RAMSEY'S OPTION FOR RELIABILISM

Abstract

The background of the human need for knowledge guarantees further examination of the premise that knowledge is Justified True Belief (JTB). Belief, Truth and Justification emerge as objects of epistemological investigation. The problem of the relationship between truth and belief and how these lead to knowledge requires a closer examination of both Belief and Truth. Frank Ramsey has an interesting treatment of Belief and Truth, an understanding of which would go a long way in advancing the course of the quest for knowledge. Furthermore, Ramsey's theory of Belief and Truth does not seem to receive sufficient attention, hence the need to see if Ramsey's theory can be sufficiently employed to solve the problem of the nature of Belief, how Belief relates to Truth and whether Justification is needful for the verification of Truth. This work thus aims at exposing Ramsey's treatment of Belief and showing how Belief relates to truth in order to bring about knowledge. The scope of the study is thus bounded by content and context. The content consists of an evaluation of Ramsey's notion of Truth and Belief. The context is postmodern and contemporary. This work explains Ramsey's formula for the calculation of the degrees of belief. It also puts one in a position to ascertain whether or not Ramsey's theory of Belief and Truth as well as the quantification of the degrees of belief is anything to go by. The study adopts the qualitative research Method of analysis. Data were sourced from primary and secondary sources such as books, periodicals and the internet among others. This study is limited to an evaluation of Frank Ramsey's notion of Truth and Belief. With a few exceptions, only the ideas of philosophers who post-date Ramsey are mostly employed. The study shows that, Beliefs have varying intensity which can be calculated and assigned numerical values and the highest of the value of a belief is usually 0.5. It also shows that truth results when a belief is acted upon or there is the propensity to act at the instance of a belief. Knowledge therefore results when the truth value of a belief has intensity to the numerical value of at least 0.5 with a complementing absolute propensity to act at the instance of the belief.