Knowledge and justification
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Truth as a logical operator on sentences
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One child might say to another: "I know that the earth is already hundreds of years old" and that would mean: I have learnt it. How do children learn? Truth is a logical operator on sentences. For example, consider what we mean when we say, "It is true that this tree is green." We could write this alternatively as ""This tree is green," is true." The statement "It is true that…", or the operator "… is true" would appear to be redundant (unnecessary). We could replace either sentence by simply, "This tree is green." The operator "… is true" asserts a relationship between the sentence "This tree is green" and the fact in the world that makes the sentence true. The mere fact that I utter a sentence does not make the sentence true, or force a correspondence between the sentence and the world. For example, I could say "A statue of Elvis Presley has been found on Mars". This is a perfectly meaningful sentence in English, but happens to be false. When the sentence is false there is no correspondence with fact (the world or reality). Hence, when we use the operator "… is true" we are drawing people's attention particularly to the claim that there is a correspondence between the sentence and reality. "I tell you, it is true that there is a statue of Elvis on Mars!" Of course, this form of language can be abused. It asserts strongly that what is said is no mere figment of the imagination, but naturally people may use this form of language to reinforce a lie or tall story.
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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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