Saturday, March 21, 2009

Facades: Goldman's Barn Example

In theory of knowledge last semester, we did Goldman's famous barn example.


It goes: suppose John and Dina are driving in the middle of Graceland, Tennessee, and John spots out a number of barns. They are all barns, except for one, which is only a movie-set prop of a barn front, or facade. In this way, it looks like a barn, but because he can only see the front, he does not know that it's not a barn.

He does know that there are other barns around (they are not facades). He points to the facade and, even though it is not a barn says, "Look at that barn."

Does John know that this a barn?

The example certainly implies no.

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