Read the papers by Gettier, Clark, and Saunders and Champawat in that order.
• Gettier’s paper is the one that got the developments we’ll be looking at going. He tries to undermine the analysis of knowledge as justified true belief by offering an counterexample.
• Clark’s is one of the first responses. He tries to repair the analysis, offering a counterexample to an initial attempt and then suggesting a more extensive repair to avoid this problem.
• The Saunders and Champawat paper then tries to do to Clark’s analysis what Gettier did to the original one.
This process of analyses being undermined by counterexamples and repaired in response is common in Plato’s dialogues, and it will be common also in the work we will be reading.
I have included the chapter from Russell for two reasons.
• First, Russell offers an example which seems to anticipate Gettier’s although he doesn’t treat it as a counterexample to the analysis of knowledge as justified true belief. You should try to formulate (or re-formulate) this example for yourself as a counterexample like Gettier’s.
• Still, Russell does go on to offer an analysis of knowledge that avoids the problem he sees in his counterexample. Ask yourself both whether Russell’s analysis avoids Gettier’s problem and also whether it is an acceptable account of knowledge.
Although most of the chapter is relevant to the issues I’ve described, Russell also deals with an issue he described in an earlier chapter (in paragraphs 13.11-15). What Russell says about this here is reasonably self-contained and important, but it is not closely tied to the issues we will be considering in the course, so it is safe for you to ignore it.