Robert Nozick

Robert Nozick (November 16, 1938 ? January 23, 2002) was an American philosopher and Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. Nozick, among the leading figures in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, made significant contributions to almost every major area of philosophy. His Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974) provided a libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, published in 1971.

Nozick and the Gettier problem

Philosophical Explanations addresses many knotty issues, among them the problem of how to define knowledge in the wake of the work of Edmund Gettier, who had offered convincing counter-examples to the classical Platonic definition.

Related Topics:
Edmund Gettier - Plato

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Nozick offers a review of the (already in 1981 abundant) literature on this subject and then suggests his own solution. P is an instance of knowledge when (1) p is true, (2) S believes that p, and (3) if p weren't true, S wouldn't believe that p. In other words, he replaces Platonic justification with subjunctive conditionality.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~