Gettier denies that this first example, i.e. Case I, constitutes knowledge on the basis that it is evident that Smith does not know that proposition (e) is true. For (e) is true in virtue of the fact that Smith both gets the job and also happens to have ten coins in his pocket. However, Smith does not know how many coins are in his own pocket and, thereby, bases his belief in (e) on the account of (d), which is false (Gettier, E.L. 1963, p. 122). For this reason, Gettier concludes that Case I does not warrant a case of knowledge as, intuitively, knowledge does not appear to be present.

I will argue that Gettier is correct in denying that this case suffices for knowledge, especially once you consider the defects associated with rejecting …show more content…
that both the conditions of ‘truth’ and ‘belief’ alone are sufficient for knowledge. Akin to Moore’s emphasis on ‘knowing’ (Moore, G. E. 1993, p. 169), a proponent of this thesis may well advance that justification is not a constitutive element of knowledge (Sartwell C 1991, p. 161).
To further elaborate on this idea, they may present Sartwell’s example, ‘Flash of Insight’ , whereby the mathematician ‘knows’ the solution well before they are able to provide any specific justification for their claim.
The point, the proponent reiterates, is that the subject ‘knows’ merely because they have a true belief (Aikin, S 2010, pp. 6-7; Sartwell, C 1991, pp. 159-160). Hence, as follows, the demand for justification is an unnecessary criterion for having acquired knowledge. Epistemic justification, in this case, is merely a means by which we legitimate knowledge-claims.
Thereby, simply applying this logic to Case I, one can demonstrate that it does indeed adduce to knowledge – for (e) is true, and Smith believes that (e) is true. Thus, from this perspective, Gettier is in fact …show more content…
In the words of Aikin (2010, p. 10), the Sufficiency Thesis “commits subjects to an attitude of infallibility with regard to their beliefs”. Along this line of argument, unless some other condition, i.e. justification, were required, acceptance of this thesis will only allow people to attribute knowledge more widely to themselves (REF). Ergo, the thesis will induce a wide variety of false knowledge-attributions. More specifically, its adoption will allow accidental or arbitrary circumstances equating to knowledge – circumstances of which are intuitively implausible as claims of knowledge.
Secondly, even if it were supposed that the mathematician’s pre-proof true belief counts as knowledge, it may be the case that the mathematician’s knowledge-claim is ipso facto justified by the high reliability of her mathematical intuition (Morvan P 2002, p. 156). In other words, it may be that the mathematician’s skills and expertise in solving like-maths problems makes this case ‘justified’. Thus, one may claim that this true belief is justified by ‘something’ even if the epistemic agent, i.e. the mathematician, is not aware of