If you believe something that happens to be true, but can't justify why you believe in that particular proposition, that is considered a true belief. To give a somewhat silly example, imagine that you have just bought a scratch-off lottery card that you believe will contain a winning number. If that card happens to be a winning card, then your belief turned out to be true.
On the other hand, if you have a justifiable reason to believe something, even if that thing turns out to be not true, then you have a justified belief. Imagine that your housemate comes home every day around 5:00 PM. If you hear someone at the front door at 5:01 PM (you are in a different room so you can't actually see who it is), you might justifiably believe that person to be your housemate when, in reality, it is a delivery person. Your belief, though false, was justified.
Why is this distinction important? To be considered knowledge, you need a justified true belief. Therefore, a scientific approach is one that builds on justified beliefs, ideally proving them true or false through experimentation and investigation.

No comments:
Post a Comment