Luiseach

In another thread, namely 'Pitfalls of Metaphysics and Chimera of Divine Revelation,'

found here ---------->http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=1

the issue of truth came up amongst several participants as the conversation unfolded and meandered.

It was decided that a new thread be started wherein those interested in the subject of 'truth' - what it is, what it isn't, how it is arrived at, or derived, or constructed, and/or 'found' - could be discussed separately from the main focus of the original thread.

So here it is.

I've cut and pasted relevant quotations from the other thread. Here they are:


I know how folks are rather busy IRL, and in other threads in philosophy, but it would be interesting to focus on this subject here.

Hopefully, even Hugo Holbling could provide his point of view?

My own perspective is this:

The word 'truth' makes me uneasy. It has religious connotations. There is something monolithic about it, something basic and permanent that I don't think I agree with. I suppose I could be persuaded to change my mind on this; from what I've read in this forum, I'm not yet convinced that there is such a thing as 'truth' as it is generally defined.

Facts, yes. Knowledge, yes. Theorising, yes. Consensus, yes.

But 'truth' - the meaning of it anyway - eludes me.

Any thoughts?

[Edited to add link to the 'Chimera' thread]

Hugo Holbling

I understand what you mean here, but others may not; ergo, you need to expand on this, methinks.

Which definition(s) are you refering to? Are you more sympathetic to one than another, or do you have problems with all of them? If by general definition you mean the correspondence theory, perhaps you'll say a few words on the other contestants?

This leads nicely to my firing your question back at you - what's the difference between knowledge and truth?

Why would i jump the gun? I've gone this entire post without showing my hand, so why start now?

Gurdur

Dunno how you can claim such a thing as "facts" exist if you don't believe the "truth" exists.

While I can understand your misgivings about "truth", I have to totally disagree, at least for myself.

The final "truth" may not exist, but to my (hardline atheist) mind, it is useful and OK often to pretend in practice that it exists, whether when doing science or whatever.

LeetJeebus

My two cents:

There are two definitions that need to be distinguished between in this argument. There is the layman's usage of the word truth, which is used to denote the relation of information without error; and there is the philosophical Truth, which I suspect is the sole focus of this thread; ergo, I will deal only with the second term. Truth is the standard by which all other statements are set; there cannot be a falsehood without a truth to make it false. As far as "universal truths" go, this is where we get into religion and metaphysics in general. How can a statement of universal truth be intentionally made unless someone/thing actually knows the answer, and thusly, how can anybody be wrong until such a Truth is defined?

Just something to (in my opinion) focus the topic a bit. Y'know, my thoughts on the subject.

Tyler Durden

There is a postmodern line in the bible, spoken by Pontius Pilate:

“What is truth?”

He prompted this question after Jesus made a claim that those on the truth were on his side. Of course, Thomas Aquinas claimed that Pilate did not stay for an answer, and any self-respecting Christian would quote biblical material and thanks to their direct line to God, they claim Jesus would’ve replied: “I AM THE TRUTH.”

Protagoras asserted that there is no such thing as the truth in itself. Socrates in the Apology claims that he has discovered no other truth than that he knows no truth, and that is the genesis of his method. Plato hypostasized truth as something that was a member in the unchanging and Parmenidean heaven, and the roots of the correspondence theory of truth may be found in the Sophist. Aristotle and the Medieval logicians maintained the fact and belief distinction. G. E. Moore and Russell are the contemporary practitioners of the CToT. Alfred Tarski cleaned up the confusion with the proposal that truth is a metalinguistic adjective.

Coherentism, the belief that truth obtains in coherence - a statement or a judgment is true or false is to say that it coheres or doesn’t within a system of other statements - is more recent, and may be found in the rationalist system building metaphysicians: Leibniz, Spinoza, Hegel and Bradley.

P. F. Strawson has a novel approach to the concept of truth. He argued that the words ‘true’ and ‘false’ are not descriptive expressions, like most thinkers do, but performative expressions.

The forgotten pragmatic thinker, ChaRles Sanders Pierce in 1878 came up with the following: “Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the objects of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.” This is a logical maxim to work out the meaning of words, concepts, each according to the practical significance. This focuses directly upon the crucial relationship between thoughts and action. An idea of anything is the idea of its sensible effects. If words refer to anything at all, we ought to be able to test them. However, if a word relate to vague, ambiguous qualities and we cannot discern any practical meaning whatsoever, then we must conclude that it is vacuous, meaningless. Ergo we can say “You are alive,” which is testable, but not that you possess a soul. Poof! Be gone, ye obfuscators of word weaving! Come and see how many philosophical disputes collapse and vanish into a cloud of insignificance the instant we subject them to this simple test of following a concrete consequence! Just about every proposition of ontological metaphysics is either meaningless gibberish or else downright absurd. Pierce demolishes all refined methods of epistemology with his pragmatic wand. Other pragmatic thinkers like James said truth is what’s pragmatically useful, and Dewey took a step further, and argued that truth is relatively warranted assertibility.

Nietzsche thinks truth is contingent upon the perspective one holds. So, in lieu of perspectivism, the absolute truth is incoherent. In his book, Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacks the supposed integrity of the conventional philosopher who traditionally establishes his or her insights as the result of pure reasoning. They are rather motivated by a prejudice, and they “sift” and “made abstract” their inspirations, defend them with “reasons sought after the event.” In other words, look at the philosopher who had the drive and desire to philosophize, not at the philosophy in itself. Since truth is contingent, then there is no philosophy. Only philosophers!

Wiploc

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Luiseach
[B]I was quite surprised to learn that there are truths that depend on opinion. I read it in a book on contrarian investing. Examples: 1. The value of a share of IBM stock. 2. Which side of the road you should drive on. 3. Whether, in the movie Witness, the protagonist's pants were too short.
crc

John Page

How does truth happen? Different methods and different contexts produce different truths. Some examples:

1. In legal terms, factual evidence is taken to be true. Circumstantial evidence is less certain to be true (in relation to facts) but with enough circumstantial evidence you can rule out alternatives.
2. In logical terms, truth is the result of applying the axioms of a system of logic to propsitions.

And now we are seeking the truth about truth. IMO, no matter how smart and concise one's definition, that definition still has to be implemented. Something has to take/observe or otherwise sense a symbol (e.g. A), come to some determination what it represents (if anything) and do the same for the next symbol (e.g. B).

In this sense, whichever datum we take to be our anchor (e.g. seeing is believing) becomes the foundation for the Point of View we then build around it.

But it seems to me our minds have a way of sliding round this relativistic environment, there is a mechnism by which we can believe/assume or play "what if? Common expressions developed by those observing this phenomenon are "mindset" or "paradigm shift".

In this way, truth itself is elusive, a function of differences observed and compared. In this way, the truth about truth is merely truth - and we have some freedom to choose the truth.

Comments?

John Page

Tyler:

Nice post in general . I'd like to know how you arrived at the above conclusion from its premise.

Cheers, John

Wiploc

I don't see any religious connotations to the word. It shouldn't make you uncomfortable if, "facts," and, "knowledge," don't. I assume you are telling the truth when you say the word makes you uneasy, but I don't see why it would.
crc

Tyler Durden

Let's break the cryptic muttering and see what legitimate inferences there may be:

• Premise 1: If philosophical truth is universal, then 'Philosophy' is universal.
• Premise 2: Philosophical truth is contingent.
• Conclusion: There is no universal 'Philosophy.'