Why do we believe what we know?

Everything we believe is connected to other things we believe in complicated ways. Sometimes we deceive ourselves, out of necessity, to hold on to an important belief. There is a way that we can explore these relationships and learn how we come to believe things, and how others do too: but first we must understand four different ways of knowing things.

Four types of knowledge

The most widely accepted definition of knowledge is justified true belief — that is, earnestly believing that something is true when it is in fact true. In this…