Philosophy of Truth

[Petros Agapetos]

Very nice points, thank you for taking your time to read the material. I agree it's quite dense.

I have more papers, in which I talk about the structure of knowledge, in which there is a regress argument for foundationalism. It addresses your concerns about circularity and infinite regress. Though, I am afraid I'd rather open a different thread titled, "Theories of Knowledge" and link it here.

[Petros Agapetos]

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...51#post4084051
This thread is title "Philosophy of Knowledge" It discusses knowledge as justified true belief (called traditional analysis of knowledge) and explains how and why this theory of knowledge can fail, and what the solutions to these failures expose about the structure of knowledge.

[Petros Agapetos]

Theories of Knowledge
Knowledge can be categorized as 1. Propositional knowledge (knowledge-that), 2. Knowledge by acquaintance (familiarity), and 3. Procedural Knowledge (ability knowledge, knowledge-how). Knowledge requires true beliefs because knowledge is a success term (successfully corresponds to reality). Knowledge involves acquisition of truth. There may be many ways of defending truth claims, but only really one proper way to define them, through correspondence to reality.

Truth as Correspondence:
Propositions are the ultimate truth bearers. Whereas, sentences, statements, and beliefs, get their truth or falsity derivatively. Thus beliefs and sentences are true or false depending upon their propositional content, and the relation of that content to the facts. Propositional beliefs have propositional content. Sentences are used to express certain thoughts of ideas. Philosopher use the word proposition to refer to these items. Belief is fundamentally a relation to a proposition. Beliefs are fundamentally attitudes one takes toward propositions. Facts are any states of affairs which happen to be the case whether known or not known.

Truth as Coherence:
Truth is a system or web of propositions or beliefs each of which either necessarily implies the others or stand in some weaker relation of mutual support. An odd implication of coherence theory is that truth, like coherence, admits of degrees.

Main Objection to Coherence Theory:
The possibility of two (i) equally coherent, (ii) mutually exclusive, and (iii) maximally developed belief systems. The coherentist may not be able to distinguish truth from a good work of fiction.

Knowledge entails justification (good reason). Mere opinion does not count even if it happens to be right. Justification is a normative term: (i) Justification is a matter of ‘ought’ rather than ‘is’, (ii) epistemic justification is analogous to ethical justification: it implies meeting a standard. This raises the issue of what the correct standard is (the problem of criterion) and whether it can be met (the problem of skepticism).
It is wrong always for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. Thus knowledge is a true belief that is held for good reason (that is to say, a well justified reason).

[Petros Agapetos]

The Ethics of Belief

Belief is a dispositional, affirmative attitude towards a proposition or state of affairs. To believe that ‘p’ is to take it that ‘p’ is true or to take it that the state of affairs described by the sentence ‘p’ obtains. Note that this does not mean that the subject explicitly believes the proposition that ‘p’ is true. The mere belief that ‘p’ does not require possession of the concept of ‘truth’, whereas the belief that ‘p’ is true does. It is widely agreed upon that the majority of our beliefs are not occurrent at any given time, and that belief comes in degrees of strength, confidence, or firmness. Representationalists regard beliefs as structures in the mind that represent the propositions they affirm, usually in something like a mental language. Dispositionalists regard beliefs as dispositions to act in certain ways in certain circumstances.

The central question in the debate is whether there are norms of some sort governing our habits of belief-formation, belief-maintenance, and belief-relinquishment. Is it ever or always morally wrong or epistemically irrational or practically imprudent to hold a belief on insufficient evidence. Is it ever or always morally right or epistemically rational or practically prudent to believe on the basis of sufficient evidence or to withhold belief in the perceived absence of it. Is it ever or always obligatory to seek out all available epistemic evidence for a belief? Are there some ways of obtaining evidence that are themselves immoral, irrational, imprudent?

Related questions have to do with the nature and structure of norms involved, if any, as well as the source of their authority. Are they instrumental norms grounded in contingent ends that we set for ourselves? Are they categorical in being grounded in ends, set for us by the very nature of our intellectual or moral capacities. Finally, assuming that there are norms of some sort governing belief-formation, what does that imply about the nature of belief? Is belief formation voluntary or under our control? If so, what sort of control is this? Is it coherent to talk of ethics of belief?

Clifford offers his principle of doxastic self-control and defends the principle that we are all obliged to have sufficient evidence for every one of our beliefs “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence”. Clifford’s other principle: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to ignore evidence that is relevant to his beliefs or to dismiss relevant evidence in a facile way.” There might be at least two kinds of diachronic obligations here: one governing how we form and hold beliefs over time, and the other governing how we relinquish or revise beliefs over time. If someone violates such a diachronic obligation by purposely avoiding the reading of books, etc, the life of that man is one long sin against mankind. Clifford is an iconic representative of a strict evidentialist position on the ethics of belief – we are obliged to form beliefs always and only on the basis of sufficient evidence that is in our possession.

Pragmatist followers recognize that we are positively obliged sometimes to form beliefs on insufficient evidence and that it would be a significant prudential, intellectual or even moral failure to do otherwise.

The Pragmatist Method:
 Lay out a series of strict conditions under which an option counts as ‘genuine’ and believing without sufficient evidence is permitted or required.
 Must be between ‘live’ hypotheses – hypotheses that are among the mind’s possibilities
 There must also be compelling evidence one way or the other, the option must be forced such that doing nothing also amounts to making a choice, and the option must concern a ‘momentous’ issue.
 In the absence of these conditions, revert to a broadly evidentialist picture.
There are situations where we can believe things even with insufficient evidence. These situations must fit certain criteria. There must be situations that:
 Cannot be decided on intellectual grounds (when rational decisions are not available)
 Have two live options (real possibilities, as opposed to dead possibilities that one would not consider)
 Are forced (you cannot choose neither option: ex. either you eat your breakfast or you do not)
 Are momentous (irreversible, significant, and unique, while trivial choices are reversible, insignificant, or not unique, all three are sufficient)
The choice to suspend a belief is also a choice. Therefore, our decision about belief will be forced, so long as we are comparing whether we should believe or lack that particular belief. Not having any beliefs about ‘p’ is not the same as accepting that ‘p’ is not true. We are often forced to make these kinds of live and momentous decisions without evidence. To leave an option open or to suspend judgment is just as much a decision as to pick one option of the other. However, it seems that such a decision will not have the same detrimental effects of forming a belief without justification. Since further investigation as opposed to unjustified action is the logical result of a lack of belief, it does not have the same negative effects that Clifford warned of, as that belief in something does. It may be a choice, but it is not as consequential when it’s wrong.

To form a belief about important matters without possessing sufficient evidence or to believe anything with a degree of firmness that is not proportioned to the strength of our evidence is to misuse our faculties. John Locke says “It is to transgress against our own light either to believe on insufficient evidence or to fail to proportion our degree of belief to the strength of the evidence,” and also “he that believes without having any reason for believing may be in love with his own fancies, but neither seeks truth as he ought to nor pays the obedience due to his maker, who would have him use those discerning Faculties he has given him, to keep him out of mistake and error.”

[BeerBaron]

I read -

-Liberal
-leftist
-athiest

then I rolled my eyes, and left.

[Petros Agapetos]

I know it requires a bit patience to go through the material, and to try to really understand it.

[Petros Agapetos]

My favorite theory of truth is correspondence. Truth is that which comports with reality.

What is your definition of truth?

[Sokoli]

Truth is about expectations. Every claim that purports to state some truth, is a claim that is raising some expectations.

[Petros Agapetos]

Truth in Knowledge

Whether someone's belief is true is not a prerequisite for (its) belief. On the other hand, if something is actually known, then it categorically cannot be false. For example, if a person believes that a bridge is safe enough to support him, and attempts to cross it, but the bridge then collapses under his weight, it could be said that he believed that the bridge was safe but that his belief was mistaken. It would not be accurate to say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. By contrast, if the bridge actually supported his weight, then he might say that he had believed that the bridge was safe, whereas now, after proving it to himself (by crossing it), he knows it was safe.

Epistemologists argue over whether belief is the proper truth-bearer. Some would rather describe knowledge as a system of justified true propositions, and others as a system of justified true sentences. Plato, in his Gorgias, argues that belief is the most commonly invoked truth-bearer

[Petros Agapetos]

Justification in Knowledge

In the Theaetetus, Socrates considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, the last being that knowledge is true belief "with an account" (meaning explained or defined in some way). According to the theory that knowledge is justified true belief, in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have a good reason for doing so. One implication of this would be that no one would gain knowledge just by believing something that happened to be true. For example, an ill person with no medical training, but with a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that he will recover from his illness quickly. Nevertheless, even if this belief turned out to be true, the patient would not have known that he would get well since his belief lacked justification.

The definition of knowledge as justified true belief was widely accepted until the 1960s. At this time, a paper written by the American philosopher Edmund Gettier provoked major widespread discussion.