I am currently summarizing a chapter in my philosophy book that deals with the issue of "What is knowledge?" Obviously, this subject cannot be approached without treading through the Knowledge vs. Belief.
The quotes I will use will be in my own words, because I'm supposed to be doing the assignment that way. I'm not always 100% certain that I'm picking up what the book is laying down, but I do my best.
"Good Arguements should be both valid and sound. Logic determines validity. We need to know if the basis of the arguement is true to know if it's sound."
Obviously, to be true, it's a necessary condition that the facts we base our claims on be true.
"Human beings believing that the basis of their beliefs are true, does not make the arguement for their beliefs sound."
Excuse the obvious, but I have to use the Bible as an example for this. Christians believe that the Bible is true, and base their entire belief system on it. Believing the Bible is true is just another belief that needs to be justified. You need to justify the Bible is true, before you can justify that the Christian ideas are true.
"There are no limitations on what you can believe, but simply believing that something is true does not make it so."
This should be a given, but most people refuse to admit it.
"We trust some beliefs more than we trust others, but strongly believing something does not make that belief knowledge"
No matter how strongly we believe in something, we need to be able to step back and say "Do I actualy KNOW this?"
"Guessing the right answer is not the same as knowing the truth, therefore truth does not define knowledge"
So I really don't know all that stuff that I got right on the last Psych test. Hmm....
"Justification in addition to truth is essential to the concept of knowledge"
"Plato was the first to suggest that knowledge is true, justified belief.
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This is a very good post; very good job differentiating what people know to be true and what people believe to be true.
And I usually hate using the Bible as an examplefor something like that, but at the same time it's the most accessible and recognizable example for things like this.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/fanaile-essence
So is there an absolute truth(s)?
for metaphysics people.
They think there has to be one theory out there that encompasses everything. Einstein supposably figured out part of it with his e=mc2 thing. (how do you do the itty bitty numbers? anyway..)
I had a random thought: Knowledge is not something it's really possible for us to know we have :P