Justified True Belief: can anyone tell which beliefs are true?

Metaphysics & Epistemology
241

More that we decide that P is true.

I’ll go along with setting aside the correspondence, coherence and pragmatic accounts of truth, and point to a deflationary, minimal account along the lines of Tarski; we use “true” to differentiate some sentences from others, for various reasons; but the commonality is that any sentence “p” will be true if and only if, p. “Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white; a straight forward case. It works when we say something false, too: “grass is purple” is true if and only if grass is purple. Since grass is not purple, the “if and only if” is true.

The point is almost one of mere grammar, of the use of language: if we assent to a sentence, then we thereby assent to it’s being true.

And we do assent to sentences.

That assent can take different forms. If we see that snow is white, then we see that “snow is white” is true; if we doubt that snow is white, then we doubt that “snow is white” is true; and if we believe that snow is white, then we believe that “snow is white” is true.

How does that sit with you?

242

You are probably right. There are many who lust for certain knowledge and fear to admit the possibility that they are only guessing at the world.

If not for so many of them, there’d be no need for the (humble) Prophet of Uncertainty.

Yes, yes… it is always the other guy. Crumbs on my face? Well, it’s because YOU went into the cookie jar!

I understand.

Not in those words. But you’ve just now made yourself bigger than any god, haven’t you? If you can deny the possibility of the trickster god, then you can deny any god you please, yes?

That looks to me like a claim to be in charge of the nature of reality.

I wonder what would have happened if you’d been Keanu Reeves’ partner when the walls melted.

You’d still be there denying it happened… yes?

Well, I was basing it on observed history. Remember how you barged into the thread and immediately began mangling the meaning of my OP? Denying that scientific experiments are conducted within a human brain and such… as if I were arguing for such nonsense?

You saw the OP and assumed you understood it perfectly. You didn’t ask me questions about it. You just attacked the perfectly clear meaning you could see in the words.

And your interpretation was so askew that I wondered if you are a native speaker. I’m still at about 20% BGY on that one, by the way, but I was up around 80% for awhile.

Sometimes our behavior does not match our claims of our behavior. I find it is better to watch a person’s behavior than to accept his claims of his behavior.

Yes, now you’ve got it.

The question was not “Is it probable?” The question was, “Is it possible?”

Can you really not see the difference?

Is it probable that a meteorite will fall on your head in the next five minutes?

No.

Is it possible that a meteorite will fall on your head in the next five minutes?

Yes. (Although I would not be surprised to hear you say No.)

Thank you for posting the evidence that you were mistaken in attributing to me the belief that the aardvark needed knowledge before he could act.

But I already knew that I had not argued something so silly as that.

243

Thank you for another demonstration of that wonderful debate behavior you keep telling me about.

244

Academic philosophy is still trying to catch up to me. Send some of them along. I’ll show you.

Well, the bus seems to think it is true. I wouldn’t challenge it myself.

245

You should hear me go on and on about races and whether “a black guy” exists.

Or liberals or atheists. I even have a problem with species.

Something like chess, for example. We can say it is true that a rook can take that pawn over there, because we have sat down before the game and agreed to the rules.

We agree to call a vague language culture “English” and therefore it is true that this language we are using lives in the neighborhood of English moreso than any other language neighborhood. We agree to name it, and then we try to abide by the names we’ve given.

Although I used to prefer calling my language “American”, the internet and easy pond crossing and such have made me stand down from that position a bit.

Math is excluded. It is a set of formal symbols and rules. Those who agree to the symbols and rules can speak of true things within that system.

Included truths are claims about the apparent reality out there. Historical stuff is high on the list, of course. Not long ago I found that a common historical belief, pervading both our cultures, is almost surely not so.

Most human beliefs exist apart from direct observation, but I would bring it down to the lion behind the tree. Is “There’s a lion behind that tree” true in a sense transcending human opinion? Well, I’m willing to flee at first sight, but when I am away and musing on it, I acknowledge that I could have been hallucinating or that the Trickster God is running a lion simulation for us. I can’t certify what is out there. I can only say that my opinion of whatever is out there can be weaker or stronger, but it never reaches 100 percent.

Well, I have no problem with formal logic, what little I know of it, if that’s what you mean. Words can certainly be agreed upon and manipulated, so we can make true puzzles and false ones, as with math.

It sits as a very nice description of the Best Guess Yet.

246

Noone who matters ( in philosophy) is discussing the concept of the true/apparent world these days.

You never caught up. Though I understand practicing with the basics to build muscle memory for advancing.

247

That’s a fine assertion of your personal opinion.

Send them along. I am pretty sure that the entire field has lost its way, but I am here to help.

248

Anything a person says is an opinion, even if its a “fact.”

249

That’s pretty much so; but do care to set out why?

The reasons go back to Austin, and the dismantling of Language, truth and Logic.

250

Nietzsche does well enough dismantling the whole conception. Though, I’m sure he’s not the only one. As you detail, this Austin obviously must of made a BIG deal about it in his philosophy.

Nietzsche dismantles the concept in Will to Power as Knowledge, but also How the True and Apparent World Became a Fable.

Tell me about Austin. Seems like he knows what he’s talking about. Cause those (Language, logic and truth) are basically three of the major talking points Nietzsche has too.

251

Spread the word, Brother!

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252

Yes. Each one of us decides.

Sometimes the great mass of us decides the same thing, but there is always the lone prophet out there who may be seeing the truth while the rest of us have been waylaid by the trickster god. That’s really all I’m saying.

We can discount him in ordinary life, but I think that if we insist he couldn’t possibly be right, we lose something.

It sits as technical philosophy, in which I have little interest. (Sorry.) The only thing that might bother me is when you say “then we see that ‘snow is white’ is true.

I would prefer “most apes report the color of snow as white.”

I have no problem with the grammar. My problem is with the (possible implied?) assertion that God also knows snow to be white.

Maybe it will help you understand if I say again who I am. I am a preacher of epistemic humility. I think certainty is damned dangerous to society and to the individual… and so I go about spreading the seeds of uncertainty.

Except for that fundamental motivation on my part, we’d probably have little to talk or disagree about.

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253

This is a rather long winded thread on appearance vs reality. It doesn’t actually matter … what matters is how you work with the knowledge you’ve gained about reality and appearance and apply it to everyday life.

254

That’s one opinion, but mine differs. I am intrigued by the story of life and would like to see it continue. I’m curious about it, and I prefer that tribalism and raging certainty don’t tear it apart.

I can’t do much, but maybe I can do a little.

255

Yes you enjoy planting the seeds of uncertainty as you yourself have admitted, and you should give yourself a pat on the back because you’re very good at it but don’t you think at some point you’re confusing yourself, where you, instead of obfuscating can illuminate something ?

Do you enjoy planting uncertainty into the minds of other people ?

256

More often, we.

An ape that doesn’t agree that snow is white is wrong; perhaps they have misunderstood the language, or they have a perceptual anomaly…

Either way, there is a difference between something being true and something being believed to be true.

Have you encountered the notion of family resemblance, an alternative to rigid definitions? Google it.

The difference between the truth of the rules of chess, mathematical truths, and truths about “external reality” looks to be more about what warrants our saying they are true, rather than different sorts of truth. “6+7=5” is true IFF 6+7=5; “the bishop stays on it’s own colour” is true IFF the bishop stays on its own colour; “The cat is on the mat” is true IFF the cat is on the mat. The “is true” in all these looks to be the same, but the reasons for accepting them differ markedly. So perhaps we should take care not to confuse the reason we think something true with its being true.

The reason we think it true might well be that it is our best guess.

257

See the “Austin: Sense and Sensibilia” thread and related discussions about Austin’s treatment of Ayer:

Austin’s book is largely an assault on Ayer’s essay on perception. Ayer had been somewhat disingenuous in his use of the Argument from Illusion. Austin rejects Ayer’s idea that there is “a particular class of sentences which are apt to verification” (i.e., sense-data sentences). Instead, Austin uses numerous examples to show that what counts as verifiable depends on circumstances — “on what needs hedging”

Ayer and Austin both opted for correspondence, against Carnap’s coherentist “principle of tolerance”; subsequently this emphasis on correspondence became the target of Strawson’s criticism of Austin.

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258

Well, I don’t know how good I am at it, but I try. Thanks for the encouragement, though.

I’m not sure what that means. If you think I’m confusing myself, I would enjoy hearing howso. Let me have it.

What do you want illuminated? I’ll do my best.

Well, I’d be happier bowling, but somebody’s got to do it.

I get a little pleasure out of the activity, though. I have learned a lot about human minds through my years of debate, and about other stuff.

So far as planting uncertainty, don’t you ever feel the urge to wobble a bully?

Just a little?

259

No. I do not believe in any gods but whether there is or not a god is not something I know. I am pistically atheist but epistemically agnostic. I do not regard your trickster god to be something to seriously consider.

I cannot help what it looks like to you.

If you are talking about something that happened in a movie then yes I deny that it happened.

Still at it I see. Assuming you know what I assume.

Of course! If I can see the perfectly clear meaning in your words then what is wrong with responding to them?

Right. Your question was:

My question was:

Neither question was about probability.

You must be really nervous. Where did I attribute to you the belief that the aardvark needed knowledge before he could act? This was what was said:

My response was:

I am done now with your sophomoric arguments.

What I have observed over many years, talking to actual students in the actual world is that some will suffer from some kind of mental or emotional crisis that was either brought on or exasperated by their reading of philosophy. Others will get far enough into philosophy to think they have a superior understanding of things, but not far enough to realize that they don’t.

I will leave it there.

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260

Well perhaps you can’t … but I will proceed to ask you anyway. At what point do your motivations to cause and sow confusion stop giving your joy … does that ever happen … at all? ? I suppose you get intellectual joy out of causing confusion but this just looks like dishonesty on your part, it’s fine here though as it’s on online medium but at some point do you not think, despite your humble way of going about it, that it is unnecessary. That is your self dishonesty is completely unnecessary?

I hope you realise what you’re doing because despite your dishonesty you’re honest about it … and that’s the real mess.

@BestGuessYet