Which Is Better, True Belief and Knowledge?

In Meno, Socrates and Meno have a discussion on virtue and they encounter a problem. If virtue is teachable, it must be knowledge. However, since there are no teachers and students of virtue, virtue must not be taught. So they think that virtue is not knowledge. And then they start the discussion on what is true belief and knowledge. In this essay, I would evaluate Socrates’s explanation on why knowledge is better than mere true belief and the reasons that I agree with Socrates’s proposition. Socrates’s explanation To begin with, Socrates first questions whether true belief is something no less useful than knowledge.

Socrates notes that true belief and knowledge guide to the true action. He illustrates the idea by an example. To clarify Socrates’s example, I will apply his example on our campus. Suppose I need to guide a friend to Chong Yuet Ming Physics Building. I have no idea where it locate and I haven’t been to there. Now, I can visit the building if someone with the knowledge of the path guides me there or I have the knowledge of the path. But a true belief, which may be the intuition, perception, will also be equally effective in reaching the destination.

If my belief is that the destination is northwest of the main building, and I convince my friend to the destination. From an outside observer, he cannot distinguish whether I have the knowledge of the path or I just luckily arrive there according to my true belief. Socrates states that “correct opinion (true belief) is no less useful than knowledge” because no matter which proposition, either true belief or knowledge, someone’s action still can be guided correctly. Although I do not agree this statement, I will discuss it in later paragraph. So, what makes the different between true belief and knowledge?

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Socrates thinks that the difference between them is the justification, which is the reasoning or the rationale for your belief. The person with knowledge has the ability to account of the why behind the truth whereas the person with mere true belief knows only the truth. If someone has knowledge, then he has the ability to account for the action and his mind retains knowledge. It will be secured for future use. However, although true belief guide you to a right action, the belief will go away from you mind easily. Socrates proposes that if one does not tie the true beliefs down, they will run away and escape.

If tied, true beliefs stay where they are put. Moreover, once they are tied down, they become knowledge. True beliefs are grasped by the mind only fleeting before they are corrupted or lost. But we can tether them by working out the reason. If we has the reason for the believe, then the true belief is justified and become knowledge. Evaluation for Socrates explanation Firstly, I would like to discuss about Socrates’s proposition that knowledge and true belief always guide to the right action. I shall argue that it would be better that true belief guides to the right action in a better way than knowledge guides.

I believe that knowledge does not always guide to the destination. For example, I have knowledge of only one path to Chong Yuet Ming Physics Building. According to the knowledge, I walk along the path. It is not guaranteed I can arrive the building. Maybe murdered happened and police has blocked the road for investigation. Maybe the path that in your mind is not up-to-date and that particular path now leads you to another building, say Ming Wah Building. In this case, even you have knowledge of going to the building, you cannot go there. True beliefs, however, always guide you to the right action.

As long as we have true beliefs, we always can be guided correctly. For example, as long as I am lucky enough, I can visit Chong Yuet Ming Building even there is only one path to the building. Through, I still agree that knowledge is better the mere true belief. People cannot lucky all the life in reality. That means we cannot solve all problem by our belief. We need knowledge to live. For ideal case, an ignorant housewife can invest her money by merely her belief and win the market all time. However, does it happen in the reality? Even it happens, there are just very little cases.

Without knowledge, it is difficult to live in the world. Comparing a ignorant housewife and a professional experienced investor investing the stock market, they may both lose money. For the investor, he may be wrong in some decision and lose money. But if he could have a lesson from that, he may gain and revise his knowledge of the stock market. Next time, he may keep doing this in a row. Finally, the probability to earn money increases. For the ignorant housewife, if she do not learn from the fault, or tie down the true belief, the probability of earning money would not increase.

Therefore, if someone learn from the fault and form a better knowledge on that field, it will be better to him because the probability of doing the right action increases. In addition, we should not focus too much on the result too much. If we just focus on whether one finally achieve destination only, it may suggest that result is the ONLY thing we should take consideration. If that is the case, then we may agree that people can earn money by kidnapping, stealing or robbering. But we shall agree that earning money by such process is not accepted.

Then, I think that achieving the goal by some process may not be good even the goal can be achieved. Hence, we should also consider the process which guides to the destination or result, but not just merely the result. I think that why knowledge is better than true belief is that the process of the right action who is guided by knowledge is better than that who is guided by true belief. Looking back to the example, what is the difference between someone guided knowledge and guided by true belief if they both arrive the destination is the experience and the variation of the path.

Consider a person with merely true belief, he may make decision by something like I should go this way and I hope the way is not dead-ended. Why I have been walking so long time and haven’t arrived yet? Did I made some wrong decision? When can I arrive? I have no idea how to go there, and etc. Although he finally arrive the building, he had hard feeling at all. He may feel depressed, anxious, doubtful, and uncertain. Also, there is lots of variation for the paths. He may walk a very long path to the destination. For example, someone take a bus to somewhere.

He believes that he need to get off the bus at the 3rd stop and walk along the road. However, the best way is to get off the bus at the 7th stop. He leaves the bus 2 stops earlier. Although he has true belief and arrive the destination, it may not good to him because he has been walked a very long and unnecessary way. Knowledge, on the other hand, guides someone with appropriate process. If someone with knowledge, says he know the map of campus in the example, can effectively arrive the destination without anxious, doubtful feelings.

Someone may argue that having knowledge may not arrive the destination effectively because you may only have knowledge of a circuitous path. I shall say that it may be the case, just similar as true belief. People having true belief may or may not arrive destination effectively, so as people having knowledge. But at least the person may not have hard feelings, which already make knowledge better than true belief. Though there is some argument which I think is not correct in Socrates’s explanation, there are still lots of evidence to show that knowledge is better than mere true belief.

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