True Belief example essay topic

Assess the view that knowledge is justified true belief. "All men by their nature feel the urge to know" (Aristotle). To feel the urge to know to have the need to understand all we see, feel and touch in our world is the fundamental basis for being human. Without our ability to question, to prove and to understand we would still be in the realms of 'simple' animals. But to say we know something is not enough, we need irrefutable proof, we need reasons for what we believe. This is where the tripartite definition of knowledge comes in; knowledge as justified true belief, the clearest, surest way we have of determining knowledge.

But this method could be flawed, as I will show later on in this essay, as we cannot truly know anything. Using a series of tests we can get to a state of almost inarguable truth. But being human and full of doubt we can always argue the flaws inherent in these tests. Human perceptions are as individual as the shape of our ears. Even the most logical mathematical testing is still at the mercy of the individual examining the results. What follows are the tests and their flaws, what beliefs are and what justifies those beliefs.

But without sharing this knowledge what do we have? Nothing, to show what we know and how we know is the reason for knowledge. If I knew everything there was to know but was unable to show or prove this knowledge then I really know nothing, it is my personal belief, unjustified and untrue. If I could share and prove this knowledge and get the world to believe it then I would justify my belief as to what I know. There are three tests we can employ for determining the truth or the truth for a belief, although they are far from perfect. The correspondence test uses simple observations.

If something corresponds to a fact; fish swim in water therefore without water fish can not swim. This works if fish need water to swim in the real world. This is common sense and it's a test we all normally operate by on an almost subconscious level, we do not walk about saying to ourselves " we walk because we have legs, so if I had no legs I would not walk" it is so simple a test we do it without thinking about it. The coherence test concerns itself with the fact that something is true if it is consistent with other statements I believe. For example, cats are playful creatures that love to torment small rodents. Therefore I will believe someone who tells me his or her cat was chasing a mouse.

It is consistent with my belief that cats torment rodents. It is coherent, it makes sense. The pragmatic test is to do with the fact that something works in practice. If a boxer gets his mum to kiss his left glove before every fight and he goes on to win every fight. He believes the kiss helps him to win it works therefore that belief is true. Any belief that works in practice and is beneficial to the believer is true.

There are problems with these tests; they are far from flawless. When do you have enough evidence? Take flying fish or mud skippers, they do not always need water. The mudskipper can go for a long time without the need to immerse itself. Personal perceptions, observations and generalisations do not stand up to the coherence test. I could say all fish stink, but someone else could love the smell of fish and say it is the most beautiful smell in the world.

You could have masses of evidence that justifies a belief but it could later turn out to be false. Centuries ago the general consensus was that the sun revolved around the earth. To look at this as a layman this is how it seems. The sun rises and falls on the same daily path then along came Copernicus and turned this particular truth on its head. Some beliefs do not seem to correspond to any solid fact.

If I was to say, "if I had a bus I would take people to work for free". This has not happened yet so I do not know for sure that I would, but I still believe it. Some beliefs form a coherent system but are not true. Childhood beliefs like the tooth fairy for example. You lose a tooth, you put it under your pillow and in the morning the tooth has gone only to be replaced by money. Someone took the tooth, someone replaced it for money and your mum tells you the tooth fairy did it so you believe it, although it is simply not true.

If I had a belief that all short Scottish men love to fight then subsequently met one in a pub and had a fight with him; this would justify my belief. It may just be that I met one nasty little Scot. "What do we know?" is the great philosophical debate. Rene Descartes believed firmly in the existence of God as the font of all our knowledge, he suggested that we are born with all knowledge and our senses fired triggers, which unlocked these innate ideas. Descartes suggested that the only way to achieve justified true belief was through logic and mathematical reasoning.

For it is these that give the purest answers. The ultimate aim for rationalist thinkers such as Descartes was to find the absolute foundation for knowledge. They said that if the foundation is unsure then all we know is unsure also. John Locke, on the other hand, believed that when we are born our minds are like a blank slate, a 'tabula Rasa', and it was only through sense experience that we formed ideas. Justified true belief is flawed. To find the truth we use many tests, but these tests rely on perceptions, observations and the words of others.

Our perceptions are as individual as human beings are. Who is to say what I see is what you see? Perceptions and interpretations of what our senses tell us could be totally incorrect. We may see things no one else sees. If I could get two people to believe a statement that I made up and got them to each go and tell two other people, and so on until millions of people believed it, a complete fallacy would become a truth. Take the bible.

Knowledge is often confused for belief. Belief depends on knowledge as supporting evidence. To argue the truth of something you can choose from two simple methods; inductive arguments or deductive arguments. Inductive arguments are flawed in the fact they can draw only a probable conclusion. Not brushing your teeth, for example, can cause them to rot and fall out, so if I do not brush my teeth all my teeth may fall out.

It is not grounded in certainty but it is likely. To justify what you know with inductive reasoning is problematic. It is not one hundred percent it could be absolutely wrong and your conclusion would be arguable. Deductive arguments draw conclusions that are certain.

If you press a light switch a light comes on, so if I pressed a light switch the light will come on. These arguments are useful for justifying what we believe. There are some things we know innately or instinctively. We know how to breathe you do not question this fact, it is obvious but we do not tell ourselves on a daily basis. Irrational fears, a fear of spiders, for example, someone may have never seen a spider in their lives but on their first encounter they could be reduced to tears, the knowledge that a spider could be harmful is already there, it is not learnt through experience. All we can know is that we exist.

In the words of Descartes "I think therefore I am". This is the only definite truth; even this can be questioned. Knowledge, like fingerprints, is individual. We can only know what we tell ourselves we know. You can prove as much as you like but everything is questionable. "I breathe air" a definite statement of fact but who is to say that in one thousand years from now that a scientist could prove that we actually breathed dust and air just came with it.

One man's truth is another man's fallacy. You can not tell anyone what he or she knows because we are totally alone with our minds. Our minds are our individual representation of the world. Someone could see little green men, or triangles, they could believe this implicitly and no amount of scientific reasoning or argument could sway them from their truth. You can not truly justify anything; you can not make anything true if no one wants to believe it. Beliefs are personal if they suit you and are beneficial to you then they are right and true.

The problem with epistemology is that we are human. The tripartite definition of knowledge is useful but flawed. Inbred in every human being is doubt and doubt causes us to question everything The belief in God. To Christians God is a real tangible being. If something is real in one person's mind then who is to say it is not real. The tripartite definition is similar to the explanation of god; it is a way of explaining things that defy explanation.

Basically we can attempt to prove what we know or believe by using the tripartite definition of knowledge, that is knowledge as justified true belief. Using the pragmatic, correspondence and coherence tests we can define knowledge to a certain extent. Being human we can still doubt whatever we know until we are driven insane, if you doubted everything and asked why to everything we see and do we would not be able to get out of bed in the morning, if we actually believed the bed was there, or if we were in the bed in the first place. We have to accept that certain things are real even if we could argue their existence. Buses run, people live and work, birds fly, and the sun shines. Without taking for granted that some things are true then we could no longer function as human beings.

Society would grind to a halt and the world would cease to work. It is good to know and to understand but knowing too much and disbelieving everything gets us nowhere, we have to take some things as read as much as we have to find the meaning of life.