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Beliefs
Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case, with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty. Beliefs are mental representations of an attitude positively oriented towards the likelihood of something being true.
Intentionality = attitude positively oriented; the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for things, properties, and state of affairs. The ability of the mind to form representations.
Beliefs refer to personal attitudes associated with true or false ideas and concepts. Beliefs do not require active introspection and circumspection.
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).
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