Is there a word for an unjustified true belief?

Question

Typically knowledge is formulated as justified, true, belief. Is there a word for an unjustified, true, belief?

Edit: Lets say for a moment that you think that all Asians are martial artists. This is a false and therefore not something you can use to justify something else. However, because of that, you conclude that because Jackie Chan is Asian, Jackie Chan is a martial artist. It happens to be true that Jackie Chan is a martial artist. You believe it and it's true, but it's not properly justified.

Answer 1

Maybe a "lucky guess?" This phrase is often used when someone gets the right answer, but we know they have no idea why it's correct.

Answer 2

Is there a word for an unjustified, true, belief?

Depends how unjustified you mean. Below are a bunch of terms that might fit. Off-hand, it seems like postulate, conjecture, speculation, or faith might fit, depending on what you mean by "unjustified".

• definition: Defined as true, mostly used to refer to a trivially simple concept.

• axiom: Defined as true, mostly used to refer to non-trivial concepts.

• postulate: Believed to be true, supported by a strong sense of analytical correctness.

• law: Believed to be true, supported by overwhelming evidence.

• theorem: Believed to be true, supported by strong evidence.

  • In logical fields (e.g. math; logic; computer science), proof is more analytical and generally regarded as irrefutable unless there's a major paradigm shift in understanding.

  • In sciences, a theory is a very strongly evidenced belief, but not quite as strong as a law.

• hypothesis: Suspected to possibly be true, but yet unproven.

  • Often implies a desire to seek further evidence.

• conjecture: Quite plausibly true, but unproven and may be doubted.

• speculation: Plausibly true, but significant reason to doubt.

  • motivated speculation: Plausibly true, plus some reason to suspect it.
  • unmotivated speculation: Plausibly true, without reason to suspect it.

• faith: Believed to be true, but no evidence nor logical motivation.

• false belief: Believed to be true, but strong evidence against.

• delusion: Believed to be true, but overwhelming evidence against.

• falsehood: Not believed to be true.

Answer 3

tl;dr- In math jargon, a "howler" is a correct result obtained through unsound reasoning. However, this usage appears to be jargon, and the same term can be interpreted different ways.

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"Howler"

In math, a correct result arrived at through an unsound method has been called a howler:

1. Mathematical errors occur in many different forms. In his short treatment of the topic, E. A. Maxwell distinguished the simple mistake, which may be caused by ‘a momentary aberration, a slip in writing, or the misreading of earlier work’, from the howler, ‘an error which leads innocently to a correct result’, and the fallacy, which ‘leads by guile to a wrong but plausible conclusion’ (Maxwell, 1959, p. 9).

   We might gloss this preliminary taxonomy of mathematical error as correlating the (in)correctness of the result to the (un)soundness of the method, as in Table 1.

                  |  True Result    False Result
   ---------------+--------------------------------
     Sound Method |   Correct         Fallacy
   Unsound Method |   Howler          Mistake
   

   Table 1. A Preliminary Typology of Mathematical Error

   –"Learning from our Mistakes—but Especially from our Fallacies and Howlers", Andrew Aberdein (PDF)

2. Howlers

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   Examples exist of mathematically correct results derived by incorrect lines of reasoning. Such an argument, however true the conclusion, is mathematically invalid and is commonly known as a howler.

   –"Mathematical fallacy", Wikipedia

"Howler (error)", Wikipedia, discusses the word. Apparently howler isn't commonly understood in the sense cited above, so this may be regarded as math jargon.

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Note: There probably isn't a non-jargon alternative.

Apparently "howler" was coined in 1959, in "Fallacies in Mathematics" by Edwin A. Maxwell.

Since Maxwell did his PhD dissertation in Math at the University of Cambridge, and published a book on mathematical fallacies, I assume that he'd be well-aware of any preexisting term for a "howler" if one had existed and just used that. Since he didn't, this seems to strongly suggest that there isn't (or at least wasn't) a non-jargon alternative.

Additionally:

2. I haven't been able to find a good term for the same searching on Google just now.

3. The above sources, including Wikipedia, don't mention any alternatives.

For these reasons, it seems unlikely that there's a non-jargon alternative to "howler" for a correct result arrived at through unsound reasoning.

Therefore, non-jargon terms for this concept will likely need to be constructed using multiple words.

Answer 4

For some values of religious belief, faith is going to be a term applied to an accurate assessment of G-d and Its relation to mankind without any solid rational basis for that assessment.

Obviously, atheists and/or Wittgenstein would take exception to the application of the word "true" to the knowledge being claimed.

Answer 5

A Gettier Case. Your knowledge or lack thereof is 'Gettiered' when it fails to correspond to JTB theory.

Answer 6

It would appear¹ that there is no single word that encompasses the meanings of both "lacking in justification" and "true". Therefore, a phrase must be used, and I would suggest "unsubstantiated" as the most appropriate word for the first part. Thus you could say that "Jackie Chan is a martial artist" is an unsubstantiated truth (or ...fact or ...belief).

This is, in my opinion, a better phrase than unjustified truth/belief/fact since I believe that latter carries connotations of being wrong in asserting the truth (or holding the belief etc.). Unsubstantiated just says we haven't shown it to be true or false.

The OED's entry for unsubstantiated links to the second sense of "un-":

un, prefix

2. Prefixed to past participles, forming adjectives expressing the fact that the specified action has not been carried out.

and its entry for substantiated:

substantiated, adj.

That has been substantiated (in various senses of the verb); given substance, made real. Now usually: (of a fact, claim, etc.) verified, justified with evidence.

(Emphasis mine in both cases). So an unsubstantiated fact or opinion is one where verification or justification has not happened. It does not imply that either cannot happen.

On the other hand, the OED's two most appropriate entries for unjustified are:

unjustified, adj

3.

a. Of a person, group, etc.: lacking or unable to demonstrate good justification for an action, opinion, etc.; not vindicated or shown to be in the right; not exonerated from a charge, criticism, etc. Cf. justify v. 2a, 7a.

b. Of an action, opinion, etc.: not clearly right, proper, or appropriate; lacking justification or good cause; unwarranted.

While these definitions do not explicitly state that verification/proof is not possible, the tone is far less neutral than for unsubstantiated. In addition, the etymology of unjustified points to the first sense of "un-":

un, prefix

1. Prefixed to adjectives to express a negative sense, forming adjectives (and derived nouns).

Together, these all point to unsubstantiated being the better word to express the lack of evidence (one way or another), whereas unjustified has strong connotations of their actually being evidence to the contrary.

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¹ Based on no one having found evidence so far for such a word. Of course, lack of proof is not proof of a lack.

Answer 7

In philosophy and logic we distinguish (after Aristotle):

• Valid argument: argument that if premises are true so is conclusion. For example 'Earth is flat. If earth was flat people sailing would felt off the world. Therefore Columbus would felt off the edge' (note - no one - at least no one educated or familiar with sailing - actually believed in Columbus days that Earth is flat).
• Sound argument: argument that if premises are true so is conclusion and premises are true.
• Invalid argument: argument that is, well, invalid regardless if the premises/conclusions are true or not.
• Unsound argument: argument that is not sound so either premises are not true or the chain of logic is not true.

Conversely I'd describe the believe as "unsound but true". I assume that this is an answer you seek as you tagged by 'philosophy' and not 'single-word'.

Answer 8

I think you're looking for "Axiom". An axiom is statement that's assumed to be true.

An axiom is generally used as a basis for further logical reasoning.

Answer 9

Belief, if it was justified it could be called a 'measurement' or 'observation', or even 'scientific proof'.

Answer 10

I would say it is a "hypothesis". A hypothesis is just an idea without anything to substantiate it, so I would say this is accurate. But I am willing to be wrong.

Answer 11

Sometimes when referring to religious people the term 'fundamentalist' is used as a sort of synonym to 'false believer'.