{"id":2786,"date":"2020-12-17T12:32:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T12:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/12\/17\/sometimes-the-truth-is-not-reasonably-believed\/"},"modified":"2020-12-17T12:32:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T12:32:04","slug":"sometimes-the-truth-is-not-reasonably-believed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2020\/12\/17\/sometimes-the-truth-is-not-reasonably-believed\/","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes the Truth is not Reasonably Believed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

If a proposition is true, does it follow that it is rational to accept it? (Of course, if a proposition is known<\/em> to be true, then it is eminently rational to accept it; but that's not the question.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Playboy<\/a>Hugh Hefner's death (27 September 2017) reminds me of a true story from around 1981.  This was before I was married. Emptying my trash into a dumpster behind my apartment building one day, I 'spied a big stack of mint-condition Playboy<\/em> magazines at the bottom of the container. Of course, I rescued them as any right-thinking man would: they have re-sale value and they contain excellent articles, stories, and interviews.<\/span><\/p>\n

I stacked the mags on an end table. When my quondam girlfriend dropped by, the magazines elicited a raised eyebrow.<\/span><\/p>\n

I quickly explained that I had found them in the dumpster and that they contain excellent articles, stories, interviews, arguments for analysis in my logic classes, etc.  She of course did not believe that I had found them.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I told her was true, but not credible. She was fully within her epistemic rights in believing that I was lying to save face. In fact, had she believed the truth that I told her, I would have been justified in thinking her gullible and naive.<\/span><\/p>\n

This shows that truth and rational acceptability are not the same property. A proposition can be true but not rationally acceptable. It is also easily shown that a proposition can be rationally acceptable but not true.  Truth is absolute; rational acceptability is relative to various indices.  Rational acceptability varies with time and place; truth does not.
<\/span><\/p>\n

"But what about rational acceptability at the Peircean ideal limit of inquiry?" <\/span><\/p>\n

Well, that's a horse of a different color. Should I mount it, I would trangress the bounds of this entry.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for Hugh Hefner, may the Lord have mercy on him. And on the rest of us too.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

_________________<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

*I am assuming that credibility and rational acceptability are the same property, where 'credibility' is defined as the property, not of being believable by someone, but of being rationally<\/em> believable by someone. We should also distinguish between the credibility of persons and the credibility of propositions.  My quondam girlfriend did not question my credibility but the credibility of what I asserted.  Finding what I said incredible, she concluded that I was lying on that occasion; an occasional lie, however, does not a liar make.  A liar is one who habitually lies just as a drunkard is one who habitually gets drunk. Same with philanderers and gluttons. (But what about murderers?  It sounds distinctly odd to say, "Mack is no murderer; he murdered only one man.")<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If a proposition is true, does it follow that it is rational to accept it? (Of course, if a proposition is known to be true, then it is eminently rational to accept it; but that's not the question.) Hugh Hefner's death (27 September 2017) reminds me of a true story from around 1981.  This was … Continue reading “Sometimes the Truth is not Reasonably Believed”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[372,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-belief","category-reason-and-rationality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}