What is Knowledge? True Justified Belief
Skepticism asks, what if we are deeply deceived about the world? What if the world is not real?
· What does it mean for the world to be real?
· What does it mean for the statement “I am in this classroom” to be true?
· What does it mean for “I am not dreaming right now” to be true?
· What is truth?
· Is truth a value in and of itself, i.e. an intrinsic good?
o Or does truth have only an instrumental value, i.e. it is good insomuch as it leads us to success in predicting and interacting with the world, which is good insomuch as it makes us happy or fulfilled or satisfied?
o Would you rather live a happy lie than face a miserable truth?
o Is it morally wrong to prefer happiness or contentment to truth?
o Is it morally wrong to lie to others to make them happy?
Are the
occasional benefits of being deceived necessarily short-lived? (i.e. the truth
will out, and the sooner we face it the better off we will be)
Plato´s Definition
of Knowledge
Plato believed that we learn in this life by remembering knowledge originally acquired in a previous life, and that the soul already has knowledge, and we learn by recollecting what in fact the soul already knows. While there are very few people who hold that view today (nobody, as far as I know) we do acknowledge that we inherit some physical preconditions, structures and abilities already at birth. We do come, if not pre-loaded with content, pre-formatted to receive data. Further, in a sense those “structures” of our brains and bodies may be seen as the result of evolution, and thus they encapsulate memories of the historical development of our bodies.
Plato offers three analyses of knowledge, [ Theaetetus and Meno] all of which Socrates rejects.
Plato's third definition: "Knowledge is justified, true belief."
What is
Justification?
· One problem making out this account concerns the word “justified”. Some have suggested that all interpretations of “justified” are inadequate.
· Edmund Gettier, in the paper called "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?“ argues that knowledge is not the same as justified true belief by pointing to situations where individuals have a true belief that is :justified” in a relevant sense, but in these situations we would not want to say the the subject really “knows.” (Gettier Problem)
Descartes on
Intuition and Deduction
“Or, what comes to the same thing, intuition is the undoubting conception of an unclouded and attentive mind, and springs from the light of reason alone; it is more certain than deduction itself, in that it is simpler, though deduction, as we have noted above, cannot by us be erroneously conducted. Thus each individual can mentally have intuition of the fact that he exists, and that he thinks; that the triangle is bounded by three lines only, the sphere by a single superficies, and so on. Facts of such kind are far more numerous than many people think, disdaining as they do to direct their attention upon such simple matters.
“Deduction by which we understand all necessary inference from other facts that are known with certainty,“ leads to knowledge when recommended method is being followed.
"Intuitions provide the ultimate grounds for logical deductions. Ultimate first principles must be known through intuition while deduction logically derives conclusions from them.
These two methods [intuition and deduction] are the most certain routes to knowledge, and the mind should admit no others." [1]
Propositional knowledge: knowledge that such-and-such is the case.
Not all knowledge need necessarily propositional:
· Non-propositional knowledge (tacit knowledge): the knowing how to do something.
· A Priori Knowledge (built in, developed by evolution and inheritance) (resides the brain as memory)
· Perception (“on-line input”, information acquisition)
· Reasoning (information processing)
· Testimony (network, communication)
But, if observations are always interpreted in the context of an a priori knowledge (Kuhn, Popper), then there cannot be an “pure” observations. All observations will, necessarily, theory laden.
"Surveying the rich experimental literature from which these examples are drawn makes one suspect that something like a paradigm is prerequisite to perception itself. What a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see. In the absence of such training there can only be, in William James' phrase, "a bloomin' buzzin' confusion."[2]
Knowledge is at least warranted, true belief, but Gettier examples show that something more is required for genuine knowledge.
Warrantability is another name for "justification" or "evidence".
Warrantability depends on whether the statement to be analyzed is logical, semantic, or empirical.
What
is Truth?: Major Theories of Truth[3]
What is “Truth?”
“Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is
self-sustained.” Mohandas Gandhi
“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may
deride it, but in the end; there it is.”
Winston Churchill
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a
perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius
“Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a
beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” Albert Camus
“There is no truth. There is only perception.” Gustave Flaubert
Truth Three Basic
Theories (plus some extra ones)
The correspondence theory of truth claims that the truth of a statement depends on its relation to the world of facts. A statement is true if and only if it corresponds to the facts.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) states that there is a realm of facts that exists independent of us (e.g. Toronto is the capital of Ontario) … “the truth” of a belief depends on whether the belief corresponds to the independent fact
Objection: If we know only our sensory experiences, how can we ever get outside them to verify what reality actually is? What does correspondence mean? Precisely what is a fact? Assumes there really is just one way that the world is.
Advocates (of some version of another):
· Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, G.E. Moore, and Alfred Tarski.
Truth is an agreement between a proposition and a fact
Truth consists in some form of correspondence
between
1. a belief or a sentence
and
2. a fact or a state of affairs.
Moore—a proposition is identified with the meaning of an indicative sentence.
· Something is apprehended (in understanding a sentence) by us that is more than the mere sentence. (The proposition is the bearer of truth or falsity.)
o When a belief is true, that which is believed is a fact.
o When a belief is false, that which is believed is not a fact.
Tarski—truth is a property of sentences— in a particular language…and involves a relationship (correspondence) between a sentence and reality.
Positivism and The
Verification Principle:
Advocates (of some version of another):
· A J Ayer (1910-1970)
For a statement to be meaningful (true) it must be either 1) purely definitional or else 2) verifiable by one of more of the five senses. All other statements (ethical, theological, metaphysical) are nonsense or meaningless. (Problem: Self-refuting)
Falsification
Principle
"Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion." Francis Bacon, op. cit., p. 210 The Works of Francis Bacon, Ed. J. Spedding, R. L, Ellis, & D. D. Heath (New York, 1896)
Advocates (of some version of another):
Anthony Flew and Karl Popper
· Any statement or proposition is meaningless unless it is subject to falsification (at least in principle)
· Flew used it to challenge a belief in God
· Self-refuting
· But Flew recently changed his mind…
Problems: God’s Eye Dilemma
A problem for realism: ‘God’s eye view’ How to compare “the world “with “a theory,”
since one can never get outside one’s theory (opinion)? Irony: only in ‘God’s
eye’ can correspondence be assessed.
Objections: Facts and theories
Facts:
no such thing as pure observation; theory influences observation –
‘theory-ladenness’
“What a man sees depends both
upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual
experience has taught him to see.” Khun
·
Theory (coherent set of statements) indispensable: standard terms for
description; coherent, unifying; ‘unobservable’ scientific concepts (e.g.,
energy, IQ) connected to observations by theory.
·
Strict distinction between fact and theory impossible; hierarchy from
factual to theoretical.
“Justification”
vs “Discovery”
Context
of justification: normative, focus on method; prescribing criteria for holding a theory
true, acceptable or justified, logically or empirically ( positivism).
Context
of discovery:
description of the historical, social and psychological circumstances and
influences that were relevant to the invention or discovery of scientific theories:
who, where and when? (more or less relativistic views of science).
2.
The
Coherence Theory of Truth
The coherence theory of truth claims that the truth of a statement depends on its relation to other statements. A statement is true if and only if it coheres or fits in with that system of statements that we already accept.
Brand Blanshard (1892-1989) said that “an agreement between judgments is best described not as a correspondence but as a coherence.”
“...reality is a system, completely ordered and fully intelligible, with which thought in its advance is more and more identifying itself. We may look at the growth of knowledge … as an attempt by our mind to return to union with things as they are in their ordered wholeness…. and if we take this view, our notion of truth is marked out for us. Truth is the approximation of thought to reality … Its measure is the distance thought has travelled … toward that intelligible system … The degree of truth of a particular proposition is to be judged in the first instance by its coherence with experience as a whole, ultimately by its coherence with that further whole, all comprehensive and fully articulated, in which thought can come to rest.”
― Brand Blanshard, The Nature Of Thought
“I do not think that G. H. Hardy was talking nonsense when he insisted that the mathematician was discovering rather than creating... The world for me is a necessary system, and in the degree to which the thinker can surrender his thought to that system and follow it, he is in a sense participating in that which is timeless or eternal.”
― Brand Blanshard, The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard
Geometry constructs an entire system of truths by building on a few basic axioms
Arises as a critique of the Correspondence Theory
Problems:
Objection: Coherence is no guarantee of truth. If the first statements are false, they can produce a coherent system of consistent error. There is much disagreement even among idealists over first judgments.
Does not distinguish between consistent truth and consistent error
A judgement may be true if it accords with other judgments, but what if other judgments are false? Theoretically, could result in s a system of consistent error. Further, one might ask, with what does the first (or initially) judgement(s) cohere with?
Advocates (of some version of another):
Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, and F.H. Bradley.
Rationalists built huge coherent systems which are, nevertheless, of dubious meaning/ relevance to the ‘’real world”—the system is a comprehensive account of the entire universe (or of reality)
(Arguably) Logical positivists—the system includes all of the statements in the scientific picture of the world (as described by the contemporary sciences).
· This has some merit…we do tend to reject a statement that contradicts what we have already embraced as truth (or contradicts our experiences/observations).
· Coherence is a necessary condition of truth, but one might questions if is a sufficient condition.
Potential for Relativism:
· A statement may be coherent with one system and incoherent with another.
o Two different—mutually exclusive, but coherent—systems are logically possible.
· A statement may be coherent with a system but not “applicable to the real world.”
3. The Pragmatic Theory of Truth
The pragmatic theory claims that truth depends on what works. A statement is true if and only if it effectively solves a practical problem and thereby experientially satisfies us. The pragmatist sees the human as needing to use the practical consequences of beliefs to determine their truth and validity.
…if something works it is true !
James would urges us to consider whether a belief satisfies the whole of human nature over a long period of time.
Advocates (of some version of another):
· Charles Sanders Pierce, William James, and John Dewey.
Pierce—truth is related to (observable) practice(s)
Truth is: “Opinion that is fated to be ultimately agreed to” (End of inquiry talk…)
More generally, Truth is related to practical consequences:
· James—concerned with the effects of a belief in the private and personal life of an individual So…an individual could regard… religious beliefs as true if they provide “vital benefits.
· Truth is determined by consequences
Dewey “Warranted assertibility”
· An idea becomes true when their “draft upon experience” is verified by the promised facts.
· Thus, truth follows inquiry—and “happens to an idea” when it is verified (“warranted”)
· Instrumentalism
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (1926- (‘pragmatic realism’): ‘the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world’
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 –1900)
Truth is part
of the “will to power”. Truth is useful if it promotes and enhances life, but a
life-enhancing falsehood is better than a truth that undermines life.
"The falseness of a judgment is to us not necessarily an
objection to a judgment... The question is to what extent it is life-advancing,
life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding...“
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
Objection: There's no necessary connection between truth and workability. Truth is rendered a psychological, not an epistemological, concern, and it can become relative.
On the face of it, it would seem that there is no absolute truth on this account. Like evolving advantageous traits, truth is dynamic changing, relative to environments and contexts (problems to be solved). A statement is true if people can use it to get the results that they need.
Advocates (of some version of another):
· P.F. Strawson
True and false are not descriptive words, but performative expressions—one is not making a statement, but performing an action.
When you say, “It is true that…”, you are agreeing with, accepting, or endorsing a statement.
Later Strawson admitted that “true” has an “expressive” meaning as well as a “performative” meaning.
When one says "It's true that it's raining," one asserts no more than "It's raining." The function of "It's true that" is to agree with, accept, or endorse the statement that it's raining.
5. Consensus Theory: ‘truth’ is a social or cultural consent or approval (relativism / social-constructionism)
All observation is potentially ”contaminated”, whether by our theories, our worldview or our past experiences.
It does not mean that science cannot ”objectively” [inter-subjectivity] choose from among rival theories on the basis of empirical testing.
Although science cannot provide one with hundred percent certainty, yet it is the most, if not the only, objective mode of pursuing knowledge.
"Surveying the rich experimental literature from which these examples are drawn makes one suspect that something like a paradigm is prerequisite to perception itself. What a man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see. In the absence of such training there can only be, in William James' phrase, "a bloomin' buzzin' confusion."" Kuhn T. S. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago University Press. p. 112
Meanings and
Hermeneutics:
Hermeneutics: refers to the practice of text interpretation. Initially of principle interest in Biblical text interpretation. The practice can be applied to other forms of literature, and philosophical texts.
The goal was initially seen as that of trying to get to (the/a) true meaning of a text. The terms hermeneutics" and "exegesis" are sometimes used interchangeably. Thus Truth is important for hermeneutics, which studies the interpretation of people's words and actions.
For St. Thomas Aquinas, scripture has many true symbolic interpretations.
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 – 1834)
Wilhelm Dilthey (1833 – 1911)
The true interpretation is the one intended by the historical author.
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951)
Early sought an ideal, precise clear “language of facts and proposed
Later criticized this view and argued that the meaning of words depends on how they are used, so words can have many true interpretations.
Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900 – 2002)
Any interpretation of a text can only emerge from uniting our cultural "prejudices" with what the text was trying to say in its own culture.
Thus there are many true interpretations of a text.
[1] Descartes, Rene; Rules for the Direction of the Mind http://surftofind.com/descartes
[2] Kuhn T. S. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Chicago University Press. (p.112)
[3] There are three views of truth in science: the instrumentalist, realist, and conceptual relativist views. The instrumentalist view is similar to the pragmatic theory, the realist view to the correspondence theory, and the conceptual relativist view to the coherence theory.