Truth

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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What is truth?

Ahem,

Right now, I’m sure many of you are anxious to completely ignore what the question is asking for, and comment about how I’ve worded it, and what it assumes, why it was asked in a misleading way, or why the question is futile, nonsensical, pointless, or whatever… But, there’s no more straightforward way to ask the question. And besides, your response is going to aim at something, or be guided by it—whether you’re attempting to answer the question or not. There’s a moment (if you write with other people in mind) before you click the “Submit” button. You’re reflecting on something. You’re gauging what you’ve written. Inspecting it. Judging it. —You already have a sense for what I’m asking about. …It’s time to show your mettle.

There’s so much important terminology to navigate through. Lingo, you know. I’m worried about getting caught up and snared by what exists in logical space. Let’s at least shine some light on beaten paths—but remember, philosophy is not just grammar and definitions.

You might be a relativist; but remember, that truth changes or comes branded doesn’t negate the importance of thinking about what it is or should be; here, now. Or, you might be an absolutist, and if you are—that’s great. But remember, both, that your disagreement is more about how wide the scope of truth is, and not its content.

You might be a minimalist, and think the whole project of reflection about the nature of truth is misguided. You’ll think there’s no overarching theory of truth, I suppose. You’ll agree that to call a statement ‘true’ adds no robust property. Whether “a proposition is true” depends on “whether the proposition”. And I think this stance will be common here at ILP, since the superficial versions are common among couch potatoes, part-timers, and the confused ill-bred. I’m not exactly convinced. There does seem to be connections between the truths of vastly different kinds of propositions.

Oh, and there are at least a few very different theories of truth… You might be a correspondence theorist, and believe that truth happens when a propositions corresponds to whatever it needs to. Or truth is in coherence of your ideas to one another. Or truth is just what works—(now let’s get busy). Some theories are better suited for different purposes. For instance, being a realist in a labratory makes more sense than being a realist in ethics.

I know, the initial question is overwelming…

What goes through your mind a moment before you click the “Submit” button? What does your thinking aim at? What guides your posts?

What is truth?

2

Subjective.

*runs for the door before Pane gets here.

What guides my posts, chances are its a mental illness or brain disease.

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I read a bunch of Wiki pages yesterday and what I am about to write is my attempt to digest some of that information. Truth, and the pursuit of truth might simply be an erroneous myth, something assumed a long time ago and which persists today, a bad habit (folk psychology). The best one can say to explain the obvious disrepencies in what two people might call truth is that truth is subjective, which, as far as explaining the world goes is surely unsatisfactory. Now, there’s this thing called the illusion of introspection, where one tends to grant more worth to one’s introspective conclusions as they would to someone elses, and there’s something called propostional attitudes, which is basically one’s attitude towards a propostion. I wonder if this self-exaggeration of one’s own ideas and their ‘truth’ value leads one to having the attitude towards propostions that “what I consider true is true, at least for me.”

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This sentence consists of words.

True

False

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Don’t you mean: Yes No?

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truth is what works - i’m saying it . . .

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i thought philosophy op’s must have a thesis…i do not see a thesis

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Ha, not really, here it is edited.

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The relative value of a premise which references a standard against which this premise can be compared, in order to judge it’s … “truthiness”.

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A fellow Colbertian

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“What is truth”, asked doubting Pilot, who would not wait for an answer.–Bacon.
If truth can be reduced to the relativity of perspectivism, it has no value as a socially ameliorative agreement .
If truth can be reduced to subjective, personal concepts of reality, it has no value as to the importance of self-other interactions.
What is truth? If it is not more than “what gets you through the night” , it is too self-oriented to be an effective standard of ethics for anyone but yourself.

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I think truth is said of those ideas which our understanding of the world couldn’t do without, and as a social phenomenon what is called true is whatever coheres with what is held as true.

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Do you intend any of this to be true? If so, I can imagine it very quickly leading to paradox.

Dear Subjectivists,

It’s nothing against subjectivism, but subjectivism isn’t a proper response to a question about what you mean when you call something ‘true’, or what you aim at when you’re thinking a problem through, or what you wonder about before you submit your post to the public. When you’re asked what truth is, and you say it depends on the person—that’s fine, if somewhat question-begging—but I guarantee you, when you’re responding to someone’s post here, trying to react, trying to explain the error, trying to refute, arguing for, defending against,—subjectivism is the last thing on your mind. Would you even be here if it was otherwise?

xzc (and uglypeoplefucking),

That’s a bit Nietzschean; “Truth is the error without which we couldn’t live”. —Pragmatic, basically. But we could certainly live without thinking that “truth was the error without which we couldn’t live”. I mean, it works for us when we assume that truth isn’t just what works. And truth often isn’t that which works. (However, I think I’d agree that we don’t usually call something true when it doesn’t work!) …Every time a lying politician gets elected, or goes to war on a case that isn’t true—it worked for his purposes, but the case wasn’t true, we wouldn’t even call it true, then or now. I can convince you of things, win arguments against you, all while knowing flaws in my own position you just haven’t (and probably won’t) discover.

helptheherd: Why do you quote a full post of text only to write one line that anybody could do without? Go away.

My thesis is that nobody really thinks about or notices what goes through their mind when they’re looking over their post, or writing it, before submitting it. If you have any concern for other people whatsoever, something about that is going to involve the truth.

14

Okay so,
Speaking about the sense in which we say that propositions are true…

Truth is a conceptual relation between what one perceives to be the case and what is the case. If one’s perception matches what is, if the relation is accurate, the proposition in mind is true. Truth is accuracy. Truth doesn’t exist as a thing in the world. To say that untruth exists is to say that something, ‘a’, can be perceived as something else, ‘not a’. There may not yet be any test for truth, but that doesn’t mean objective truth is impossible or that we haven’t already discovered any.

Metaphor for truth:
Say truth is a billboard on the side of the road. If you look in the right direction while driving by you will have a perspective of the sign, your passenger may see it from a different angle - where her view is nonetheless consistent with yours - but the dude in the backseat might look the opposite way and miss the sign completely. No one views the sign from all perspectives (absolutely), but the sign still lends itself to anyone looking in the right direction.

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please teach me. what in the world is a subjectivist. maybe i am one since everything is subjective. i thought that was the truth from a sujective point of view.

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Intend? Truth either is or is not. I would venture to say that few things would sufficiently qualify as being ‘True,’ most is merely opinion.

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Truth is ultimately an article of faith, which seems largely, but not necessarily, pragmatic in nature.

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And what do you propose as an alternative? Embracing apathy? Ignorance? We may never get to know everything about the universe, but it doesn’t stop science from seeking answers (and nobody calls scientific inquiry a bad habit).

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even scientific knowledge is a little subjective.
there always is a little wiggle room.

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In this world the far more relevant question is, “What do you want the truth to be?”