Close To The Truth

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-18-2020

Published In

Philosophia

Abstract

We often think or say that someone was wrong about something but almost right about it or close to the truth. This can mean more than one thing. Here, I propose an analysis of the idea of being epistemically close to the truth. This idea plays an important role in our practice of epistemic evaluation and therefore deserves some detailed attention. I start (section1) with an exposition of the idea of getting things right by looking at the main forms of reliabilism about true belief and belief acquisition. The focus on reliabilism is justified because (almost) everyone is a reliabilist in a basic sense. Section 2 develops a notion of closeness to the truth in two steps. Section 3 mentions some ways in which this notion is useful, one having to do with the Gettier problem.

Keywords

Knowledge, True belief, Closeness, Reliabilism, Gettier

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