Three ingredients to knowledge?
- truth
- justification
- belief
The realists beleives that
there is only one truth
The Coherence Model of Truth
A proposition is true if it is coherent with a system well supported propositions; otherwise it is false
from a coherence point of view, a statement is false if…
A stament is false if it’s incoherence with your well supported system of beliefs
When is a true proposition
A propostion is true when it describes things as they actually are. A true proposition corresponds to the facts
When is a proposition false
a proposition is false when it fails to describe things as they actually are. A false proposition does not correspond to the facts.
Can a proposition be true and false at the same time?
Every propostion has exactly one truth- value (at a given time). It’s either true, false, but not both
What is correspondence model
looking at the facts
How can we check that our whole system of beliefs corresponds to the facts?
- step outside the beleifs to check if your beleifs correspond to reality
- remove all bias
- external view
- impossible to survey all your beliefs
- we phone somebody and ask somebody to check
Drawbacks of the Correspondence Model of truth
Correspondence model can’t claim anything about the future to be true, because it hasn’t happened yet
Belief and disbelief come in….
Belief and disbleief come in varying degrees of strength
- beleive with confidence
- disbelief with confidence
Principle of rational Belief
- if there is evidence, the rational thing to do is to support it
- If the evidence suggests that it’s false then disbelieve
- If the person’s evidence is neutral, suspend judgement
strength of evidence
It is rational to proportion the confidence to the strength of evidence
Fallibilism
The view that a belief can be rational even though it is false
How much Evidence should you have for something to be rational?
- enough evidence depending on context
- based on the stakes, you will require more evidence
Some ways that beliefs can be Irrational
- motivational errors
- Failing to weigh all the available evidence properly
- giving too much weight to memorable, striking, or vivid evidence
What is evidence?
Information pertaining to the truth or falsify of a proposition
