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Better Understanding Through Falsehood
Author(s) -
Rancourt Benjamin T.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
pacific philosophical quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.914
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1468-0114
pISSN - 0279-0750
DOI - 10.1111/papq.12134
Subject(s) - appeal , epistemology , degree (music) , psychology , philosophy , political science , law , physics , acoustics
Can understanding be based on false beliefs? I argue that it can. I first argue that the best way to understand the question is that it is whether one can increase one's degree of understanding by adopting an overall less accurate body of beliefs. I identify three sufficient conditions for one body of beliefs to be more accurate than another. Next, I appeal to two widely used methods of comparing degrees of understanding. With these methods, I show that understanding can be gained by acquiring false beliefs. In addition, I show that this implies that understanding is not factive.