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Epistemology level 4, lecture 1 Truth

Knowledge and truth
What is the relation between knowledge and opinion? If a given question is under discussion, and A
and B both know the answer, necessarily they will agree with each other. But if A and B merely have
opinions, they need not agree with each other. Knowledge entails agreement, but opinion does not
entail agreement. Why is that?
Ours is a somewhat tolerant society, and we think everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
But we do not think everyone is entitled to their own knowledge whatever that is supposed to mean.
We think opinion can be right or wrong, but we think knowledge can only be right. So, what is it that is
right about knowledge? And what is it that is wrong, when an opinion is wrong?

Not all opinions are equally right

A thinks the cat is on the mat, and B thinks the cat is not on the mat. A thinks B is wrong, B thinks A is
wrong. A bystander respects the right of each to their opinion, but will surely think that one at least of
the disputants is not right.

The bad juror and the good juror

But here it is important to distinguish two ways not to be right. One way is to have done what you
ought not to have done in arriving at the opinion you did. Another way is to believe what is not true.
The distinction is crucial for our subject.
Here is an example. A Scotsman is on trial, accused of stealing a sheep. The bad juror finds
the case very boring, does not listen to the evidence, and dozes through the trial. The good juror is
conscientious, makes notes, listens to the arguments, and weighs the evidence carefully. The bad juror
finds the Scot guilty, because the bad juror is prejudiced against all Scots. The good juror finds the Scot
not guilty, because all the evidence points to his innocence. The bad juror is not right in holding the
opinion he does, because he ought to have examined the evidence, and not just been a bigot. But the
good juror is also not right, because the Scotsman did in fact steal that sheep!
In one sense, one is right in holding an opinion, if one has done all one rationally ought to do
in reaching that opinion. In that sense, the good juror is right in holding the opinion he does, because
his opinion is justified. But in a second sense, the good juror is not right in his opinion, because his
opinion is not true! The evidence was all misleading: the Scotsman had a fake alibi, he had intimidated
the witnesses, and he had got himself a shyster lawyer. The evidence pointed to the Scotsmans
innocence, but the truth was that he was guilty. There is thus a second sense in which an opinion can be
right or wrong, namely, whether the opinion is true or false.

Justification and truth

Because of this ambiguity in the notion of right opinion, we must distinguish its two senses.
Ones opinion that A is justified if one has done all ones rational duty in forming the opinion
that A.
Ones opinion that A is true if the fact is that A.
In this terminology, the bad juror was wrong because his opinion was not justified, but right because
his opinion was true. The good jurors opinion was right because he was justified, but wrong because
his opinion was not true.

True for me, false for you?

According to relativism, truth is relative to persons, and what is true for me may be false for you.
Relativism is an attractively peaceful and tolerant philosophy, but it seems to confuse ones right to
hold ones own opinion with ones opinion being right. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but it
doesnt follow that every opinion is right.
The following objection to relativism is due to Frege. Opinions can clash and one opinion can
contradict another. We can explain what contradiction is in terms of truth: two opinions are

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contradictory, if they cannot both be true. But relativists cannot explain the clash of opinion, because
they say two sincere opinions need never be contradictory, if one is true for me, the other true for
you. The relativist can allow for opinions to be different: just as the chair and the table are different,
so your opinion and mine can be different. But if the relativist is right, my opinion and yours can never
be contradictory, any more than the table and chair can contradict each other. Thus relativism cannot
explain the very thing that is the essence of opinion, namely that opinions can be contradictory.

Is truth what works in practice?

According to pragmatism, truth is what works in practice. Of course, what is true is indeed likely to
work in practice, other things being equal. But something can work in practice without being true. For
example, Adam the gardener once found a white powder at the back of his shed, and now he puts it on
his cabbages every year. He believes the powder is a fertiliser, and his belief works in practice, because
he gets a better crop with the powder. But the powder is not a fertiliser; instead it protects his cabbages
from pests. Adams belief works in practice, but it is not true.

Is truth what we have evidence for?

According to anti-realism, an opinion is true if we entitled to hold it, and we are entitled to hold it if
we have excellent evidence for it. But this cannot be right, as the example of the good juror shows.
A more sophisticated version of anti-realism notes that as new evidence comes in there is a
tendency for peoples opinions to converge. For example, scientists may at first engage in fierce
controversy over the merits of some new theory. But as new evidence comes in, controversy lessens
and eventually the scientific community agree on which theory is right. So some anti-realists, following
Pierce, have said truth is what we shall agree on, at the end of inquiry. But I do not think this can be
right either. For it seems we could have the best possible evidence, and yet our opinion still be false.
What if there was a Cartesian Deceiver at work, who created a lot of misleading evidence just for the
fun of deceiving us? The evidence would all point in one direction, even at the end of inquiry, but the
truth would be just the opposite.

Is truth coherence?
According to the coherence theory, an opinion is not true just on its own individual merits. Rather, it is
true if it is is one of a coherent system of opinions, that support each other and are consistent with each
other. There is quite a lot to be said for a coherence theory of justification, since it seems quite
plausible that a persons beliefs are the more justified the more they support each other. But coherence
does not seem to be a good theory of truth. For a novel can be a coherent story, and someone who did
not know it was all fiction, and who believed it all, would have a coherent set of opinions. But the
opinions would not be true, since it is all just fiction.

Is truth correspondence with fact?

Pragmatism, anti-realism and the coherence theory all have this in common: their definitions of the
truth of an opinion focus on how things are with the person who holds the opinion does the opinion
help them in practice, or fit their evidence, or cohere with their other beliefs? But truth is not just a
question of how things are with the believer; it is also a question of how things are with the world. An
opinion is true only if the opinion represents the world as the world really is.
We might compare an opinion with a picture. To hold an opinion is to have a kind of mental picture of
the world. The question is whether the picture is a good likeness of Being: does the picture fit the
reality? The way the correspondence theory puts it is this: an opinion is true if it fits the facts.

Epistemology exercises 1
1 Otto the optimist has won the lottery, at odds of 14 million to one. I knew Id win this time!, he
says. Did he really know he would win?
2. Polly the pessimist has a losing ticket on the lottery. Yet again. I knew I wouldnt win this time!,
she says. Did she really know she would not win?
3. Discuss whether everyone is entitled to their own opinion about the following propositions:
1 2 + 2 = 4
2 The earth is flat.
3 Human beings evolved from ape-like ancestors.
4 Capital punishment is wrong.
4. Is the belief P or not-P true? In what sense, if at all, do it and other logical truths work in
practice?
5 Otto believes the cat is on the mat, and this is his mental picture of the world.

According to the Correspondence Theory, Ottos belief is true if there exists in reality the
corresponding fact:

Does this seem a good theory to you? If so, what sort of entity is the fact that the cat is on the mat
supposed to be. Is it a cat? A mat? Or some combination of these? Can you see a fact? Can you touch
it?
6 Is the difficulty of defining facts an objection to the correspondence theory of truth?