A report on Knowledge and Truth

Los portadores de la antorcha (The Torch-Bearers) – Sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington symbolizing the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next (Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain)
An angel carrying the banner of "Truth", Roslin, Midlothian
Sir Francis Bacon, "Knowledge is Power"
Walter Seymour Allward's Veritas (Truth) outside Supreme Court of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario Canada
The parable of the blind men and the elephant suggests that people tend to project their partial experiences as the whole truth
'"What is Truth?" by Nikolai Ge, depicting John 18:38 in which Pilate asks Christ "What is truth?"
The owl of Athena is a symbol of knowledge.

Knowledge of facts, also referred to as propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification.

- Knowledge

The role that truth plays in constituting knowledge.

- Truth
Los portadores de la antorcha (The Torch-Bearers) – Sculpture by Anna Hyatt Huntington symbolizing the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next (Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain)

7 related topics with Alpha

Overall
René Descartes, who is often credited as the father of modern philosophy, was often preoccupied with epistemological questions in his work.

Epistemology

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René Descartes, who is often credited as the father of modern philosophy, was often preoccupied with epistemological questions in his work.
Bertrand Russell famously brought attention to the distinction between propositional knowledge and knowledge by acquaintance.
An Euler diagram representing a version of the traditional definition of knowledge that is adapted to the Gettier problem. This problem gives us reason to think that not all justified true beliefs constitute knowledge.
The analytic–synthetic distinction was first proposed by Immanuel Kant.
David Hume, one of the most staunch defenders of empiricism.

Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge.

1) The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification

Roman copy of a portrait bust c. 370 BC

Plato

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Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.

Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece.

Roman copy of a portrait bust c. 370 BC
Diogenes Laertius is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek philosophy.
Through his mother, Plato was related to Solon.
Speusippus was Plato's nephew.
Plato was a wrestler
Plato in his academy, drawing after a painting by Swedish painter Carl Johan Wahlbom
Bust of Pythagoras in Rome.
A detail of Spinoza monument in Amsterdam.
Bust of Socrates at the Louvre.
The "windmill proof" of the Pythagorean theorem found in Euclid's Elements.
What is justice?
A Venn diagram illustrating the classical theory of knowledge.
Oxyrhynchus Papyri, with fragment of Plato's Republic
Bust excavated at the Villa of the Papyri, possibly of Dionysus, Plato or Poseidon.
The Death of Socrates (1787), by Jacques-Louis David
Plato's Allegory of the Cave by Jan Saenredam, according to Cornelis van Haarlem, 1604, Albertina, Vienna
Painting of a scene from Plato's Symposium (Anselm Feuerbach, 1873)
Volume 3, pp. 32–33, of the 1578 Stephanus edition of Plato, showing a passage of Timaeus with the Latin translation and notes of Jean de Serres
First page of the Euthyphro, from the Clarke Plato (Codex Oxoniensis Clarkianus 39), 895 AD. The text is Greek minuscule.
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right) a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand. Plato holds his Timaeus and gestures to the heavens.
"The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." (Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929).

Just as individual tables, chairs, and cars refer to objects in this world, 'tableness', 'chairness', and 'carness', as well as e. g. justice, truth, and beauty refer to objects in another world.

Many have interpreted Plato as stating — even having been the first to write — that knowledge is justified true belief, an influential view that informed future developments in epistemology.

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos), c. 1797

Reason

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Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos), c. 1797
René Descartes
Dan Sperber believes that reasoning in groups is more effective and promotes their evolutionary fitness.

Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth.

The first question is concerning whether we can be confident that reason can achieve knowledge of truth better than other ways of trying to achieve such knowledge.

A brain in a vat that believes it is walking

Reality

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Sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary.

Sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary.

A brain in a vat that believes it is walking
Reality-virtuality continuum.

A correspondence theory of knowledge about what exists claims that "true" knowledge of reality represents accurate correspondence of statements about and images of reality with the actual reality that the statements or images are attempting to represent.

George Musser, "Virtual Reality: How close can physics bring us to a truly fundamental understanding of the world?", Scientific American, vol. 321, no. 3 (September 2019), pp. 30–35. "Physics is... the bedrock of the broader search for truth.... Yet [physicists] sometimes seem to be struck by a collective impostor syndrome.... Truth can be elusive even in the best-established theories. Quantum mechanics is as well tested a theory as can be, yet its interpretation remains inscrutable. [p. 30.] The deeper physicists dive into reality, the more reality seems to evaporate." [p. 34.]

Detail of Pythagoras with a tablet of ratios, numbers sacred to the Pythagoreans, from The School of Athens by Raphael. Vatican Palace, Vatican City.

Rationalism

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Epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".

Epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".

Detail of Pythagoras with a tablet of ratios, numbers sacred to the Pythagoreans, from The School of Athens by Raphael. Vatican Palace, Vatican City.
Plato in The School of Athens, by Raphael
Ibn Sina Portrait on Silver Vase.
In spite of his early death, Spinoza exerted a profound influence on philosophy in the Age of Reason. He is often considered one of three most remarkable rationalists of modern Western thought, along with Descartes and Leibniz.

Much of the debate in these fields are focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to connected notions such as truth, belief, and justification.

The Innate Knowledge thesis is similar to the Intuition/Deduction thesis in the regard that both theses claim knowledge is gained a priori.

Non-fiction books at a Danish library, shelves displaying the word "Fakta", Danish for "Facts".

Fact

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Non-fiction books at a Danish library, shelves displaying the word "Fakta", Danish for "Facts".

A fact is something that is true.

Generally speaking, facts are independent of belief and of knowledge and opinion.

A Venn diagram illustrating the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief (represented by the yellow circle). The Gettier problem gives us reason to think that not all justified true beliefs constitute knowledge.

Belief

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A Venn diagram illustrating the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief (represented by the yellow circle). The Gettier problem gives us reason to think that not all justified true beliefs constitute knowledge.
Philosopher Jonathan Glover warns that belief systems are like whole boats in the water; it is extremely difficult to alter them all at once (for example, it may be too stressful, or people may maintain their biases without realizing it).
We are influenced by many factors that ripple through our minds as our beliefs form, evolve, and may eventually change

A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition about the universe is true.

Epistemology is concerned with delineating the boundary between justified belief and opinion, and involved generally with a theoretical philosophical study of knowledge.