a strong justification condition on knowledge will actually lead to skepticism about knowledge. I hope to address this in more detail in future posts. But for now, I want to raise a more basic challenge. If you follow Gangadean in requiring certainty for knowledge, and subscribe to the above analysis of knowledge (i.e, the MJTB account), then here is a set of requirements that arise from your own view.

Essentially, you will need to provide a sufficient analysis of the more basic concepts used in your analysis of knowledge. These include answers to the following questions.

a) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S believing that p? 

b) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for p being maximally justified, per se? 

c) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for p being maximally justified for S? 

d) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S believing that p on the basis of/in virtue of reasons r? Hint: you might want to check this site out which highlights some of the debates concerning this apparently elusive relation.

I think you should start to feel a bit overwhelmed. Analyses are notorious for being unsuccessful among professional philosophers working in the last 40 years. But of course, I won't say they are impossible. So if you follow the Gangadean line, please give me a) -d). 

Until you have provided an impeccable analysis (one that admits to no counterexamples) of these more basic concepts which constitute your analysis of knowledge, it's hard to see why someone would be inclined to accept your view that knowledge is maximally justified true belief. It would be like trying to convince someone that your analysis that Red = XYZ is true, without explaining what XYZ is in the first place.

Moreover, suppose you follow Gangadean in affirming that knowledge is MJTB, but you also accept what he says about meaning being more basic than truth. Further you accept his view that if you know something then you should be able to show it (this is related to his internalist theory of knowledge which requires that you have access to any of the relevant reasons for why you believe something that is a piece of knowledge for you). Putting these commitments together, one way to characterize what is going on is that you don't actually know what MJTB even means. In other words, you don't really know what knowledge is or at the very least you don't know that the MTJB is the correct analysis of knowledge.

So rationality (and integrity) would call you to withhold belief.