Belief

Faith and Belief Faith and belief, often associated in the same realm of ideas, are in actuality very different concepts. On dictionary.com, belief is defined as, “confidence; faith; trust” while faith is defined as, “belief that is not based on proof.” Ironically, the dictionary is troubled to define one word without the other. However, upon further investigation, faith and belief contrast in distinct ways. Faith is your whole person and infinite ultimate concern that is improvable while belief…

Justified True Belief: Fault in Definition Traditionally, Plato Philosophers have analyzed knowledge as being a justified true belief. Based on the views of different philosophers, one can be pessimistic about the possibility of this definition. I will elaborate on my reasoning by arguing from the thesis that other philosopher’s have challenged ‘justified true belief’ with analytical propositions that validate the need to contest Plato’s argument. 1. Explanation of Justified True Belief…

In this paper, I will explain the Justified True Belief (JTB) analysis of propositional knowledge and provide a counterexample to it. I will then verify that the Casual Theory (developed by Alvin Goldman) is to a certain extent the correct analysis of propositional knowledge. The motivation behind my thesis is to prove that JTB, first established by Plato completely fails to analyse propositional knowledge, and the essay will highlight the facts how it fails to do so when answering the question.…

The Platonic definition of knowledge is ‘justified true belief’, this concept was widely accepted until Gettier published his paper “Is Justified true belief knowledge?”, since then many philosophers have looked to refine the definition of knowledge. In this essay, I will be constructing Gettier cases to show that one can have a justified true belief (JTB) in X without knowing X. I will then analyse these cases with common criticisms and defences of them, subsequently, I will present an…

In my opinion, it is simply a fact that some beliefs are better than others. Each belief holds it a motivation behind why individuals hold that belief, and that reason can be defective. Perceive, for example, a wife believes that the husband should handle all bitter decisions that have to be made (Paul & Elder, 2012).When asked by her husband to help with some of these decisions the wife become resentful. Take bigotry for instance: prejudice has no premise, not science, no in reality justifiable…

to William Clifford in the "Ethics of Belief," he argued that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” (Ethics of Belief, p.5) To further support his argument, he applied the example of the ship owner. In the ship owner case, the owner who noticed that his ship has been getting old and rusty still decided to go ahead and let it sailed out with all the emigrants on board. He chose to go against his beliefs and doubts and entrusted it to…

criticized for forming these beliefs (James, Part 5). This claim, by James, is incorrect. One, instead, should be able to criticize the beliefs of others. James is correct in claiming that one should use their will when forming certain beliefs; but contrary to what he thinks, this process does not lead to the maximization of true beliefs. Preconceptions heavily influence what one wills to believe. If these preconceptions are tainted by false knowledge, formation of new true beliefs becomes…

The principle of believing in something on insufficient evidence, and might be called inadequate or invalid confirmation of something, got its most famous creation in an essay by W.K. Clifford, entitled “The Ethics of Belief”. Clifford asks a reasonable question: Is it ever morally permissible to believe a proposition on insufficient evidence? He is asking whether it is ever morally okay to let factors other than evidence and logical argument influence our thoughts. To some, it is permissible to…

Written Assignment 2: Challenging Student Beliefs Discussing Values I currently work with high school students and topics regarding personal values come up quite frequently. My students like to know about college, of course, but sometimes questions of politics or other related, touchy subjects arise. Generally, if students ask my opinion on something that could be considered a disagreeable topic, I will tell them how I feel. With that being said, however, I always make sure to let my students…

fundamental question, Plato designed the justified true belief theory. This theory attempts to analyze the nature of knowledge by listing conditions that must be met in order to know a certain proposition. While the justified-true-belief theory holds true for most circumstances, there are situations where it falls short, leading us to question if knowledge is even possible to obtain. According to the analysis, knowledge is equivalent to justified true belief. A person…