Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Value of Knowledge Is External to It
- 2 The Value of True Belief
- 3 The Value of Justification
- 4 Reliabilism, Normativity, and the Special Promise of Virtue Epistemology
- 5 The Gettier Problem and the Value of Knowledge
- 6 Knowledge as Irreducibly Valuable
- 7 Epistemic Attitudinalism: Semantic and Pragmatic Approaches
- 8 Knowledge and Understanding
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Index
2 - The Value of True Belief
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Value of Knowledge Is External to It
- 2 The Value of True Belief
- 3 The Value of Justification
- 4 Reliabilism, Normativity, and the Special Promise of Virtue Epistemology
- 5 The Gettier Problem and the Value of Knowledge
- 6 Knowledge as Irreducibly Valuable
- 7 Epistemic Attitudinalism: Semantic and Pragmatic Approaches
- 8 Knowledge and Understanding
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
If the value of knowledge cannot be explained adequately in terms of things external to it, such as its usefulness or its permanence or its role as a foundation for acceptable action, we will have to look at internal features in order to find the value of knowledge. Perhaps the value of knowledge will emerge as we look at its (purported) constituents, and because knowledge is ordinarily conceived to involve true belief, I begin with the value of true belief here. There are those who doubt that knowledge involves true belief, maintaining that belief itself is a quite different state from knowledge. There are even those who maintain that there is no such thing as belief. I do not want to become embroiled in these controversies, because these disputes will take us too far afield from the focus of this work on the value of knowledge. Given that focus, our interest can concentrate on the connection between the shared informational content that exists both when a person knows something and when that person only believes it. When a person knows something, there is informational content in the cognitive, as opposed to the affective, mental realm, informational content endorsed by the person, or to which that person is committed, or to which that person assents.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding , pp. 28 - 43Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003