Knowledge and justification
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Valid argument, inference and justification
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Can there be an argument that makes no assumptions whatsoever? "Every argument makes some assumption, even if it is only the assumption that the logic of the argument is sound; hence there cannot be any knowledge." Is this true? We have seen that logical inference builds from premises to conclusions. Here is an example of a valid deduction: A. If Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy then the last bullet he fired must have wounded two other people as well as killing President Kennedy. B. It is not possible for a single bullet to have wounded three people. Therefore, C. Lee Harvey Oswald did not shoot President Kennedy. This argument (although it might appear controversial) is in fact valid, in the sense that if the premises are true, then the conclusion could not possibly be false. The controversy raised by this argument is contained in the premises. Anyone who wishes to maintain that Lee Harvey Oswald did shoot President Kennedy must deny the truth of one or both of the two premises. In this argument statement C is justified by means of an inference from statements A and B.
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Contents of
Knowledge and justification
1 The distinction between knowledge and belief
2 Unsound, invalid, possible world and fallacy
3 Counterexample, exposing a fallacy
4 Belief and doubt
5 Believing that and knowing that
6 Knowledge and certainty - the tripartite definition of knowledge
7 True, justified belief
8 Plato: The Theaetetus
9 Plato: Forms
10 The possibility of scepticism and categories of belief
11 Global scepticism
12 The Argument from Authority
13 Valid argument, inference and justification
14 Chain of deductive inferences, self-evident truths
15 Sense experience, empiricism
16 The dialectic method, thesis and antithesis
17 Rationalism and empiricism; the Discourse on the Method
18 The Cogito, Reason and Rational Insight
19 Bertrand Russell, Acquaintance
20 Universals, Forms
21 Scepticism, Existentialism and Faith
22 The evil genius argument
23 Existentialism
24 Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling - the Absurd
25 Foundation for Knowledge
26 Theory of Knowledge, Epistemology and Metaphysics
27 Rationalism, Mathematics and Logic, Innateness
28 Innate Ideas
29 The a priori
30 Truth by convention, Hume and the Method of Doubt
31 Hume and the distinction between belief and knowledge
32 Hume and the definition of belief
33 Truth as a logical operator on sentences
34 The correspondence theory of truth
35 Wittgenstein: On Certainty
36 Wittgenstein and the coherence theory of truth
37 William James and Pragmatism
38 W.V.O. Quine, pragmatism and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism
39 Postivism and pragmatism
40 Pragmatism and utilitarianism
41 Pragmatism and religiion
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