Management Information System

Response to XOmniverse – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTieA27Yugo

The definition of knowledge as ‘justified true belief’ prompts me to think about what we mean when we say something is ‘true’ and how this relates to ‘belief’. Broadly speaking there are two general categories according to which truth is established; these are ‘correspondence’ and ‘coherence’. A correspondence theory would say that a proposition is true if it corresponds to some phenomena in the physical world. My thought that there is a cat on the mat, as expressed by my saying ‘the cat is on the mat’, is true if, and only if, there is indeed a domesticated feline atop a floor covering. Correspondence theories therefore depend upon both an event in ‘the outside world’ and a cognitive state ‘in my head’ which I might call my belief. When these two components are in alignment then the proposition is true.

Coherence theories of truth work differently however. In this case a proposition is true if it can be shown to be coherent within the system of concepts and proposition that it is claimed to be a part. So for example, the statement ‘2 + 2 = 4′ is true if and only if it is coherent within the system of mathematics. This could be tested by imagining substituting the phrase ‘2 + 2′ is any equation in place of the number 4. If the result is the same when these equations are solved then it has been shown that, within the system of mathematics, ‘2 + 2′ is substitutable for the character ‘4′ and therefore the proposition ‘2 + 2 = 4′ is shown to be true. A second example might be a statement such as ‘this man is my brother-in-law’. Again, this proposition would be true not because if corresponds to some internal state within my cognition but if, and only if, he is married to my sister. That is, if the system of familial relationships which determines what we call one another supports the claim that the man is my brother-in-law as coherent.

The significance of this distinction in relation to knowledge is that, whilst correspondence theories of knowledge require that there be a person or at least a cognitive process with which the material phenomena might or might not correspond, this is not the case with coherence theories. In the latter, a proposition is true or false only in relation to the system of which it is a part, and makes no reference to the internal state of any being. This suggests to me that there may be two forms of ‘knowing’ (which I personally would distinguish into ‘knowledge’ and information’); one which is based on correspondence and the felt sense of belief that accompanies that type of truth, and another based on coherence, which is the acceptance of the truth status of information but without the requirement that it be intuitively or emotionally ‘felt’.

Video of Robert Burton – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL12c4d0ro4

Duration : 0:10:15

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