Can understanding be based on false beliefs? I argue that it can. I first argue that the best way to understand the question is that it is whether one can increase one's degree of understanding by adopting an overall less accurate body of beliefs. I identify three sufficient conditions for one body of beliefs to be more accurate than another. Next, I appeal to two widely used methods of comparing degrees of understanding. With these methods, I show that understanding can be gained by acquiring false beliefs. In addition, I show that this implies that understanding is not factive.
Sceptical theists undermine the argument from evil by claiming that our ability to distinguish between justified and unjustified evil is weak enough that we must take seriously the possibility that all evil is justified. However, I argue that this claim leads to a dilemma: either our judgements regarding unjustified evil are reliable enough that the problem of evil remains a problem, or our judgements regarding unjustified evil are so unreliable that it would be misguided to use them in our decision-making. The first horn undermines theism, while the second undermines our moral decision-making. Thus, sceptical theism is problematic.Religious Studies (2013) 49, 313-325
If ordinary speakers tend to accept statements that conflict with a semantic theory, that theory is said to imply semantic blindness; for if the theory is true, ordinary speakers are unaware of it. Epistemic relativism has been shown to imply semantic blindness. However, we must ask: is this a problem for relativism? In this paper I argue that it is not a problem. Relativism, with the help of some psychology, predicts exactly the kind of semantic blindness that we observe. Furthermore, the specific error that relativism predicts is an instance of a common form of error that is known to occur in other areas. In the end, semantic blindness can be viewed as a confirmed prediction of epistemic relativism, and not as a challenge to the theory.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.