KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTIFICATION

To know, you must at least be right; but you can be right without knowing. If you say that the dice will come up 7, you may be right without knowing. If you know you are most likely cheating, one die perhaps showing 4 on all six of its faces while the other shows 3. But if you are right on a roll of fair dice you must simply have guessed right.

What distinguishes the cheater who knows from someone who is right only by luck? For one thing, the cheater predicts with a good basis. He is justified in his belief. But not just any sort of justification is thus relevant to knowledge, as shown by the bearing of confidence on success. The athlete, for example, tries to be confident. The fact that it will help gives him practical justification for confidence. But even if bound to win and thus to be right in the object of his confidence, such practical justification moves him no closer to knowledge than is the honest player who simply guesses right. What would bring him thus closer to knowledge is not the instrumental value of his confidence, but information about the skills and abilities of the competitors.