# Justified True Belief: can anyone tell which beliefs are true? **URL:** \ **Category:** Metaphysics & Epistemology\ **Created:** [September 20, 2026, 12:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164 "2026-09-20T12:36:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/342 "2026-10-10T15:57:37Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > The evidence will tell us. For example if I say there’s a penny in my pocket and you say there isn’t, we can find out by checking my pocket. I have no hands and am blind. But I am a prophet of God who knows that pennies are mere apparent items in this apparent reality which God uses to entertain the apes. That “penny” in your hand is not real. Which one of us own the T concerning the “penny”? You insist you own it. I insist I own it. Who settles the question for us? ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 4:00pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/343 "2026-10-10T16:00:21Z")
🤔 Where are you taking this? There’s a disputed claim: You claim to possess a penny. I say no. This is where your OP starts. You ask, can anyone tell blah blah blah? I inform you, yes - we check your pocket (the evidence) ---
**Author:** ![Fooloso4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@Fooloso4](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Fooloso4)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/344 "2026-10-10T16:11:35Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > “What then is truth …? As with all things Nietzsche this requires interpretation. In this same essay he also says: “[Man] is indifferent toward pure knowledge which has no consequences; toward those truths which are possibly harmful and destructive he is even hostilely inclined” And: “then he will always exchange truths for illusions”. Elsewhere: “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies” (Human All-too Human) “Something might be true, even if it were also harmful and dangerous in the highest degree; indeed, it might be part of the essential nature of existence that to understand it completely would lead to our own destruction. The strength of a person’s spirit would then be measured by how much “truth” he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he ‘needs’ to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.” (Beyond Good and Evil) ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 4:22pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/345 "2026-10-10T16:22:40Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > Where are you taking this? Outside of easy answers. ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 4:23pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/346 "2026-10-10T16:23:17Z")
Why? Does my answer not satisfy you? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 4:26pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/347 "2026-10-10T16:26:03Z")
> [@Fooloso4](#): > > As with all things Nietzsche this requires interpretation. In this same essay he also says: If only he were in a debate forum, where we could ask him questions. I wonder if he would honestly engage. I’m thinking so. He seemed pretty serious about thought. ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 4:27pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/348 "2026-10-10T16:27:30Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > Why? Does my answer not satisfy you? 🙂 You did not answer. Here is my question again: Who settles the question for us? ---
**Author:** ![Fooloso4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@Fooloso4](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Fooloso4)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 6:03pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/349 "2026-10-10T18:03:14Z")
> [@BestGuessYet](#): > > If only he were in a debate forum, where we could ask him questions. > > I wonder if he would honestly engage. > > I’m thinking so. He seemed pretty serious about thought. It is because he is so serious and honest that I don’t think he would. His written works are his forum. He says: "Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers. He who knows the reader, does nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers—and spirit itself will stink. Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruins in the long run not only writing but also thinking. Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becomes populace. He that writes in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart." (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, VII. Reading and Writing) And: "… perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, a teacher of slow reading: - in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste - a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is ‘in a hurry’. For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow - it is a goldsmith’s art and connoisseurship of the word which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But for precisely this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of ‘work’, that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to ‘get everything done’ at once, including every old or new book: - this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well , that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers . . . My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well! - (Daybreak, preface) ---
**Author:** ![LordKing777](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/lordking777/32/1368_2.png) [@LordKing777](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/LordKing777)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 7:17pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/350 "2026-10-10T19:17:54Z")
You Will Know Them by Their Fruits **Matthew 7:15-20** If someone isn’t doing well in life or is unhappy, it may be worth questioning whether their beliefs are wrong or unjustified. If someone claims to know the truth about becoming wealthy but remains poor, then their beliefs have failed to produce the results they promise. We have no reason to assume that their beliefs are justified. If someone claims to be the best programmer ever but produces bad programs, we have no reason to believe that they are the best programmer ever. ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2026, 8:04pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/351 "2026-10-10T20:04:47Z")
> [@Fooloso4](#): > > It is because he is so serious and honest that I don’t think he would. His written works are his forum. Yeah. I’m a little bit the same. If only everyone would read my work, then they would understand so much. Still, I feel more confident about my thought when I allow it to be challenged. > [@Fooloso4](#): > > Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruins in the long run not only writing but also thinking. Wait. What? He was an elitist? Bah. Every ape deserves a chance. I wish he had come here and argued for such a thing. > [@Fooloso4](#): > > He that writes in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart." Yeah, people really ought to quote me by heart way more often, since I’ve shed so much blood with my words. I’m not sure what is wrong with them. > [@Fooloso4](#): > > Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becomes populace. I didn’t know or had forgotten how funny he talked. It has been my experience that some people who talk funny don’t want to be questioned, so I understand if he’d been shy about taking questions in public. Anyway, I didn’t read your long quote from him. Just a personal quirk. I’m a guy who has little patience for preachers. I prefer the thinker who puts his thought out into the sandstorm and allows it to be tested. I’m sure he was a fine fellow, though. I’m not saying he wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 2:14am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/352 "2026-10-11T02:14:04Z")
> [@BestGuessYet](#): > > You did not answer. Here is my question again: > > Who settles the question for us? 👇 > [@Scorpion](#): > > Where are you taking this? > > There’s a disputed claim: You claim to possess a penny. I say no. This is where your OP starts. You ask, can anyone tell blah blah blah? > > I inform you, yes - we check your pocket (the evidence) In a nutshell - evidence (look inside the pocket). We may be talking past each other here. So why don’t you pick a dispute of your construction and we can thrash it out. ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 12:54pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/353 "2026-10-11T12:54:23Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > We may be talking past each other here. Yes. It’s because you will not answer my question. Look at the last interrogative, at the very end of this message. The last question. That is the question I am asking you to answer. But here it is in another form: **Who decides AFTER we have run the penny test and AFTER we are studying the results together… and are STILL in dispute?** Here is the penny setup again: I have no hands and am blind. But I am a prophet of God who knows that pennies are mere apparent items in this apparent reality which God uses to entertain the apes. That “penny” in your hand is not real. Which one of us owns the T concerning the penny? You insist you own it (penny). I insist I own it (no penny). _ **Who settles the question for us?** _ ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 3:00pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/354 "2026-10-11T15:00:48Z")
> [@BestGuessYet](#): > > Who settles the question for us? That’s not a good/loaded question. We settle the question they way we’ve settled it for as long as we’ve had questions. I offered an answer which you seem to find defective and for good reason I have to admit. Are you proposing guessing? It’s a well-known art and I second it, but there’s a success rate with that method. Would you like to discuss guessing? ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 4:12pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/355 "2026-10-11T16:12:49Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > That’s not a good/loaded question. When people ask me questions which seem loaded or “not good”, I just go ahead and give a clean and honest answer. It’s because I know that my mind deceives me. If a question challenges my worldview, my mind will often report that it is a loaded or “not good” question… and that I should just ignore it. Or answer a different question while believing myself to have answered the actual question. So I say, “Screw you, Guys in the Back Room. I’m gonna answer it whether you like it or not.” Just my thing and all. I fear delusion. I fear being deceived by my unconscious mind. > [@Scorpion](#): > > I offered an answer which you seem to find defective and for good reason I have to admit. The closest you have come to an answer is “evidence”. You say that evidence settles the issue for us. But evidence doesn’t speak. It requires a human to speak for it. The evidence tell you that there is a penny in your pocket. The evidence tells the blind prophet that it is not a penny in your pocket. What now? **Is there a person who can settle it for us?** I say not. It’s because I don’t believe in people who can step outside of themselves and report the actual nature of reality. > [@Scorpion](#): > > Are you proposing guessing? It’s a well-known art and I second it, but there’s a success rate with that method. Would you like to discuss guessing? What does guessing have to do with anything? I think you still can’t see the problem, and the only way you will ever begin to see it is by forcing yourself to answer my question. **Who truly speaks for the evidence?** ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 4:18pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/356 "2026-10-11T16:18:33Z")
Your question loaded. I suggest you reexamine it. When I offered an answer, you responded satisfactorily by referring to a blind, armless prophet of God. I then asked whether you’d prefer guessing. To this I haven’t received an answer. In addition, I reminded you of countless historical questions that have been settled, one of which is, is there evolution? The answer is yes. P.S. I appreciate the engagement. Your thread is an active one ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 4:35pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/357 "2026-10-11T16:35:20Z")
> [@Scorpion](#): > > Your question’s loaded. I suggest you reexamine it. By “loaded”, most people seem to mean “the necessary answer will confound my understanding of the world. It will make me give an answer which I do not want to give.” Could you tell me what “loaded” means to you? What do you mean when you say my question is loaded? What is your particular uneasiness with it? > [@Scorpion](#): > > I then asked whether you’d prefer guessing. To this I haven’t received an answer. I thought I answered, but I’ll do it again: NO. I would not prefer guessing. > [@Scorpion](#): > > In addition, I reminded you of countless historical questions that have been settled, one of which is, is there evolution? The answer is yes. There is apparently apparent evolution, yes. But I know a guy who says it isn’t so. He writes books and books about it. I just shrug and go on thinking that evolution is the best guess yet, but I can’t say that he is wrong in the Eyes of God. Can you? You would be willing to tell him that God—the Ultimate Knower—disagrees? > [@Scorpion](#): > > P.S. I appreciate the engagement. Your thread is an active one Thanks, Bud. Love you, too. ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2026, 11:36pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/358 "2026-10-11T23:36:07Z")
You described God as the ultimate knower. I suppose then that God is that anyone who can tell which beliefs are true. ---
**Author:** ![BestGuessYet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/2bfe46/32.png) [@BestGuessYet](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/BestGuessYet)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 12:46pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/359 "2026-10-12T12:46:02Z")
I call the ape who can do that a prophet of God—usually undeclared. I think of God as the incorporeal Guy who would verify their knowledge, if only He would show up. ---
**Author:** ![boundless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8dc957/32.png) [@boundless](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/boundless)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 1:05pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/360 "2026-10-12T13:05:24Z")
The problem that personally I have with ‘Justified True Belief’, ‘JTB’, is the ‘J’ rather than the ‘T’. In whatever conception we have about what we take to be ‘true’, how can we establish that a belief is ‘justified’. It seems like that it presupposes that we have to be able to ‘check’ somehow the belief which in turn presupposes that we already know the ‘truth’. ---
**Author:** ![Scorpion](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/scorpion/32/875_2.png) [@Scorpion](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Scorpion)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2026, 1:20pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164/361 "2026-10-12T13:20:16Z")
It’s not a problem. An ape or a non-ape, declared or undeclared, is he the guy who’ll tell us which belief is true? That’s all right. Being incorporeal is one of His attributes. [Deus absconditus](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/generic-failures-in-arguments-for-the-nonexistence-god/2715/569). FYI God did visit us - 1st Century AD Palestine, Vishnu avatars, etc. - and left behind a large corpii of teachings. [Previous page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164.md?page=17) [Next page](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/justified-true-belief-can-anyone-tell-which-beliefs-are-true/3164.md?page=19)