Dr Greg Bahnsen - Seminary Apologetics: Epistemological Issues, Knowledge Part 1 (Part 15)

This message was delivered by Dr. Greg L. Bonson, Scholar in Residence at the Southern California center for Christian Studies in Irvine, California. I tried to summarize relevant material from the Bible that bears on the practice of apologetics, and today we're doing the same thing with respect to philosophy. And all we've covered so far is the development of a worldview. But we've been pretty thorough about that, and that's the governing concept in apologetics, because everyone you talk to has a worldview, and in terms of that worldview they issue their objections, and in terms of that worldview they interpret the evidence and argumentation that you're bringing to them. And so worldviews will be the crux in defending the faith. In addition to studying philosophy in general, however, I want to become more specific and introduce you now to some elementary concepts in epistemology. Epistemology is that subdivision of philosophy that's concerned with the theory of knowledge. In the nature of the case, the apologetical discussion that we have with people is not merely an exchange of personal opinions. It eventually centers around questions like how do you know this to be true? Or how can that belief be justified? To put it simply, apologetics entails the application, even if the unwitting application, of one's more basic theory of knowledge, one's epistemology. Both the believer and the unbeliever operate with epistemological convictions about truth, belief, evidence, proof, etc. The unbeliever will say that he does not believe that the claims of Christianity are true, that there is no proof of miracles, that he knows Jesus was merely a man or such things. Likewise, believers who engage in defending the faith make use of epistemological notions, saying, we believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, and I know that my Redeemer lives that God has furnished proof that Jesus will judge the world, that God's word is truth. It should be clear, moreover, that not only do we find enduring unresolved disagreements about epistemology between schools of thought and between individuals throughout the history of philosophy, including our own day history, there are fundamentally and relevantly significant conflicts between the Christian and the non Christian over crucial epistemological matters. In light of the biblical teaching about the intellectual renewal of the believer, we read of that in Romans 12:2 and Ephesians 4,23,24 and in light of the biblical teaching about the all pervasive depravity of the unbeliever, Romans 8:7, Ephesians 4, 17, 19, the philosophical discord over the most fundamental issues in epistemology should not alarm us, shouldn't surprise us, really. The apologist must not naively take for granted that everyone shares a common view of knowledge, a common view of truth, a common view of language, a common view of logic, a common view of evidence. And yet, in apologetics, we're dealing with what the concepts of knowledge and logic and evidence and so forth. If everyone held these common views, basic philosophical or religious disputes could be readily settled simply by making sure everyone has the same information or everyone has the same raw data available to them. But the disputes in these areas persist because men disagree over more fundamental epistemological issues, indeed, issues which will even determine what counts as raw data or not. As the Christian knows from the reading of the Bible, men are divided by epistemological conflicts concerning what is truth. Remember John 18:38, there's Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life, standing before Pilate and Pilate goes, what is truth? They're divided over what is believable. Acts 26:8, King Agrippa, why should you think it impossible or incredible that God should raise the dead over the reliability of their senses? Matthew 28:17. Standing in front of the resurrected Jesus, some doubted the difference between knowledge and pseudo knowledge, 1st Timothy 6:20, between wisdom and folly, 1st Corinthians 1, 1829, over the evidential value and the power of miracles. Luke 16:31. What I'm saying is, from reading our Bibles, we should know that the fundamental dividing issues between us and unbelievers are epistemological. What is true? How do you know what counts as evidence? Can you rely on your senses, things like that? And so I will not have done, I think, a responsible job of teaching you apologetics if I don't take some time to teach you some epistemology. Now, epistemology is a huge field. That's my specialization in philosophy, so that's what it says on my degree. And I would love to just go on and on and on and on. I can't do that. But I think it's crucial that all of you have at least some fundamental notions of what we mean when we talk about knowing something, believing something, what is true, and what is it to have evidence for what we believe? So we're going to begin this afternoon in dealing with basic epistemology, with the different kinds of knowing, different kinds of knowing. The word epistemology itself derives from the Greek word epistemic episteme on the one hand, and the other Greek word logos, meaning a discourse, a word, a reason concerning episteme which is the word for knowledge. So epistemology is the theory of knowledge. We have to begin by reflecting a bit on the nature of knowledge. Then I'll tell you, this clip is obviously wanting to give me trouble. What do people ordinarily mean when they say that they know something? We say, ask the subject here, or think of it as Sam, if that bothers you. S knows something. What do we mean when we use sentences of that form? And it turns out there is no simple and single answer to the question, because the verb to know is used in a very wide variety of ways, and that is obvious enough in 20th century English parlance. But that wide variety of uses is also evident in biblical use of the word to know. The richness of usage is due to the different kinds of objects which are said to be known. So s knows. And then something's going to go in this blank here. And what goes in this blank? The kind of object that is known affects what we mean when we use the verb to know. So what are the different kinds of objects that are said to be known? We speak of knowing truths, or we say knowing facts or knowing claims. Another way of putting this is to say we know propositions. Here's an example. He knows that the car needs repair. He knows that the car needs repair. That's a truth or a proposition, a claim or a fact. And so before the use of a truth, we ordinarily, in English have the helping word that we could say, he knows the car needs repair, or we could say, he knows that the car needs repair. And the Bible speaks that way as well. Just as an example, Matthew 24:32. People know propositions, they know facts or claims. But then we also speak of knowing in the sense of having an ability, having an ability where the object of knowledge is not a truth but an ability. He knows that the car needs repair is a propositional knowledge. He knows how to fix the carburetor is a matter of ability. And you all see the difference there. What is said to be known is not a proposition, but rather what you know is a skill. You have an ability. And the Bible uses the word know in that way as well. An example is Luke 11:13. And then finally, in the English language, we speak of knowing persons. We know truth. We know in the sense that we have abilities. By the way, when we say that he knows or s knows and it's an ability that he said to know, usually the helping word is how. He knows how to fix the carburetor. He knows how to please his neighbor. That would be a moral ability. Okay, so some people know how to make peace, some people don't. Some people have that skill, some people don't. So we know truths, we know how, we have abilities or skills. But then sometimes, thirdly, we say we know persons or people. In this sense, we use the word to know in the sense of acquaintance or intimacy. He has known him for years as his auto mechanic. And the Bible's full of illustrations of that kind of knowing too, where we know people and we know them intimately. In Genesis 4:1, Adam knew Eve. She had a son. As a result of that knowledge, that was not a knowledge of propositions, that was an intimacy of personal relationship. So knowledge can be of different sorts of propositions, of skills and of persons. The last two senses of knowing, an ability or a skill or an interpersonal relationship cannot by any means be reduced merely to the first sense of knowing, which I'll call intellectual knowing. Indeed, even with respect to some linguistic context which utilize the common locution for knowledge of truths, that is, situations where we would say know that the intended sense is. Is not limited to a barely intellectual or theoretical sense, Psalm 46:10 says, Be still and know that I am God. There what you are to do, know that I am God is certainly more than an intellectual apprehension. It also entails what a personal relationship of trust. Be still and know that I am God means, have a certain view of me in relationship to me. And it also entails a certain kind of ability, the ethical ability to submit your will to the Lord's will. And so in that setting, be still and know that I am God. That I am God looks like an intellectual proposition, but it can't be divorced from the skill and the personal relationship senses of knowing. But nevertheless, we cannot think that skill and personal relationship can be reduced to the first sense of knowing, the intellectual sense of knowing. And yet these last two senses, knowing as a skill or ability, knowing as a personal relationship, cannot be completely divorced from the first sense either, as though they were completely independent of them. Think about this. Knowing how to fix the carburetor involves knowing that it mixes fuel and air, knowing what its parts are and how they function. Likewise, in the Bible, knowing how to place God involves knowing that his precepts require certain things. Do you know how to please God? Not if you don't know his commandments. You don't. You have to know what pleases Him. You have to know that he wants the following. If you're going to please him. If you're going to have the skill of living in a godly way. Knowing someone personally, even in the sexual sense, in that intimate sense, minimally entails knowing some facts about the person. Right. I'm trying to embarrass anybody, but the intimacy of sex does require a little bit of knowledge, you know, of at least the human reproductive system and procedure. That knowledge that is not completely apart from knowing someone personally. If I were to say, you know, I, I know Ronald Reagan, that's personal, intimate knowledge. And then you were to ask me questions like, well, what do you know about him? Oh, nothing. Did you know that he was the President? No. Did you know that he was an actor? No. Did you know that he's now suffering from Alzheimer's? No. Do you know who he's married to? No. Do you know what he did for a living? No. Do you know where he lives? No, I don't know anything about him, but I know him. That's just preposterous. To know someone, even in that third sense of an intimate personal relationship involves some intellectual knowledge as well. So knowing someone can't be reduced to intellectual propositions, but it can't be divorced from intellectual propositions either. Is that true about knowing God? Can we know God without believing certain persons propositions about him? There's been a whole school of theology that's taught us for a generation that we can. But that's just philosophical nonsense. It's not just exegetical nonsense, it's philosophical nonsense. When neo orthodox theologians say, I can't tell you any true proposition, any objective truth about God, but I know God, you have to say that's just preposterous. For simplicity and for clarity, then the discussion that we have about knowledge when we're doing apologetics in this course is going to focus on the intellectual sense of knowing, since it is at least a part of all other instances of knowledge. It may not be the most important thing about personal relationships, but you can't have personal relationships without it. And it may not be the most important thing about the skills that you have, but you don't have skills without intellectual knowledge as well. I suppose that you could even be willing to have someone fix your carburetor who couldn't answer any questions truly about a carburetor. And if you gave him a test you'd to have, maybe he'd get all the answers on paper wrong, but when he got done with his hands underneath your hood, the carburetor worked. So I'm not saying that the knowledge that is the most important. All I'M saying is you don't ever have knowledge, how or knowledge of a person without knowledge that certain propositions. That's easy enough, right? We move on. Let's talk about belief. What is knowledge in the intellectual sense? Well, to build this up little by little, at the very first step, we can observe that all instances of knowing in the intellectual, intellectual sense are a subclass of instances of believing. Whenever you know something, you at least believe it. In ordinary discourse, it makes no sense to say that you know a proposition to be true, but you do not believe it to be true. I know that my next door neighbor died, but I don't believe it. There are idiomatic expressions, notice idiomatic expressions that gain their punch precisely by departing from ordinary discourse. Though that is, I might express this by way of shock. I know we won the lottery, but I still can't believe it. Well, that's technically wrong. But we're trying to express something pungently. We're trying to show the shock or alarm or surprise. And so we put it that way. But you see, even in an example like that, the statement wouldn't be intelligible, it wouldn't convey its sense of amazement if the use of the word to know did not ordinarily entail believing. Because what I'm saying is by I know I'm saying I believe. And then when I say but I can't believe it, I'm saying but it's unbelievable. So this is what makes it a pungent expression. I believe it, but find it unbelievable. So even in those apparent counterexamples, it turns out they rest on an idiomatic use of language that itself gains its punch from the fact that we take belief as a presupposition or a constituent element of knowing. Intellectually, knowledge entails belief. To put it very simply, when we know something, we believe it. Of course, there are many kinds of belief of which people are capable, and there are many interesting aspects of belief as belief. I can't give you my entire graduate course in epistemology here, but I can boil it down for you to give you maybe whet your appetite a bit. Sometimes we speak of a mental event as a belief, but other times we think of belief as a disposition to act in certain ways. Now, before I ask this question, did you believe that it was cold outside? Yeah, you did. And we know that you believe that because you had a disposition to act in a certain way. Put on your coat before you go outside. But before I ask this question, you weren't having a mental event of believing that it's cold outside. Unless this lecture is so boring that you had wandered over to the weather now and saying, boy, it's cold outside. You weren't believing as an event in your mind right then that it's cold outside. But we would still say you believed it because what, you had a disposition to act in that way. Beliefs sometimes are held with differing degrees of confidence. Sometimes we have suspicions, suspicions that we call beliefs. Sometimes opinions, sometimes downright convictions. All of them are called beliefs. Some beliefs are spontaneous. Others are derived by mental investigation and inference. Some beliefs are subject to voluntary control, while not at all. While it doesn't seem seem to be the case at all with respect to other beliefs. That is to say, I can choose to believe certain things, but there are other matters which is not a matter of choice. I can't help but believe it or help but disbelieve it. Of all the beliefs that you have, how many do you think you've given personal avowal to? How many have you openly asserted as your beliefs? Very small percentage. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, not all beliefs are given personal avowal. People sometimes think. But all of our beliefs we silently affirm in our heads. That's not true either. Though some beliefs are held so explicitly and clearly that we openly state it. Other beliefs are held without much reflection whatsoever. Of all the beliefs that you have, some have important consequences, some have numerous consequences. Whereas other beliefs are relatively insignificant. They hardly matter at all. Some beliefs are held as normative for us. That is to say, they govern our behavior. We feel obliged to be loyal to what that belief states. Some are even incorrigible, they can't be corrected. They are so normative that we don't allow anything to challenge or change. Those beliefs and other beliefs are maintained only by concentrated effort. We have to keep working hard to keep believing this. Some beliefs are irrational, some beliefs are held inconsistently on and on. This was of interest to me. I hope it is of interest to some of you. Belief is a fascinating concept. There are many kinds of belief, many circumstances, many qualifications. But in all these cases we're dealing legitimately with what can in general be called believing or belief. Attempting to take all that diversity into account, Let me characterize belief as a positive cognitive attitude toward a proposition. An action guiding mental state on which a person relies, whether intermittently or continuously, in his theoretical inferences or practical actions and plans. And some of you said I need to kick this into gear. Would you like me to slow down? No, he Says, okay, I'm going to repeat that. You have to go home and reflect a bit on this. This is obviously a theoretical and highly attenuated definition. Belief is a positive cognitive attitude toward a proposition, comma, an action guiding mental state on which a person relies parenthetically, whether intermittently or continuously, in his theoretical inferences or practical actions and plans real quickly. It's a positive cognitive attitude. It's a way of being situated toward the world. It's an attitude, and it's of a cognitive nature, an intellectual nature. And the situation is one of affirmation. It's a positive cognitive attitude. And what distinguishes one one belief from another is the proposition that's believed. So I may have the same positive cognitive attitude toward strawberry ice cream is good as I do toward the proposition that it's cold outside. But those are not the same belief because the proposition believed is different. So a belief is a positive cognitive attitude toward a proposition by way of further explanation. It's an action guiding mental state. Okay, It's a cognitive attitude. I have a state of mind, and that state of mind guides my actions. And I rely on that sometimes very briefly, sometimes over a long period of time. And I rely on that action guiding state of mind in my theoretical inferences. When I start drawing conclusions and thinking things through, and I rely on it in my practical actions and plans. Do I believe it's cold outside? One of the indications is did I put on my coat before I went out? So I believe it in terms of my practical action. But now I could also believe that it's cold outside because I draw certain theoretical inferences from that. If it's cold outside, and it has been for many days, it's most likely winter here in Brooklyn. And therefore, if I have to figure out at what point it is in the calendar, I might say very probably it's in January or February. Now, that inference pattern would show, by the way, I may be wrong in my inferences. That's unimportant here. But drawing those inferences shows that I rely on the statement it's cold outside. The mental states or cognitive attitudes which we call a person's beliefs, are distinguished from each other by the propositions which are their intended object. Belief is in distinction from merely entertaining a thought or a hypothesis, a positive attitude, an affirmative attitude toward a proposition. And that means that one relies on it. One relies on it whether self consciously, as when I assent to it or not, or, I mean, I rely on it self consciously, as when I ascend to it, and sometimes I don't self consciously rely on it. I rely on it in guiding my actions. These actions can be mental. When I draw an inference from certain propositions. It must be winter in Brooklyn. They may be verbal. When I assert something to be the case, someone says, is it cold outside? I say, oh, it's cold outside. I'm relying on my belief that it's cold outside in that verbal behavior. And sometimes it's bodily. I rely on it, my bodily behavior when I put my coat on. The actions consequent upon a belief are not always of all three kinds. Though people have been known to outwardly behave in terms of a certain belief. Which is too painful to verbally assert. So we may see behavior that shows that you're relying on a belief. Even though you don't hear a verbal affirmation of that belief. Indeed, even what people verbally assert to be their beliefs. Is subject to deception and error. That's a part of human nature many of us don't like to acknowledge. You know, your friends may recognize, in light of your social behavior. The hollowness of your avowal of racial equality. Even when you do not suspect yourself of being insincere about that. Don't we all understand this expression. Actions speak louder than words? And let me note beyond this that a belief need not always be manifesting itself. Please turn the cassette over at this time. Sometimes the mental state that we call belief is quiescent. That is, it's a disposition so that under certain circumstances. We may behave or verbalize or infer things. But we're not doing anything right now to give any indication of that belief. There is nothing that I've done, I think, in the last two minutes. To indicate to you that I believe that I live in California. The belief was quiescent. It's not quiescent now because I called on it as an illustration. So now I'm verbally asserting. Because I want to give an illustration of a belief. But I believe that I live in California. Even when I'm not talking about it. Or giving any evidence in my behavior. Or my inference patterns. That that's what I'm thinking about. And even when the belief is in its active mode. That activity may be merely periodic. Depending on my changing circumstances or other attitudes or desires that I have. That is, I don't always tell people I live in California. You might think that I do because I'm obsessed with it, but I don't. And so the activity that is a manifestation of my belief. Is a periodic activity. However, the mental state's Causal capacity to affect my mental, verbal or bodily activity is not dependent upon. Upon some outside stimulus. That's what behaviorism always suggests. It can be exercised at will by a person who believes the proposition in question. That is, we can choose to start thinking about certain things and drawing inferences. We can choose to talk about what we want to talk about, express the beliefs we want to express. We can choose to behave in a certain way according to our beliefs. So belief's a lot more complicated than you had thought, eh? It's good to know that, because when we get into apologetical discussions, we're pressing for people to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that there is a God, that there's a day of judgment coming. And so we need to have some idea of what we're talking about when we talk about belief. I think what I've just described for you philosophically ties in with the biblical conception of belief in a pretty tight way. In the Bible, knowledge is not separated from belief. In fact, in Titus 1:1, they are interchangeable terms. We see that knowledge entails belief in First John 4:16. In Hebrews 11:1, we see that belief is a positive attitude. It's an assurance, a conviction. And we know that it's a positive attitude toward propositions which have been heard or read. Romans 10:14. Sometimes in the Bible, belief is treated as a dateable event. The Bible says when you came to believe, so it is an event. At other times, belief is treated in the Bible as a continuing state of mind, as in Romans 15:13. But that state of mind is sometimes temporary. Sometimes people show a kind of belief and it goes away. Luke 8:13, Hebrews 10:35. At other times, the state of mind is an enduring state of mind. Now, to be a theologian for a moment. We believe that faith is an enduring state of mind when it comes from God and is grounded in him when it does not come from God. The faith that is expressed of human imagination and generation doesn't last. In the Bible, when men live by faith, their belief intermittently comes to expression when the occasion requires. So you think of the example of Abraham or Moses In Hebrews the 11th chapter. And yet there is another sense in which faith is continually operative in the life of the believer. A good example would be first Timothy 6:12 and second Timothy, Timothy 4:7. And in the Bible, belief carries different degrees of confidence. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. That's one level. At another level, belief is of such a confidence that it's never shaken. And finally, in the Bible, no No, I skipped the line here. I'm sorry. Belief in the Bible expresses itself in your mental inferences, what conclusions you draw, Hebrews 11:3. In your verbal remarks, what you will profess to be the case, Romans 10, 9, 10, as well as in your practical behavior. As James 2:14, 20 indicates, faith without works is dead. And finally, there's a sense in which belief is not simply a passive response to external stimuli, but belief is exercised at will. And how do we know that it's exercised at will? Because it's morally enjoined upon men. Both at its inception, when the Bible calls on men to belong, God's proclamation and in its continuing operation, we are supposed to exercise ourselves unto faith. Well, the fact that we have something to do with it. We're called on to exercise faith or to believe. The proclamation shows that it is somewhat under our voluntary control. Now, I'm speaking philosophically. I'm not forgetting that we don't have the ability to exercise faith into God grants it by his grace. But when he grants it by his grace. The point is, we do the believing, not God. And so faith is something we do, and we're called upon to do, and we're responsible to do. All right, what have we learned so far? Three different senses of knowing. All of them involve knowing in the intellectual sense. The intellectual sense of knowing involves belief. And I've just labored to give you a theoretical description of belief in its richness, the various aspects, qualifications that may apply to it. Knowing something is a case of believing it. Yet knowledge is obviously more than a mere belief. It often happens that two people believe propositions which are contradictory. One person asserts a claim that Winston Churchill was elected to Parliament in 1900, while the other asserts the denial Winston Churchill was not elected to Parliament in 1900. In such a case, both people cannot know what they have asserted. Why is that? Because Winston Churchill cannot both have been and not have been elected to parliament in 1900. At least one of them is mistaken. As experience shows only too often, not everything which people believe proves to be true. And whenever a proposition or claim turns out to be false, nobody can claim to know that proposal proposition, even though a person may sincerely have believed it or thought that it was true. But you can't know the proposition if in fact it is false. A man may honestly believe that Mount Rushmore is located in California, but he really cannot know it for the simple reason that the claim is not accurate. So then, instances of knowing are instances of believing a proposition. However, not just any arbitrary proposition, but only those which have the added property of being true. In common sense. In ordinary usage, to say that a proposition is true can be variously translated as claiming that it states what is the case, conforms to the facts, accords with the actual state of affairs, or is correct. It isn't all that difficult to offer an adequate synonym for the predicate is true. It's altogether another matter to offer a theory of truth. So when someone says, well, in epistemology, you have to know what truth is, so what is truth? It isn't difficult to tell them another way of putting it true. To say it is true is to say it accords with the facts or it is correct. But a theory of truth proves to be a very difficult thing, something over which philosophers have struggled and struggled and struggled. But those of you who are going to be cautious in your thinking should note that differing theories of truth which have been advanced by philosophers are not necessarily in conflict with each other. Various theories of truth that have been offered by philosophers are not necessarily in conflict with each other. I point this out because I've read many attempts by Christians to write elementary introductions to philosophy, and they really embarrass us because what they'll do is they'll present different theories of truth like they're at war with each other. Like, which one's it going to be? Well, the different theories of truth do not necessarily conflict with each other, because it turns out if you analyze what's going on, they're really addressing different questions. Some theories of truth are addressing the question, what is the nature of the property that we call truth? For instance, the correspondence theory does that. Other theories ask, what is the evidence for the presence of that property? The coherence and pragmatic theories of truth do that. Yet other theories are answering the question, what is the logical structure of those sentences that you use the term true or truth? The semantic and performative theories of truth address that. And so these theories of truth are not put out there like, okay, now you've got to pick one of these. Well, they're not all trying to do the same thing. And one of the best giveaways of an amateur status and epistemology on the part of a Christian is when they say, now you got to choose between the correspondence and the. The coherence theories of truth. The correspondence theory says that something is true when it corresponds to the facts. The coherence theory says something is true when it fits in a coherent theory. That is, it coheres with all the other things that we believe. And then, you see, Christians I mean, especially in the 20th century, over and over again. You know, it's like the advantage of this over that they're not even answering the same question. There's no need to choose between those two. The correspondence theory is giving us an explanation of the property truth. The coherence theory is suggesting a way that we detect the presence of that property. So you don't really have to choose between them at all. All the theories of truth nevertheless have their drawbacks. For instance, the correspondence theory either rests on a crude and unworkable metaphor, or it speaks of correspondence with abstract entities which cannot be explained and individuated apart from reference to true propositions. And you wanted it kicked into gear, so now we're kicking it. Let me go back and explain that. The correspondence theory, on the one hand might rest on a crude, unworkable metaphor that true sentences parallel or picture the extra mental world. Stop and think about it, though. Do sentences picture the extra mental world? I've yet to see a sentence that looks anything like a red corvette. There are true sentences about red corvettes, but they don't look like red corvettes, so why do you say they correspond? So I say there's one interpretation which is easily dismissed as a crude metaphor. But if you don't follow the crude metaphor, then you're talking about correspondence between a sentence and an abstract entity. And those abstract entities have been described as states of affairs or facts. You have to put your thinking hat on here. Now, have you ever stopped thinking? A fact is not something that you can touch. I know we, you, common parlance say, and we're going to go out there and I'm going to show you the facts. Right outside the door, young man. Well, we're going to see the world right outside the door. But the fact is the statement of what is true outside the door. Okay, it's a abstract state of affairs. Now, when I say truth is the property of a proposition or statement corresponding to an abstract state of affairs, how can I explain that correspondence between a verbal expression and an abstract state of affairs unless I know how to individual individuate states of affairs, what does it mean to individuate? It means to separate and to discern to see the difference between one thing and another. Are all states of affairs the same? Is the state of affairs of eating Chinese food the same state of affairs as eating Mexican food? No. Well, how do you individuate those states of affairs? Well, any attempt to individuate those states of affairs is going to require you to refer to true propositions. One of the things that individuates the state of affairs of eating Chinese food is that that's what Dr. Bronson did today, and eating Mexican food is something he did not do today. So one is true, the other is not. Anybody uncomfortable? Correspondence theory of truth states that a proposition is true when it corresponds to a state of affairs. Next question. Just any state of affairs? No, no, the true states of affairs. And so the correspondence theory of truth requires you to know what truth truth is before you can define what truth is. It's not helpful at all. Then it turns out correspondence theory of truth, beyond the verbal provision of synonyms for English expressions or other natural language expressions about truth, doesn't really help us at all unless it's a crude metaphor for most people. Sadly, for many apologists, I think that's all it is. It just a crude metaphor, and it doesn't work. And yet we all know what's being asserted when people say a thing is true, when it corresponds to the facts, when it corresponds to the world. But trying to make sense out of that to offer a theory by which we can state that has seemed very slippery and difficult for philosophers. Similarly, the coherence theory relies on the premise that two inconsistent propositions cannot both be true. The coherence theory of truth says a proposition is true when it coheres with all other beliefs that we hold or things that we know. Well, that assumes at a more primitive state that a proposition is accepted as true when it coheres because two things that conflict with each other cannot both be true. If you didn't start with that assumption that two propositions that conflict with each other cannot both be true, the coherence theory couldn't get off the ground. What's the difficulty? Well, that means I have to know what truth is before I can state the coherence theory of truth. Coherence theory cannot pick out for me what truth means because I'm relying on an understanding of truth in order to state it. The pragmatic theory of truth says that true sentences are corroborated by their practical results. John Dewey said that the meaning of a sentence is practical outworking in life, a sentence is its cash value. What does it call for me to do? And if a sentence whose meaning is the practical effects, if that sentence helps me to be successful, those practical effects are beneficial, then the sentence is true. Pragmatic theory of truth Truth says that a sentence is corroborated by practical results. Of course, that theory of truth presupposes that we know in advance what results should truly be expected from any sentence. But if we have to know which events would truly be expected, we already have a theory of truth. Before we apply the pragmatic theory of truth. Want me to illustrate that helps put some flesh on these bones. Right, here's my sentence. Here's what I am going to believe. I believe that I'm in the Rocky Mountains right now. Well, one of the things that would be cash value for being in the Rocky Mountains right now is that if I go outside, I'll see bears. I mean, there are other things too, but let's just use that one. Now, how do I know that that is truly what to be expected if I'm in the Rocky Mountains? Well, I have to already know what is true before I can practically test then the proposition, what if it turns out I'm in fact in Australia and I go outside and not knowing any better? I think wallabies are bears. Then I would have pragmatically verified that I am in fact in the Rocky Mountains when, as I've just said, I'm really in Australia. You already have to have some idea of what is true and what to expect before the practice. Formal languages are not the languages that we use in informal discourse. Informal languages are like English, Chinese, French, German, what have you. A formal language is something closer to logic or algebra. It's a language that enables us to regiment what we say about another language or another level of discourse. And on the semantic theory, we need to use a formal language. We need to distinguish between the object language and the metalanguage in which in the metalanguage we speak of the truth of the object language. Well, if you have to have a formal language of that metalinguistic sort, then your theory is going to remain unwanted, workable and inapplicable in the natural languages of English, German, French, so forth, where truth claims are normally debated. And so the semantic theory is just impractical. And for our present purposes, the performative theory of truth holds that asserting a sentence is true is not to ascribe any prospect property to it at all, but rather to perform the action of offering personal reassurance or confirmation regarding it. That is, when I say this sentence is true, I'm not ascribing a property to it, I'm just saying, go ahead and believe it. I'm performing the function of reassurance when I say is true after a proposition. That's the performative theory of truth. Whereas this notion is both unhelpful, offering Reassurance of what if not of the truth of the proposition, and it's linguistically inaccurate. It's just not the case that we use is true in that reassuring way. Every statement made by Napoleon was true. Now, in that case, I'm ascribing a property to the statement and I cannot be properly rephrased. The saying every statement made by Napoleon, I confirm it. See, it just doesn't fit in the many cases where we use the locution is true to say that I'm functioning to offer reassurance rather than ascribing a property to it. So you have all these theories of truth, right? Correspondence. You want this in your notes, fellows, if you're going to take the exam? Correspondence. Coherence, pragmatic, semantic, performative. And they all have their problems. What's the Christian say is true? A Christian understands more fundamentally than any of these that truth is whatever conforms to the mind of God. Truth is whatever conforms to the mind of God. And that definition or understanding of truth accounts for the Bible applying the term true or truth not only to the facts. There are propositions or assertions that the Bible says are true. After all, the facts are predetermined by the mind of God. Right? So the Bible teaches us. So the truth is whatever corresponds to the mind of God, whatever corresponds to what he has predetermined. But it also accounts for what is eternal and absolute. Sometimes the Bible tells us that God himself is truth. Jesus claimed that, didn't he? I am the way, the truth and the life. How can Jesus be the truth? He's not even a proposition. Well, Jesus is the truth because he corresponds to the mind of God, doesn't he? But the Bible tells us he is the mind of God. He's the logos of God. And the Bible also speaks of the truth as that which is ethically right. We are to walk in in the truth. Walking in the truth is more than saying true things when we talk. Walking in the truth is a very broad and rich concept in the Bible. It means walking in the character of God, being godly in all aspects of our behavior, not just verbal or intellectual. Now, there's another concept that you have to be familiar with. I hate to run through all these things so quickly, but at best I can give you a flavor of what you need to know philosophically. And that's the concept of having evidence, Knowing, believing, truth and evidence. We've said that for someone to know a proposition, at least two conditions must be met. The person must believe the proposition in Question and the proposition must be true. However, even this is an inadequate analysis of knowledge. At first sight, it might seem that if we believe what is in fact true, then we have knowledge. But on further reflection, to define knowledge as true belief proves to be far too broad. The reason for this is that true beliefs can sometimes be arrived at by invalid means. True beliefs can be arrived at from false premises or without requisite regard for evidence at all. Let me give you some examples. Suppose that Sam believes that in 1985 the initials of the President of the United States were rr. But add to this that Sam believes the claim because he believes that Roy Rogers was president in 1985. The specimen sentence is indeed true since Ronald Reagan was president in 85. But no one would credit Sam with knowing it to be true because Sam takes RR to be Roy Rogers. Likewise, if Sam looks at a clock which is not in fact running, but but looks at the clock at the very moment when the hands are pointing to the correct time, Sam does not in such circumstances gain knowledge of what time it is. You have to emphasize the word knowledge. If you ask Sam what time is it, he says 3:20, and it just so happens to be 3:20. What he believes is true. But does he have a good reason for believing it? Now he thinks he does. And in ordinary circumstances, when we might all say that he does. But when we find out that the clock is in fact not running and it just happens to be stopped at 3:20, he doesn't have good reason for believing that at all. What if Sam misremembers the testimony of a liar? The liar says, we're not going to meet at the store tonight. Sam doesn't remember it and he drops the word not out of that since the person was lying so that Sam wouldn't come to the store at that time, he comes to the store because he remembers it as we're going to meet at the store tonight. Rather, we're not going to meet at the store tonight. If you misremember the testimony of a liar so that what you believe happens to be true. True. Would we say that you knew that they were going to meet that night? No. Doesn't follow at all. In all these cases, Sam's beliefs are based on false apparent reasons. Other people believe some things which turn out to be true, but for no reason whatsoever. They follow some alternative at a venture without any rational means of deciding to do so. There are people, you know, who are just sure they're going to win the lottery. And then they do. I mean, it's really a sign of philosophical naivete. When somebody says, see, they really knew because it happened, you say, what was the rational evidence that they had that they were going to win the lottery? Does it make any difference? They won. They were just sure they were going to win. Well, that doesn't count as knowledge. Beliefs which are arbitrarily adopted are based upon faulty grounds or sheer wishful thinking when they turn out to be true, still don't qualify as instances of knowing. So what is the additional ingredient you have to have if you're going to have a case of knowing? You have to have a belief. You have to secondly have a belief that is true. What do you have to add to that in order for it to count as knowledge? Well, it must be substantiated, supported, or we will say justified by evidence. Knowledge is true belief held on adequate grounds rather than held fallaciously or haphazardly. Knowledge is true belief held on adequate grounds rather than fallaciously or haphazardly. To put it traditionally, knowledge is justified true belief. Justified true belief. Now, it should be noted here that by justified we mean that the person actually has sound reasons, good evidence, not simply that he thinks his. This message is continued on the next tape.