True Beliefs

Famous quotes containing the words true and/or beliefs:

    Oh, blank confusion! true epitome
    Of what the mighty city is herself,
    To thousands upon thousands of her sons,
    Living amid the same perpetual whirl
    Of trivial objects, melted and reduced
    To one identity, by differences
    That have no law, no meaning, and no end—
    William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

    The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.
    Donald Davidson (b. 1917)