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Desiring the Truth and Nothing But the Truth
Author(s) -
Piller Christian
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
noûs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.574
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1468-0068
pISSN - 0029-4624
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2009.00702.x
Subject(s) - nothing , philosophy , epistemology , art history , theology , history
, Oxford University Press 2007 (or 2008). What is it to be interested in truth? According to what I call the Standard View, the lover of truth wants to believe that p if and only if ‘p’ is true. In this paper, I argue that the Standard View is incorrect. In the first section, I sketch my views on two related questions: ‘Why are we interested in truth?’ and ‘Is such an interest optional?’ In section 2, I explain the Standard View, which builds on William James’s Insight that our interest in truth has two aspects – we want to catch the truth and avoid false beliefs. I criticize the Standard View in sections 3-5 by rejecting the idea that wanting to believe that p only if p is part of what, intuitively, is being interested in truth. Wanting to believe that p, if ‘p’ is true, however, is central to our idea of being interested in truth. This leaves me with the problem of how to accommodate James’s Insight and I deal with this problem in sections 6 and 7. I suggest that a desire not to believe inconsistencies is another aspect of our interest in truth. I find support for my view in considering Chisholm’s remarks on the interest in truth but I have to disagree with Ernest Sosa on these matters.