Tracking Truth

Tracking Truth PDF Author: Sherrilyn Roush
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199274738
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
Tracking Truth presents a unified treatment of knowledge, evidence, and epistemological realism and anti-realism about scientific theories. A wide range of knowledge-related phenomena, especially but not only in science, strongly favour the idea of tracking as the key to what makes something knowledge. A subject who tracks the truth - an idea first formulated by Robert Nozick - has the ability to follow the truth through time and changing circumstances. Epistemologistsrightly concluded that Nozick's theory was not viable, but a simple revision of that view is not only viable but superior to other current views. In this new tracking account of knowledge, in contrast to the old view, knowledge has the property of closure under known implication, and troublesome counterfactualsare replaced with well-defined conditional probability statements. Of particular interest are the new view's treatment of skepticism, reflective knowledge, lottery propositions, knowledge of logical truth, and the question why knowledge is power in the Baconian sense.Ideally, evidence indicates a hypothesis and discriminates it from other possible hypotheses. This is the idea behind a tracking view of evidence, and Sherrilyn Roush provides a defence of a confirmation theory based on the Likelihood Ratio. The accounts of knowledge and evidence she offers provide a deep and seamless explanation of why having better evidence makes one more likely to have knowledge. Roush approaches the question of epistemological realism about scientific theories through thequestion what is required for evidence, and rejects both traditional realist and traditional anti-realist positions in favour of a new position which evaluates realist claims in a piecemeal fashion according to a general standard of evidence. The results show that while anti-realists were immodest indeclaring a priori what science could not do, realists were excessively sanguine about how far our actual evidence has so far taken us.

Knowledge and the Gettier Problem

Knowledge and the Gettier Problem PDF Author: Stephen Cade Hetherington
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107149568
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
This book enriches our understanding of knowledge and Gettier's challenge, stimulating debate on a central epistemological issue.

Scientific Realism

Scientific Realism PDF Author: Stathis Psillos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134619820
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track. This book argues that the history of science does not undermine this notion, suggesting it as the best philosophical account of science.

Tracking the Truth

Tracking the Truth PDF Author: Sophy Beckett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description


The Revision Theory of Truth

The Revision Theory of Truth PDF Author: Anil Gupta
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262071444
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
In this rigorous investigation into the logic of truth Anil Gupta and Nuel Belnap explain how the concept of truth works in both ordinary and pathological contexts. The latter include, for instance, contexts that generate Liar Paradox. Their central claim is that truth is a circular concept. In support of this claim they provide a widely applicable theory (the "revision theory") of circular concepts. Under the revision theory, when truth is seen as circular both its ordinary features and its pathological features fall into a simple understandable pattern. The Revision Theory of Truth is unique in placing truth in the context of a general theory of definitions. This theory makes sense of arbitrary systems of mutually interdependent concepts, of which circular concepts, such as truth, are but a special case.

The Nature of Truth, second edition

The Nature of Truth, second edition PDF Author: Michael P. Lynch
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262362090
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
The definitive and essential collection of classic and new essays on analytic theories of truth, revised and updated, with seventeen new chapters. The question "What is truth?" is so philosophical that it can seem rhetorical. Yet truth matters, especially in a "post-truth" society in which lies are tolerated and facts are ignored. If we want to understand why truth matters, we first need to understand what it is. The Nature of Truth offers the definitive collection of classic and contemporary essays on analytic theories of truth. This second edition has been extensively revised and updated, incorporating both historically central readings on truth's nature as well as up-to-the-moment contemporary essays. Seventeen new chapters reflect the current trajectory of research on truth.

Post-Truth

Post-Truth PDF Author: Lee McIntyre
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262345986
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
How we arrived in a post-truth era, when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence. Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into “information silos.” What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism—specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its attacks on science and facts. McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.

The Truth Detector

The Truth Detector PDF Author: Jack With Schafer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982139129
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Learn how to outwit liars and get them to tell the truth in this “revelatory work” from the former FBI agent and author of The Like Switch (Publishers Weekly). Unlike many other books on lie detection and behavioral analysis, this revolutionary guide reveals the FBI-developed practice of elicitation, the field-tested technique for encouraging people to provide information they would otherwise keep secret. Now you can learn this astonishing method directly from the expert who created this technique and pioneered it for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program. Filled with easy-to-follow, accessible lessons reinforced by fascinating stories of how to put these skills into action using natural human behaviors, The Truth Detector shows you all of the tips and techniques you need to gain someone’s trust and get liars to reveal the truth.

The Truth Matters

The Truth Matters PDF Author: Bruce Bartlett
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 0399581170
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
Distinguish fake news from reliable journalism with this clear and concise handbook by New York Times best-selling author Bruce Bartlett. Today’s media and political landscapes are littered with untrustworthy sources and the dangerous concept of “fake news.” This accessible guide helps you fight this deeply troubling trend and ensure that truth is not a permanent casualty. Written by Capitol Hill veteran and author Bruce Bartlett, The Truth Matters presents actionable tips and tricks for reading critically, judging sources, using fact-checking sites, avoiding confirmation bias, identifying trustworthy experts, and more.

Likeness to Truth

Likeness to Truth PDF Author: G. Oddie
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400946589
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
The concept of likeness to truth, like that of truth itself, is fundamental to a realist conception of inquiry. To demonstrate this we need only make two rather modest aim of an inquiry, as an inquiry, is realist assumptions: the truth doctrine (that the the truth of some matter) and the progress doctrine (that one false theory may realise this aim better than another). Together these yield the conclusion that a false theory may be more truthlike, or closer to the truth, than another. It is the aim of this book to give a rigorous philosophical analysis of the concept of likeness to truth, and to examine the consequences, some of them no doubt surprising to those who have been unduly impressed by the (admittedly important) true/false dichotomy. Truthlikeness is not only a requirement of a particular philosophical outlook, it is as deeply embedded in common sense as the concept of truth. Everyone seems to be capable of grading various propositions, in different (hypothetical) situations, according to their closeness to the truth in those situations. And (if my experience is anything to go by) there is remarkable unanimity on these pretheoretical judge ments. This is not proof that there is a single coherent concept underlying these judgements. The whole point of engaging in philosophical analysis is to make this claim plausible.