Sara asked:

This is about "A belief is what we accept as truth" which was discussed on these pages.

One example I have come up with is that hundreds of years ago people believed the world was flat, in
fact they knew it was flat and believed it to be true as they knew nothing else. However, later it was
discovered that the world was round and so now we KNOW that it is in fact round. Before this
discovery was made, the truth was that the world was flat and one could fall off it if they travelled too
far out to sea.

What if we believe in something that isn't actually true? The hijackers of the planes in the States may
have believed in something that they thought to be true, but that was disputed by most of the western
population.

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"One example I have come up with is that hundreds of years ago people believed the world was
flat..."

Whoa! Hold on a bit. What you begin with is right, hundreds of years ago (some) people believed the
earth was flat. But then you go on to say, "in fact [,] they knew it was flat...but they knew no such thing
since (unless you believe that the earth has changed shape between then and now, do you?)the
earth was then round. So how could they have possibly have knownit was flat when it was false that
it was flat. Can you know something which is false? I don't think so. The next thing you say may
explain what is going on. You say "they believed it to be true [that the earth was flat]" and, again, you
are right. They did believe it to be true. But since the earth was not flat but round, what they believed
to be true was false. They had a false belief, which is to say, they made a mistake. In other words,
they believed that they knew that the earth was flat. But believing you know something is one thing;
actually knowing that thing is something else again. People often believe they know things, but find
out later that they onlybelieved they knew these things, but didn't because what they believed they
knew turned out to be false as in the case you give. A necessarycondition of knowing something is
that what you know be false. That is different from claimingor believingyou know something. For
your claim may or may not be true, and your belief may or may not be true. I claimed to know, just a
short time ago, the the United Constitution said that a person can be accused of treason only in time
of war. Upon reading Article 3 of the Constitution, I found out that I was mistaken about that. I thought
I knew something that I didn't know at all. Thinking you know something, and actually knowing it, are
very different.

"However, later it was discovered that the world was round and so now we KNOW that it is in fact
round..."

But, as I just pointed out, unless you believe that the earth changed shape in the meantime, it was not
true that the earth was flat, not then, not now, not ever. It was always round. However (some) people
thoughtor believedit was flat. And of course, it turns out they were wrong, and they were also wrong
in what they inferred from their belief that the world was flat.

"What if we believe in something that isn't actually true? The hijackers of the planes in the States may
have believed in something that they thought to be true..."

We often believe things that aren't true. After all, we are only fallible human beings, and liable to
make mistakes. But with diligence and careful investigation, we can often greatly lower the probability
that we are wrong, although not eliminate it altogether. The growth of science that helped this along
greatly. The scientific method is the best way of decreasing the possibility that our beliefs are
mistaken.

The terrorists probably did believe in what they did. But it still remains a good possibility that their
beliefs were distorted by emotion and by certain views which weren't true. And it is also possible that
they might have been crazy. After all, they did commit suicide, and cause the deaths of many who
were innocent and had done them no harm. So, even if they thought they were doing what was right,
nevertheless, in view of what they actually did and intended to do, we can safely say that they were
mistaken in thinking they were right. The fact that people believe they are right is no evidence at all
that they are in fact right.

Ken Stern