For your consideration:
quote
Sometimes the Truth is not Reasonably Believed
If a proposition is true, does it follow that it is rational to accept it?
Hefner’s death reminds me of a true story from around 1981. This was before I was married. Emptying my trash into a dumpster behind my apartment building one day, I 'spied a big stack of Playboy magazines at the bottom of the container. Of course, I rescued them as any right-thinking man would: they have re-sale value and they contain excellent articles, stories, and interviews.
I stacked the mags on an end table. When my quondam girl friend dropped by, the magazines elicited a raised eyebrow.
I quickly explained that I had found them in the dumpster and that they contain excellent articles, arguments for logical analysis, etc. She of course did not believe that I had found them.
What I told her was true, but not credible. She was fully within her epistemic rights in believing that I was lying to save face. In fact, had she believed the truth that I told her, I would have been justified in thinking her gullible and naive.
This shows that truth and rational acceptability are not the same property. A proposition can be true but not rationally acceptable. It is also easily shown that a proposition can be rationally acceptable but not true. Truth is absolute; rational acceptability is relative to various indices.
“But what about rational acceptablity at the Peircean ideal limit of inquiry?”
Well, that’s a horse of different color. Should I mount it, I would trangress the bounds of this entry.
As for Hugh Hefner, may the Lord have mercy on him. And on the rest of us too. end quote - MavPhil