Knowledge and Belief

Abstract

During the course of this book I have emphasised the striking contrast between some of the assumptions about knowledge which we make in everyday life and some of the things which many philosophers say when they theorise about knowledge. Thus, I have defended our widespread practice of being prepared to consider, and sometimes to concede, knowledge claims in a variety of subjects, such as history, botany, chemistry, etc., as well as in everyday circumstances: this was in opposition to the philosophical theory that the possibility of achieving knowledge is, in principle, restricted to such disciplines as logic and mathematics. I could find no good reason why we should not, in appropriate situations, continue to say that we knew that Sir Francis Drake was buried at sea, that oak trees shed their leaves in winter, that a gas will expand if heated, that the coal bucket is empty. In brief, we can claim knowledge of contingent as well as of necessary truths. A corollary of this conclusion was that propositions should not be classified as those which are inherently or intrinsically ‘knowable’ and those which are inherently or intrinsically ‘believable’. I defended also the commonly held view that knowledge cannot be distinguished from belief simply by an examination of one’s state of mind.