THE STANDARD ANALYSIS OF KNOWLEDGE
What is involved in any claim to possess ‘knowledge’?
What are the components of ‘knowledge’?
Knowledge is a matter of ‘Justified True Belief’:
1. Belief
Belief involves assent / affirmation – a “yes attitude” to a proposition.
Beliefs are action-guiding
To believe a statement is to affirm the statement and to base one’s actions
upon one’s assent to / affirmation of the statement.
Example: “I believe that this information will be on the next examination, so I will learn
and I will be able to give this information on the next examination!”)
2. Truth
What we believe / affirm must be true.
We cannot know something if what we claim to know is in act false.
(We can know THAT something is false: “I know ‘San Antonio is the capital of Texas’ is false.”
But we cannot know something that IS false - It cannot be the case: “I know that San Antonio
is the capital of Texas.”)
But what is ‘truth’? – What is it that makes a statement true?
Theories of truth:
1) Correspondence theory of truth:
A statement is true if it corresponds to reality / if it “matches up” with the facts.
2) Coherence theory of truth
A statement is true if it coheres / “ties in” with other statements we hold to be true.
3) Pragmatic theory of truth
A statement is true if it “works” = consistently and communally solves our problems
effectively.
3. Justification
Justification is variously understood, but for our purposes is a matter of having sufficient
reasons / evidence (of an appropriate type) to support one’s holding that a statement is true
and to support the statement’s status as-true.)