Dominus Paradoxum

I, of course, shall reject the second premise.

John Page

Whereas I, of course, reject it.

Luiseach

Bloody hell, where to start?

Okay, so we've got Tyler Dryden's beautifully written post up there somewhere.

And then some shennanigans with edits or what have you...I wish I knew what that was all about.

And John Page with relativism and intersubjectivity.

And Gurdur making my point for me by saying the final truth doesn't exist.

And a few others.

So....

from where I'm standing, the meaning of 'truth' is always deferred?

John Page

Where are you standing?

Seriously, the meaning of truth is contingent upon what the word truth is pointing at.

Luiseach

At attention, of course...

...and the word 'truth' points in various directions, as illustrated by this thread, which suggests that no one has yet exhausted the potentiality of its meaning, because no one can achieve such a feat, seeing as there is no one looking from outside the text wherein the word is suspended in relation to all the others.

Signifiers without the transcendental signified; words, but no monolithic 'truth.'

Hugo Holbling

For the information of all participants, Tyler has gone on holiday for a few weeks. Since he reached the corner before doing so and made the tag, i'll take over from him for my own amusement unless or until the discussion becomes autistic enough to make me feel ill.

I'm quite keen for Luise to explain what she means by truth having "religious connotations", to begin with.

Bill Snedden

I've come to understand truth to be "what is".

"What" seems to be exceedingly problematic (to say the least). However (even though I'm risking a Clintonism) can't we at least agree on "is"? That is to say, existence?

I know that we've been down this street before, but if we understand existence to mean "is instantiated", it still seems to me undeniable that something exists. I think this goes back to one of Tyler's questions in the thread from which this was drawn: Is there anything that is ontologically prior to representation (by language)? If we can agree that signifiers signify something (regardless of whether or not it's anything in particular), then it would seem that we must answer that question with a "yes" and thus that there is something existent outside of the world we construct with language.

Am I sneaking realism in by the back door? I don't think so, but perhaps (more like certainly....) someone will point it out for me if I am. If so, I should like to know how to avoid it...

Regards,

Bill Snedden

John Page

Bill:

I hear you, and we are picking up an old thread issue here.

1. It is deniable. Any statement is deniable.
2. That doesn't mean the denial is "true", though.
3. May I propose that statements are deniable by the same process that deems them true.
4. Also, perhaps the same process that tells you something is true is what tells you something exists.
5. That process is (I further propose) an aspect of nervous system activity - i.e. we're back to a priori sense knowing for anything to be known in the mind/brain.

Cheers, John

John Page

Oh, I thought you were George Bernard Shaw!

Hugo Holbling

I wonder, as before, if you mean in an ontological sense or plain logically necessary. If the latter, i don't see that an ontological conclusion can follow. Even so (and to harken back to the old discussion), if we allow that the statement "something exists" is true, i don't see that we have gotten anywhere. I await enlightenment via your wise words on this one, Bill.

Not so. Luise will tell you all about signifiers sliding into signifiers and never reaching the signified. Perhaps your conclusion follows, but it isn't obvious - particularly according to M. Derrida.

Do you mean how to avoid realism in general or a realist conception of truth?