Bertrand Russell Truth and Falsehood资料.pdfVIP

1 Truth and Falsehood Bertrand Russell Our knowledge of truths , unlike our knowledge of things , has an oppo - site, namely error . So far as things are concerned, we may know them or not know them , but there is no positive state of mind which can be described as erroneous knowledge of things , so long , at any rate , as we confine ourselvesto knowledge by acquaintance. Whatever we are acquainted with must be something ; we may draw wrong inferences from our acquaintance , but the acquaintance itself cannot be deceptive . Thus there is no dualism asregardsacquaintance. But as regardsknowledge of truths , there is a dualism . We may believe what is false as well as what is true . We know that on very many subjectsdifferent people hold different and incompatible opinions: hencesome beliefs must be erroneous. Since erroneous beliefs are often held just as strongly as true beliefs, it becomes a difficult question how they are to be distinguished from true beliefs. How are we to know , in a given case, that our belief is not erroneous ? This is a question of the very greatestdifficulty , to which no completely satisfactory answer is possible. There is, however, a preliminary question which is rather less difficult , and that is: What do we mean by truth and falsehood? It is this preliminary questionwhich is to be consideredin this chapter . In this chapter we are not asking how we can know whether a belief is true or false: we are asking what is meant by the question whether a belief is true or false. It is to be hopedthat a clear answerto this question may help usto obtain an answerto the questionwhat beliefsaretrue, but for the presentwe ask only What is truth ? and What is falsehood? not What beliefs are true ? and What beliefs are false ? It is very important