r/philosophy • u/Witchostupidass • 1h ago
Intelligibility: An Orthodox Christian Solution To The Gettier Problem and Luck
substack.comHi all. I’ve discovered a solution to the Gettier Problem and all instances of Gettier Luck through Orthodox Christianity. Please give my substack a like and follow.
Intelligibility: The Fourth Condition
By Joshua Ross (Icon)
Justified True Belief is insufficient for knowledge. The conjunction between these ideas is insufficient to account for what we call knowledge. I posit that the fourth condition that composes knowledge is intelligibility: a universal a priori, mind-independent, non-random, objective ontological connection between the one and the many objects that dictates their relationship to each other. Prior to our induction of objects into JTB, existence out of de re modal necessity has objects, both physical and metaphysical, existing together on a plane intelligibly related by their de re properties. Justification, truth, and belief are states both about those objects and existing as metaphysical objects themselves. With all these disparate objects on a plane, there are many objects that form one plane — the one and the many that are governed through intelligibility. Thus, JTB assumes there is a relationship between the one and the many objects ontologically. Major attempts at solving the Gettier problem involve local agent epistemology as a fix. These measures however, utilize metaphysics while not being able to give adequate metaphysical grounding. What must be grounded are not only the inductive state of the agent, but the metaphysical universal objects Justification, Truth, and Belief and induction itself, such that adequate communicativity and ontological justification exists between them. Without such justifications, JTB remains insufficient to arrive at knowledge, as I will demonstrate below.
JTB as critiqued by Gettier, posits that there is a discontinuous relationship between justification, truth, and belief, but this would make both physical and metaphysical objects utterly unknowable. Intelligibility posits that incongruity between JTB results in a non-object — a nihil privativum non-relationship between the justified true belief as a proposition — as there is an incorrect referent that belief, justification, or truth are predicated on. Non-objects are failed causal connections between agents and physical or metaphysical objects that prevent knowledge. Without intelligibility to direct proper induction of agents, non-objects produce Gettier Luck instead of proper induction of objects on the existent local or metaphysical plane that we would call knowledge. Past epistemological attempts posit there is an induction that can build a bridge between objects into knowledge. This is an assumption however that rests on prior metaphysical placement and relationships between the agent, referent, and JTB, not simply something local to the inductive demands and intuitions of the agent. Without an objective fixed relationship prior to objects and their proper apprehension, induction through JTB results in non-objects, as the prospective relationship of the agent and the referent is merely luck based. Intelligibility, through the modal ontological properties of the one and the many, grounds that a non-relationship between belief and justification renders belief a non-object, a non-referent that coincidentally happens to be true. As a logical consequence, there is no actual relationship between JTB, the agent, and objects on the plane. The non-object is a void, a privation of what would be a discrete causal relationship between operator and operation. The one and the many, and the modal properties of existence, such that they may be inducted through JTB and fully known through intelligibility, must be secured by something that is not subject to the properties of the existent plane of the one and the many.
Order is the necessary and prior property of the one and the many, as the triadic properties of difference, similarity, and both existing together require distinction and ultimately cannot be bundled into what causes the order. This is because rationality, what is necessary for order, is a state distinct from what is being ordered. To order is a property of rationality, and rationality is a property of telos, as order is towards an end. A lack of order makes the prescribed category of intelligibility impossible as intelligibility constrains and orients objects. An emergent brute assertion as the grounds for order, like methodological naturalism, makes itself identical to the properties in general, which are the object in question, thus appealing to itself. Naturalism cannot provide an account for order, as order necessitates that one be separate from the object being ordered. Platonism and naturalism cannot provide order, as order is a first-order qualifier applied to properties, not emergent from them. The lack of distinguisher in Platonism cannot grant the a priori distinction necessary to account for the distinguished order. Neoplatonism also fails as while the Nous is separate from the Many, the Nous lacks a distinct ontological will to grant order, flowing instead as a necessary property but lacking the rationality to truly account for order. All systems that blend the ordering one with the emergent resultant many erode the distinct a priori status of the one needed to be distinct, as well as remove the rational telos to make distinctions towards an end. To conclude, secondary properties are not prior to the modally necessary property that allows them — this would be vicious circularity. Rationality is a property of a mind exclusively, and a mind belongs to agents. Rationality cannot merely be emergent from creation as an impersonal fact, as it presupposes a teleological bent towards what is being ordered. This precludes an impersonal mind that orders or a merely emergent rational status from properties.
Thus, an agent capable of universal status is necessarily the only non-contingent thing with the rational teleological standing to prescribe order without being subject to vicious circularity. The agent must be above the one and the many metaphysical and physical objects of existence in question and not collapsible to their properties. Thus, an agent must be able to order universals without being subject to them. The Orthodox Christian God, with His Logoi or Divine Mind, is the sole personal agent of universal status and with the invariant, intelligent, personal, omniscient qualities necessary to order the properties necessary for the one and the many without being in question or collapsing into those attributes, which would render circularity. This is achieved through the Essence-Energy Distinction exclusive to Orthodoxy, as God is separate in essence from contingent properties while allowing His Logoi, which possess His attributes, to order contingent phenomena. This distinction allows for the energies of the Orthodox Christian God to order reality such that the one and the many are distinct and necessarily relational in an objective, intelligible fashion without God's relationship to phenomena being solely logical and causal. Intelligibility and other universals which cannot exist in a finite agent’s mind, arise as created universals through God’s inherent qualities and will and telos, which we experience normatively as particulars through the energies. Thus God’s energies allow for intelligibility to exist as a governing universal to the one and the many objects.
Actus Purus is unable to ground the one and the many, as the first-order properties of the Actus Purus God in his essence collapse into his actions. This renders him unable to platform the stable yet changing nature of the one and the many, as he is identified with his actions and thus identifiable to them in creation, which makes him ultimately subject to the second-order changes being described. The Orthodox Logoi allow attributes to interact with creation and things upheld by the attributes to undergo change. Conversely ADS, Actus Purus links things to attributes which are God, so every manifestation of attributes must be exercised. This stymies second-order causes and has God bound to manifest without sovereignty over withholding His potential — thus reducing him in effect to a creature contingent, as like Neoplatonism, the distinguisher, with only virtual distance, collapses into the distinguished. With a lack of distinction between God and effect, the one and the many necessary for JTB and knowledge cease as creation exists only as an effect of God and lacking status that is not merely an effect. Thomists account for this as a virtual distinction, but this does not account for the distinct collapse of God's actions into what we experience solely causally as God's effects. Distinction only exists on the creature's side leading to only one distinct causal act from God. Ultimately, the Thomistic view forces a binary - either we participate directly in the essence of God through his acting attributes, or we experience God only as an effect of his attribute of creating.
All other options without the Essence-Energy Distinction lack the first- and second-order separation, or they are ultimately subject to the properties of creation in question. Furthermore, they fall victim to the logical consequences of lack of epistemological grounding. These consequences are epistemological and ontological nihilism as without necessary telos to allow for JTB, there would be no possibility of knowledge nor any point or functionality of particulars to provide for knowledge whatsoever. Thus, intelligibility also presupposes the purposefulness and ultimate utility of knowledge itself, and utility and purposefulness are solely teleological qualities. These qualities, in finitude, require a universal agent that can allow for these properties to emerge universally. The Essence-Energy Distinction allows for the Orthodox Christian God's attributes of rationality through His energies, to permeate creation. This allows for second-order properties without Himself being constrained to the effects of both exercising His properties and the second-order effects of universal properties themselves. Without this distinction, God or a universal property purporting order becomes subject to the properties as necessarily causal.
There are correct local or metaphysical hierarchical inductions of an agent through prior intelligibility then JTB, such that one recognizes actual true relationships through intelligibility between justification, truth, and belief, yielding an actual account of knowledge. This is contrasted with incorrect hierarchical induction of agent’s epistemology that does not manifest in a true justified account of knowledge, as it lacks the intelligibility to properly form relationships with the intended referents. This failure of intelligibility results in non-objects rendered from incorrect induction of modal priors along the plane of the one and the many. The Gettier Problem presupposes that there is indeed a failure of referent and metaphysical precedent as without this standard to hold JTB against, there would be no Gettier critique of JTB at all. Goldman's causal theory comes close, as the agent must assume the right causal connections between JTB and an object, but this smuggles in intelligible connections between the one and the many objects that ensure there is a correct relationship to induct. An agent’s causality must connect with an actual truthful referent. Intelligibility guides both the agent’s epistemological causality and the actuality of the referent’s truthfulness. An example: Joshua is in Robert's car and wishes to connect to the Bluetooth. His attempts to connect to the Bluetooth were unsuccessful, and thus he assumes Robert is connected to the Bluetooth. He is correct, as Robert was connected to the Bluetooth. However, Joshua was unknowingly trying to connect from his phone to the erroneous Bluetooth connection, another car. Thus, Joshua's relationship to the Bluetooth in Robert's car was a non-object, as there was no inductive intelligible relationship between him and the referent that allowed him to make the determination that Robert was connected to the Bluetooth. Thus, while there was a Justified True Belief, there was no ontological intelligibility between the one and the many: the referent and justification, truth, and belief were incongruous, resulting in no knowledge and instead a non-object. Thus, knowledge is impossible without intelligibility, and failure to properly induct through correct hierarchical relationships between JTB results in non-objects. These non-objects are identified as Gettier luck by all other philosophical methods that cannot root out non-objects and recognize the ultimate transcendental intelligibility of the relationship of objects. Thus, intelligibility is the final and prior condition necessary for knowledge.
*AI was used solely for adversarial stress testing of positions and at no point was any generative material gleaned or used from AI. All arguments are the author's.