Is there a word for an unjustified true belief?

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.


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.


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.


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.