As with the previous posts, the original text shared here before for only a proofreading practice follows below. The errors are underlined.
“The question as to what we mean by truth and falsehood, which we considered in the proceeding chapter, is of much less interest than the question as to how we can know what is true and what is false. This question will occupy us in the present chapter. There can be no doubt that some of our beliefs are eroneous; thus we are led to inquire what certainty we can ever have that such and such a belief is not erroneous. In other words, can we ever know anything at all, or do we merely sometimes by good luck believe what is true? Before we can attack this question, we must, however, first decide what we mean by ‘knowing’, and this question is not so easy as might be supposed.
At first site we might imagine that knowledge could be defined as ‘true belief’. When what we believe is true, it might be supposed that we had achieved a knowledge of what we believe. But this would not accord with the way in which the word is commonly used. To take a very trivial instance: If a man believes that the late Prime Minister’s last name began with a B, he believes what is true, since the late Prime Minister was Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. But if he believes that Mr. Balfor was the late Prime Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister’s last name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be thought to constitute knowledge. If a newspaper, by an intelligent anticipation, announces the result of a battle before any telegram giving the result has been received, it may by good fortune announce what afterwards turns out to be the right result, and it may produce belief in some of its less experienced readers.” [Source: “Free Weekly Proofreading Exercise” at http://www.proofreading-course.com]
Corrections:
- The word “proceeding” is semantically incorrect as far as the intended context. It should be replaced with “preceding”.
- There is a spelling error with “eroneous”. The correct spelling is “erroneous”.
- Like with the first error, the word “site” is semantically incorrect and it is to be replaced with “sight”.
- There is another spelling error in question here: “Balfor” should be “Balfour”, if researched, which at times becomes unavoidable during proofreading any text.
