The purpose of this paper will be to show (1) that the necessary and sufficient conditions for a person

S to know a truth P are that P must be true and S must have used a true method so that he concludes P; there must be no feasible way that the method is false or that P is false (2) that logic and deductive reasoning is the limit of our knowledge and can be used to make only necessarily true probabilities of the physical world we perceive. Clearly, this is a form of rationalism. First, I will show why these are the necessary and sufficient conditions. Next, I will show how logic and deductive reasoning can be used to know truths about our existence and consequently the existence of a world that we perceive. Then, I will show that we can know the probability of events in that world, but that a probability of 1 or 0 is impossible. Finally, I will show how this all fits into the Gettier Problem and how it all survives criticism from skeptics or others. If S knows P, it must know that it is not feasible for P to be false. The only way for S to know this is if there is a logical or deductively reasoned contradiction in every alternative for P and that P doesnt have those contradictions or any other logical or deductively reasoned ones. For S to justifiably do this, P cannot be false or S would not have correctly used this method to conclude P. The logic wouldnt be correct, since it is impossible to be false, such as in the simple if x = y and x has the property z, then y has the property z. These are relations of variables and not subject to error of our human minds being fallible. The rules are true of these variables because the rules are based on how we define these variables, such as if John is blue and blue is bad, then John is bad. This is true because it is based on the definition of blue and bad to deduce a definition of John without using cause and effect, inductive reasoning or other methods not so essentially necessary. This also eliminates the problem of accidental knowing or guessing because if S guessed a true P, then S didnt use this method. Belief is also not an issue

because S would not use this method to conclude P if S didnt believe it. We now have a definition of knowledge with no loopholes. From now on, I will use the word deduce (or any form of it) to mean logically or deductively reason. Now, I will show why we can deduce knowledge and why it is the only way. Just as Decartes first starts his approach to this knowledge question, I have to be fair and conclude that sensory perception and memory has shown unreliability and cannot be ascertained certain in any way yet. And, as Decartes again suggests, when we eliminate all perception and see what we know, we still are deciding what we do or do not know, or doubting. Whether what is true or false, this faculty of deciding existential questions necessitates that the decider (or thinker, doubter, or any term that accurately describes this faculty) must exist. This is completely deduced by how we define doubt, decide, etc, and is stripped away from experience playing a role. Whether the thinker is a blank slate, or in an only metaphysical world, or in a simply physical world, or even a dualist reality, the thinker existing is an un-deniable truth. The reason this truth is certain is because no other belief was used to decide this. There was no cause and effect relationship that made this true, so no objection of the form using other beliefs to make this belief will suffice. I hold it true by virtue of what we mean by existence and relating this meaning to the truth in question. There is a notion of something or nothing being used to relate to the meanings of existing or not. By definition, since we are discussing something, namely the thinker, then this something is an existence. It is not feasible to doubt, think, etc, and not be something. The relations used are deductions because we simply are using definitions to know this. All alternatives (that I can think and doubt but not exist) are impossible by deduction alone.

Now, I have explained why this truth, and this truth alone, was necessarily true despite any experience, memory, or other possibly deceiving faculty. Next, as Descartes implies, this truth can be used as a basis to find more knowledge, since we are not moving from belief to belief. We can now move from this knowledge, which I will call Q, to more. Combining Q and deduction can find many truths, and those truths plus more deduction even more. As long as deduction is impossible to contradict and as long as only truths are made by using deduction and Q (or other truths), knowledge can be attained. Mathematics, for example, uses deduction so it is a true field as well. Similar to Humes notion of ideas, relations between numbers and symbols in deduction are used like the definitions of existence and something that I used earlier. These relations are all valid in the thinking things head, such as how Q was found solely in this head, and such as how math is done in the head by knowing 2 and 2 is 4 by definitions and relations of the numbers to each other. But, these truths all came simply in the head so far. Now I will expand. There is a truth similar to Q to introduce: Whether the experiences we have are true or deceptive, we still perceive and remember, analogous to how we still think or doubt. For us to perceive and remember experience, whether they are as they seem to us or not, means that there is something to perceive. We cannot know what this something is, but there is still something that exists. The pattern is the same as Q, using deduction again to gain this truth. Relations, between memories and perception and existence are used to justify that we know something that we experience exists. The first objection a skeptic will have to this will likely be that it is feasible that nothing weve ever perceived or had a memory of had to have actually happened, and that the thinker could be really just imagining it all, so to speak. The solution to this objection will be to show that memories and perception cannot be denied, just like thinking cannot be. If we are

dreaming, then by definition of dreaming there must be a state of being awake, whether we actually experience it or not. If we are deceived by illusions, then by definition of illusion, there must be a state of no illusion. If our memories are altered or corrupted, then by definition of memory of experience, there must still be a base of actual happenings whether we remember the right one or not. These words all simply mean lack of something else just like cold is lack of heat. If there is cold, there must exist heat. If there is deception, there must exist actual truth. Even in the controversial brains in a vat scenario, the scientists world where our brains are in this vat must exist by definition as well. The skeptics last attempt at a feasible alternative to necessary existence of something we perceive will likely be as follows, Even if Q were accepted, this thinker doesnt have any more rules than just thinking. Every memory and perception the thinker has might be completely nonexistent and just a product of thoughts of this thinker that doesnt necessarily do anything but think. To solve this problem, It must be shown that it is necessarily true that the thinker is more than simply thinking. Descartes seems to try to show this by necessitating God first and then moving to expanding the thinker. If a creator is necessary, then the existence of something to perceive is necessary. Even though I fully believe his point here to be true (his ontological proof of God), I will show another way to solve the problem. There are two possibilities, either a creator of the thinker does exist or doesnt exist. If one does, Descartes deduction of accepting the necessity of that creator not being deceitful, and consequently of the necessity of a physical world is justifiable and knowledge. However, if a creator doesnt exist, and I am just a thinker with no actual world around us, then it is not feasible for me to spontaneously have thoughts and imagine a world and reality in the way I do. If there is no creator, it is not feasible for me to exist

and perceive a world in the way I do on my own. Even if I created these perceptions and memories on my own, I would have to know I am creating the perception and memories that I experience, it wouldnt just happen because all the thinker does is think. Something must be done to me to perceive, as I am not deciding to experience perception. I have no choice to turn off perception. Therefore, since a creator didnt create perception (in this scenario) and the thinker cannot create it, something must actually exist to be perceived. Descartes proof of God follows the same a priori format as Q to prove a physical reality. Again, this truth was deduced in the same way. The definitions used this time to prove something to be perceived was only thinker exists and perceptions and memories If only a thinker exists then everything done must be done by the thinker by meaning of only. Since perceptions and memories do exist by definition of thinker exists and perceptions and memories, then something else must make them. In this case of no creator, it must necessarily mean something exists to be perceived or remembered, hence the skeptics potential argument I mentioned earlier is solved. Now, we still dont know whether this world we perceive is accurate or not, even though it does exist. Our perceptions are just simply not necessarily reliable. Furthermore, much of the knowledge we want to have in this world is inductively reasoned, which doesnt follow the same necessity as reasoning like Q. Just because we know that there is a world doesnt mean that we know any of its properties or its events, since perception is not reliable deductively. So, the knowledge I will propose we can have in this world is of another kind, and unfortunately is limited not as satisfying as truths like Q. But, another deduced set of rules like Q is what I will use to attain whatever knowledge I can in this world: probability.

Probability is a powerful tool, as it is deductive and logical because, obviously, it is a branch of mathematic (this is true whether using actual numbers or not, and I wont in most cases). I will start with an example of how to use it. We cannot know whether the sun will rise tomorrow because of the past rises, as the common example goes, but I show that we can know the probability of it doing so (to clarify, the probabilities that we calculate do not neccessarly mean numbers, they can be relations as well, using concepts such as more likely, less likely, increase probability of, decrease probability of, etc). Say I am at a point of perceiving standing on a mountain and I perceive my watch reading a date and a number 5 minutes less than what I perceive the time on my calendar says that the sun will rise on that date on the watch. I can say the following: if I am not dreaming, insane, on a mind altering substance, or in a coma (to clarify, I am still not claiming that this means what Im perceiving is actually the way it is), then I am seeing the correct environment of this world now (of course, I cannot claim that I am not any of those things, but for now please ignore this). Then I can say that in this world I perceive, it is likely (but nowhere near known) true that things cause other things. This is because the rules are consistent in this world I perceive. Every time I perceive to hit a ball, I perceive it to move. Every time I perceive to not hit it and perceive nothing else to, it doesnt move. So, if I assume that I am not being deceived in some way (again, never definite), I find it likely that causation exists in this world. The causal rules in this world allow me to perceive what is commonly called mass, energy, space, and time with properties about how they operate. These rules say, many steps later, that a ball of mass and energy called the sun is a certain location away from the location of a ball called Earth that I am located, and that Earth changes location by spinning so that energy from the sun reaches Earth

and hits my eye to cause mass and energy in my nervous system to perceive a yellow circle rising when the numbers on the watch match the numbers on the calendar. Now, I do not know if Im even really on this mountain and I dont know if any of the things around me happen the way they seem or if my perception is just inadequate. But, since I see what looks like a view from a mountain, I feel what feels like standing on a mountain, and perceive everything that seems like it fits, the probability of me standing on this mountain increases. Because I see all sights clearly, my perception of my movements shows that I am moving normally, and that I do not feel any extra pleasure, pain, or other sensation, I can say that if this perception is real I am not on a substance. Again, the probability that I am on the mountain increases. According to literature I perceived to read that day, running quickly is difficult to do when dreaming (Of course, I am saying that because I perceive a system of what appears to be thinkers like me perceiving the world that I perceive. This system is those thinkers using deduction and their perceived causation to learn the properties of the perceived world, and I only know a probability of the truth of the literature). Because I perceive that I can run very quickly and I remember many successive events that I perceived to occur that day, I am not likely to be dreaming in this world. The probability of the truth of this perception increases. This method can be done until the point of matching the watches. At the end, I have a final probability of the accuracy of my perception. The probability I find is deduced, and not subjective or falsifiable. It is found by using relations just the same as existence and something were used earlier (If a thinker thinks, it is something. If it is something, it exists). Here, if what I feel is consistent with what I see, it is more likely that I perceive what is actually happening than if those were not consistent. This simple deduction is used many more times in something as simple as deciding whether the sun is

likely to rise in 5 minutes, as three out of many steps were shown in the paragraph above. Hence the only thing we do in reference to the world we perceive is calculate the probability of, not actually know, something. The probabilities can be any number between 0 and 1 depending on the situation, but obviously not 0 or 1 because that corresponds to knowing something in the physical world is definitely true or not. This probability knowledge is the best method for making decisions in the physical world we perceive, nonetheless, and is in a way similar to the empiricists view. If I perceive that I am driving and a man is crossing the street, I can still use the probability that I correctly (hopefully) deduce to decide that there is a chance that this perceived man actually exists and there is a chance that he will experience a feeling that he doesnt want to if I dont try to move what I perceive to be my foot to what I perceive to be the brake. Furthermore, I deduce that this chance of his feeling negatively is higher than if I do move my foot. Therefore, it is a better choice to try to brake if I do not want him to feel this (whether I care if he feels this or not is an ethical issue and is separate from this probability calculation). Furthermore, deduction and probability can be used to a greater extent. Assume I perceive that I am late to work in the above scenario and I may be fired. Now, hypothetically (and impossible) lets say I magically knew my body, this car and road, and work, are all real. By the strict rules of deduction as Ive used them, I still cannot for certain say that this man was real. So, it may seem reasonable in this scenario to keep driving. But, knowing that the other things were real increased the chances of the man being real, increasing the soundness of a decision to stop if I dont want a real thinker in pain. Hence, we can still make the choices (if we have choices) we would make had we known things in the world, supporting why thinkers might believe they know things in the world when they really just know probabilities. We can still

make ethical decisions and even greatly complicated empirical decisions, such as doctors confirming an illness or scientists confirming the results of an experiment, even though we are really just make decisions based on probabilities. One last point to be made is that these probabilities can even be made taking into account the notion of an evil demon. Even if Descartes point that an evil demon is not feasible is wrong (which I am not confirming or denying), we can still make decisions assuming that there is not an evil demon, and (possibly) using other evidence to deduce that the chances of an evil demon existing are very low. The answer to the Gettier problem, then, should be clear with this view. In case I, Smith did not know that Jones would get the job or even that the man who does has 10 coins (445). Gettier says that Smith accepts that the man will have 10 coins because Smith has strong evidence (445). Evidence is not knowing. It is just simply a factor increasing probability. Consequently, it is not surprising that Smith was wrong. The only possible ways he thought he knew Jones was to get the job was by either someone else saying so (not reliable perception), a paper that said so (not reliable perception) or by his own analysis of how the chooser will choose (not reliable perception). These reasons are just perceptions that simply increase the chances of an event, namely Jones getting the job. A separate point is that as far as the coins making Smith correct, it is a simple matter of him not using a right method to come to the outcome. Yes, he said x and x happened. But, his method was not deduced. If I ask Smith why he said the man will have 10 coins, he will say because he saw Jones having 10 coins. There is nothing about seeing Jones having 10 coins

that allows him to know that the man who will get the job will have 10 coins, it just increased the chances that the man will have 10 coins. Case II (along with any other case similar in any shape to the Gettier problem) is also easily solved (445). If I say either x or y (I will call this V) and x is true, that didnt mean that I knew V. Knowing x doesnt even justify it (even though in this case Smith knew y). When I say V, I am not just saying one of these is true. When I say V, I am really saying if x is not true, then y must be true and if y is not true, then x must be true. This is the complete claim I am making. Clearly, there is no deduction for why Smith would say If Jones does not own a Ford, then Brown is in Boston. If I asked him why he said this last statement, he would say because Jones owns a ford and obviously this is not deducted correctly. And separately, as in case I, even if he had evidence for both x and y in this case, it is still just increasing probability since this is the experience based world. It is the necessity for complete deduction and lack of feasible alternatives in the criteria I proposed for knowledge that allows it to withstand this problem. It is more effective than the defeasibility theory because no defeaters are possible. The truths I propose have a prerequisite of not having any possibility of defeaters. The ways I have described knowledge are very accurate ways of depicting the thinkers thoughts and validities of them. They account for our perceptions of the world and for the doubts of assurances. They leave no room for exceptions or interpretations. They are better than any alternative because it is so strict that even a skeptic may conform (it is likely the closest description to actual skepticism) and still allow for decision making in the empirical sense. This complete acknowledgement of both extremes of knowledge theories is another factor that makes this view best.