Epistemology: Truth and Theory Essays

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Epistemology Assignment: Written Report The first idea listed in this unit would be the coherence theory. This theory works as though it is a web of beliefs. This theory is saying that a proposition is true when it fits in with the other propositions that we already know. This theory is a great concept as it makes perfect sense that if you believe something and it fits in with an accurate belief, of course it would be true. However with this theory there is still a weakness. This weakness would be that it has quite a hard time with new ideas. What this means is that if introduced a new concept or idea, if it doesn’t fit in with a preexisting idea there will be doubt automatically.

The next idea would be the correspondence theory. This theory believes that truth is based upon facts. It states that a proposition is true if and only it “corresponds” to the way things are. This theory is a good theory in the sense that it’s saying that if a proposition is close to, or matches another proposition there will be a high expectancy of it being true and accurate. This idea has its problems as well though. This being that its concept of perspective and accuracy are not 100% meaning that things may have a different outcome than expected.

Pragmatism is the idea that suggests that truth is what is useful. Or rather that truth is what works, and what makes us feel better. This idea of course has its own strengths and weaknesses. The strengths being that what is the true is what works this concept makes things much easier. However change may be hard as well as new ideas due to not knowing if things will work.

The idea of rationalism is when everything is 100% certain. Being a rationalist is when what you do is guaranteed to end up how you predicted, this theory is especially useful for math’s and sciences. So things that could be a positive about this is that as long as you follow the correct ‘formula’ or ‘steps’ nothing will be faulty. However this can also be the problem with this theory is that nothing will change.

Empiricism is when things are almost always true or correct, they are about 99.9% likely to be accurate. So while it may be only probably true, many people chose to live like an empiricist. To have an empiricist outlook would be to go about life assuming the most likely will indeed happen. The positive things about this is that a lot of time in life people will turn to this theory as it is easy to have this kind of an outlook. This theory’s negative aspects would be that there still is the possibility that you will be wrong, as it is not 100%.

Gettier did not believe that justified true belief equaled knowledge. He believed that with this theory you could be fooled, and that because of that you needed a better explanation of justification.

Descartes was a rationalist. He followed the rules of rationalism, meaning that he would make sure that what he did was guaranteed to work out no potential of failures. He followed this theory. For example he would pick to live in a smaller house that was built to stand through just about anything.

Hume was an imperialist. He chose the theory of empiricism, meaning he lived by taking his knowledge from the past and applying it to the future. For example he would pick to live in a bigger house
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