The Gettier Case: Smith and Jones

The case

Smith has strong evidence that Jones will be offered a job, and strong evidence that Jones has exactly ten coins in his pocket. He counts them himself. From these two pieces of evidence, Smith infers: "the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket."

As it turns out, Smith gets the job, not Jones. And Smith, who did not count his own coins, also has exactly ten in his pocket. Smith's belief is true. It was justified by good evidence. But the way it came to be true has nothing to do with his reasoning. His reasoning was about Jones. The truth is about Smith.

What this adds to the Ford case

The Ford case shows that your evidence can point at the right conclusion through the wrong route. This case makes the point differently: your conclusion can be true because of a fact entirely separate from the fact your evidence was about.

Both cases show that justified true belief is not sufficient for knowledge. You can reason correctly from good evidence, arrive at a true conclusion, and still miss knowledge, because what makes the belief true is disconnected from what made it justified.

The Smith and Jones case highlights something specific: that forming a belief about a category (whoever gets the job) rather than a particular person makes the believer vulnerable to lucky coincidences they never anticipated. Knowledge requires not just truth and justification but the right kind of connection between them.

For the full treatment of Gettier cases and their implications, see the Ford case.