A belief is (a mental state), something one takes to be the case. If someone believes "X" he/she generally believes that "X" is true. But it turns that my believing "X" doesn't make "X" true. The link between belief and truth is knowledge: B-------------K----------- Truth
Beliefs are sometimes divided into core beliefs (those which you may be actively thinking about) and dispositional beliefs (those which you may ascribe to but have never previously thought about). For example, if asked "do you believe tigers eat grass?" a person might answer that they do not, despite the fact they may never have thought about this situation before.
The main problem in epistemology is to understand exactly what is needed in order for us to have knowledge. In a notion derived from Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, philosophy has traditionally defined knowledge as justified true belief. (the justification is necessary. It shows that our belief is more than a lucky guess. A sort of "warrant."
The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true.
A false belief is not considered to be knowledge, even if it is sincere. A sincere believer in the flat earth theory does not know that the Earth is flat. Now, Let's define truth.
Correspondence Theory of Truth: Truth is a fact. “Snow is white.” Facts are obvious. But what happens when you don't have the facts?
Pragmatic Theory of Truth: Truth is what best does the job at hand.
According to pragmatism, truth is a process of inquiry. A crime investigation requires a good inference process, we get to the truth by a process of trial & error. The best our explanations and inferences become, the closer we get to the truth. We get more truth as we go along. as I said in class, 20% of truth is better than nothing. Coherence theory of truth: Truth is what best coheres with the rest of our knowledge.
