Announcements: Meditation 2 will be handed out in class on friday 9/27/02 or may be accessed through the net from the on line class.

Discussing truth and knowledge.

The word truth is one of those vague words making it difficult to define. To help find it's meaning we start by asking the question "What kind of things are true?". (true being the opposite of false.) Seeing how things such as weather, a coffee cup, or a chalkboard can neither be in themselves true or false it so becomes the belief, statement, or proposition one makes about such ideas or objects that can be labeled true or false. *Where true is the sum total of all truths.

*Proposition is the logical abstract of things such as the statement:"Cats have fur."

*Statements like "It's hot in here." are verbal or written. This is someone expressing the proposition in language like someone says or writes "Cats have fur."

*Belief like that in God are the mental things which go on in our head. Where someone holds the proposition in their minds and affirms it to be true.

In order to discuss knowledge we must have a working definition of what "true" is. That definition we take from Tarski who says "snow is white" is true if and only if snow is white. This quote leads us to the "Correspondence Theory of Truth" or the ordinary, common sense definition of truth.(truth is that which corresponds or accurately describes reality)

*A true statement depicts the world as it is...so, truth is basically describing the world as it is or as seen. Tarski's quote is rest on this common sense theory.

Now, We have a working definition of "truth". How does it relate to knowledge?
*Knowledge is roughly true justified beliefs. We can not "know" a falsehood, only something which is "true" can be "known".

*Justified- proved, supported by good evidence. Something you have a right or reason to believe.

This means that true beliefs that are not justified or even false beliefs that are justified don't amount to knowledge. For example just because someone grew up in a house that believed in God, and later come find out that there really is a God doesn't mean that he had a justified belief that there was a God.