The Relationship of our Judgments to the Truth

Abstract

In this chapter the relationship in which our judgments stand to the truth (§ 269) is supposed to be examined more closely. We already know from § 43 that there are both true and false judgments among those we make. Now it is necessary to investigate how they both happen, i.e. the ways in which both our true and our false judgments come to be. The latter in particular, because it can be useful to us in learning how to avoid error to the greatest possible extent. With respect to true judgments, something will also have to be said about the various objects they range over and about the limits of our knowledge. Conceivably, however, a false judgment could never arise if we had knowledge of every truth, i.e. if we were not ignorant with respect to a great many objects. The way in which ignorance can arise must also be explained, then, and prior to the explanation of how errors come to be. First of all, though, I shall have to establish more precisely the three concepts of knowledge, ignorance and error themselves.