Self-Evidence

Can a proposition be self-evident but false?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Maybe
0 voters

Is there anything to prevent a self-evident proposition from being false?

/ edited for clarity, +poll :slight_smile:

Example?

Well, I’m saying I don’t think there’s any reason a self-evident proposition couldn’t also be false. The question of self-evidence is already its extension, that is, to whom the evidence is already sufficient to justify belief in the truth of the proposition.

We could think of a child answering history questions in class. Suppose he’s asked five questions, and he answers all five correctly. It would seem self-evident that he knows the answers to question, having displayed the capacity to respond correctly to them. But wait, you say – suppose he knew the questions beforehand, and simply memorized the answers without understanding? Or worse, consider that he could have gotten extremely lucky, and actually guessed each answer correctly (again, without properly knowing the answers)?

In both of these cases, the ‘self-evident’ proposition that the child knows the answers is already a little strained, right? It seems to me that there’s not a good example of self-evidence that is also necessarily true, except in relation to a specific set of symbolic coordinates, or to speak more plainly: truth isn’t necessarily self-evident, and further, it doesn’t seem like we’re losing anything if we say that a self-evident proposition isn’t necessarily true.

Is there any reason a self-evident proposition couldn’t (also) be false?