The Good and the True (or the Bad and the False)
The Good and the True (or the Bad and the False)
It is commonplace to claim that it is good to believe the truth. In this paper, I reject that claim and argue that the considerations which might seem to support it in fact support a quite distinct though superficially similar claim, namely, that it is bad to believe the false. This claim is typically either ignored completely or lumped together with the previous claim, perhaps on the assumption that the two are equivalent, or at least that they stand or fall together. Such assumptions, I argue, are mistaken. While it is not always good to be right, it is always bad to be wrong. This is an interesting and overlooked asymmetry, which calls for further investigation
Whiting, Daniel
c0847bb4-963e-470d-92a2-5c8aae5d5aef
2013
Whiting, Daniel
c0847bb4-963e-470d-92a2-5c8aae5d5aef
Whiting, Daniel
(2013)
The Good and the True (or the Bad and the False).
Philosophy, 8 (2).
Abstract
It is commonplace to claim that it is good to believe the truth. In this paper, I reject that claim and argue that the considerations which might seem to support it in fact support a quite distinct though superficially similar claim, namely, that it is bad to believe the false. This claim is typically either ignored completely or lumped together with the previous claim, perhaps on the assumption that the two are equivalent, or at least that they stand or fall together. Such assumptions, I argue, are mistaken. While it is not always good to be right, it is always bad to be wrong. This is an interesting and overlooked asymmetry, which calls for further investigation
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The_Good_and_the_True_Final version.pdf
- Author's Original
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Published date: 2013
Organisations:
Philosophy
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Local EPrints ID: 346615
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/346615
ISSN: 0031-8191
PURE UUID: db72be5f-0622-4e30-9119-04bd6670644b
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Date deposited: 04 Jan 2013 09:46
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 12:39
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