"My Truth"
Apologies in advance if this has already been discussed, but what do people think about the phrase "My truth"? (Or its variants, "your truth" and "his/her truth"). I don't remember hearing it until about five years ago, but it seems to be gaining increasing traction in both the USA and the UK. Here's an example of it:
https://spectator.com/article/meghan-harry-and-the-trouble-with-oprah-winfrey-s-truth/
It seems to be used in place of "my perception" or "my recollection" which would be more correct usages. However, it implies that the speaker is in possession of the absolute truth, and that therefore, anyone else's "truth" is false, which is both a thought-stopper and conversation-stopper.
https://spectator.com/article/meghan-harry-and-the-trouble-with-oprah-winfrey-s-truth/
It seems to be used in place of "my perception" or "my recollection" which would be more correct usages. However, it implies that the speaker is in possession of the absolute truth, and that therefore, anyone else's "truth" is false, which is both a thought-stopper and conversation-stopper.
Comments (123)
You're absolutely right about this phrase. "My truth" is fundamentally incoherent and is a dangerous retreat from rational discourse.
Truth isn't possessive, although there are subjective truths. Something is either true or it isn't. When people say, "my truth," what they really mean is "my opinion," "my feeling," or "my interpretation," but they're trying to shield their statements from criticism by wrapping it in the language of truth. It's a rhetorical trick that elevates subjective perception to an unassailable status.
This isn't just sloppy language, its epistemological nihilism dressed up as empowerment move. If everyone has "their truth," then we have no truth at all. We're left with competing narratives where facts become irrelevant, and power becomes the only arbiter of whose "truth" prevails. It makes actual investigation, evidence, and reasoned debate impossible. You see this a lot, especially from the radical left, but it's everywhere.
It allows people to make claims without having to defend them, to ignore inconvenient facts, and to shut down disagreement by framing any challenge as an attack on their personhood. It's the ultimate thought-terminating cliche.
We already have perfectly good language for subjective experience: "my perspective," "my experience," "how I remember it," "what I believe." These phrases are honest about their limitations. "My truth" is dishonest, it claims absolute authority while hiding behind the language of personal experience.
This linguistic shift is a broader cultural problem, the prioritization of feelings over facts and the inability to distinguish between respecting someone's experiences and accepting their interpretation of reality as somehow definitive.
Quoting Sam26
Wouldnt Wittgenstein treat the phrase ‘my truth’ as staking out a position within a language game? Rather than treating “truth” as a concept with a fixed essence and then indicting “my truth” as a conceptual corruption that smuggles subjectivity into a domain where it doesnt belong, wouldn't he investigate how the phrase “my truth” is actually being used, in what situations it appears, what work it does, and how it functions within particular language-games?
The danger for Wittgenstein of the use of ‘my truth’ is not that “facts become irrelevant,” but that we may lose clarity about what kind of claim is being made and therefore about what sort of response is called for. By contrast, you seem to assume that the philosophical task is to police language against misuse by appeal to hidden semantic rules about what words really mean, as though Wittgenstein thinks there is some kind of ontological essence to the word truth that must be protected from subjective distortion.
This is a great analysis. I've heard the phrase before when two people disagree, one might say "well live your truth." Which is a nice, non-confrontational way to say "you do you, and I'll do me." Which basically means: "While I'm probably not going to do or believe anything you say, it doesn't concern me if you do. Your comment or concern has been noted. Have a nice day."
That sounds about right.
Sure, Witt would look at use, but looking at use is exactly why “my truth” is often problematic. In language games where we investigate, correct, and learn, true is answerable to shared criteria, evidence, defeaters, and of course the possibility of being wrong. When someone says “my truth” in a way that keeps the prestige of truth while stepping outside the criteria, that’s not an innocent language game. It’s a move that changes the rules and then pretends nothing changed.
And to be clear, the fact that something is inside a language game doesn’t give it automatic validity. That move only tells you the kind of claim being made and what standards, if any, it’s meant to answer to. A language game can be coherent and still mistaken, sincere and still unjustified, useful for expression and still not truth aimed, or even manipulative. So “it’s a language game” is a classification, not a stamp of truth.
I’m not appealing to hidden semantic rules or trying to “police” words by fiat. I’m pointing to a plain grammatical fact, viz., if a claim is insulated from challenge, correction, and evidential pressure, then it’s not functioning as a truth claim. Call it experience, perspective, commitment, trauma narrative, moral stance, whatever, those can be legitimate. But if you insist on calling it “truth” while refusing the conditions that make truth claims accountable, you’re not clarifying, you’re trading on ambiguity.
So yes, the danger isn’t that “truth has an essence.” The danger is that “my truth” is often used to blur claim types on purpose (or as a result of ignorance), it smuggles an avowal or a demand for recognition into the logical space of inquiry. And once that blur becomes standard, investigation and debate don’t just get harder, they get undermined, because the ordinary meanings of true, evidence, and mistake stop doing any work.
Yep, we can believe “anything goes” until Nature or another human resist.
It seems wrong to use 'truth' for what has been outlined there. "my opinion" did just fine prior to 2016. It is misleading to usurp the word 'truth' into that complex.
Taking my truth to mean 'in my experience' totally demystifies usage if it is taken as a common phrase rather than one issuing from a philosopher. Personal experience is a much stronger and more convincing basis for whatever statement follows than my perspective or my opinion.
None of the above implies anything whatsoever about philosophical truth or 'absolute' truth, where truth is presumed to be obviously self-evidently true.
I think variations of this have been circulating for many years. I can recall it from decades ago. It probably originated in psychology and self-help movements, and was later taken up in identity politics.
What I have observed is that those who object to anyone living by their own truth do so because they want those people to live by the objector’s own subjective truth, which they conveniently claim to be objective truth.
This is clear with the transgender issue.
Can someone be mistaken in your view? Even wrong?
Subjective truth can for sure be wrong. Just look at racists. That they are superior is whole-heartedly true to them, but would be false to me. But it makes their subjective truth no less true to them.
But being racist is applying what you wrongly believe about others into your world-view. Such is not the case with transgender persons. Their subjective truth is only about themselves. They are not judging others. it is the others who are judging them.
Then, with all due respect, why does anyone else have to care, acknowledge or acquiesce to it? I suggest it is because
Quoting Questioner
is what's going on - this is simply a vicious cycle.
The objectors just want to stop the cycle and appeal to something other than your subjective claims about yourself and reality to get on with interpersonal issues. You can ignore hte trans issue and apply to anything.
If "my truth" is that I have 20/20 vision, then that is a truth for me and me alone. You do not get to tell me I am wrong.
But I am wrong. Because there is no such thing as "my truth". There are your opinions and feelings.
"My truth" is usually an expression of the speaker's self-regard when making a statement of little importance.
Uh no, just let them live, or just ignore them.
Certainly do not make arbitrary rules that they are no longer allowed to serve in the US military.
Quoting AmadeusD
I have my subjective truths. Here are a few of them. I have no hesitancy in saying they are truths.
I am a cisgender female. My mother loves me. My sisters will never abandon me. Being caregiver to my disabled husband was the most important thing I have ever done. Everyone is doing the very best they can. Honesty produces better outcomes than falsehood. Givers are happier than takers. Newborn infants are perfect...
These are a few of my truths. I've got overwhelming evidence - 60+ years of observation and analysis to support my truths.
And if someone begins their litany by saying "I am a transgender..."
That is their truth. And it has absolutely nothing to do with you.
Maybe i am speaking as a writer. i write stories. And the only good stories are the ones that captures some of the writer's truth.
Definitely, for some people, this is what they need to be told (although, we obviously don't see hte issue hte same way generally - so, I'll give a response below with this carved off)
Well, that would be fine if there weren't numerous situations we are asked to participate in "their truth" to the point of laws changing to accommodate it, in a way which is dishonest along any axis you care to take (in NZ, for instance, your sex changes on your birth certificate once through the court process).
Quoting Questioner
It's not arbitrary by any stretch. But I too wouldn't have done that. I did say you could ignore the trans issue - clearly not one we're getting clarity within.
Quoting Questioner
Clearly. But they are not. They are things you think. Probably, wishfully. And that's fine. But they're simply not truths of any kind, other than it's true you think those things. If it turns out your mother hates you, what are you doing to do? Be wrong?
I suggest as soon as you come up against an objection you move back into "well, so what.. I believe what I believe". And that's fine, but it has absolutely nothing to do with truth.
Quoting Questioner
Then why did they tell me.... This is incoherent. Like the concept of "my truth".
He answered with his truth.
He said it feels complicated. He said it feels a little hard. He said he’s proud of his family and his friends and the people who raised him, but he cannot pretend he’s proud of everything happening back home. He said what any emotionally intact adult would say if they were asked to hold the flag in one hand and the headlines in the other.
Trump stepped in and called him a loser. A Tennessee Rep told him to shut up and go play in the snow. Strangers filled online comments sections with venom. Truth was not expected, or wanted, from him. All that was expected of him was to pretend and perform.
Does waving an American flag now mean surrendering your humanity?
Quoting Questioner
Quoting AmadeusD
That is how he feels. There is no reason whatsoever to start calling people's feelings truth. If my feelings contradict yours, we cannot have two truths. It is incoherent.
Our shared reality isnt going to help you figure out why your perspective doesnt jibe precisely with those whose reality you share. Group consensus can take us a long way, but on some things what is a mistake and what is fitting we have to figure out on our own terms.
How far?
Trying to repurpose words for one's own benefit is a pretty common tactic among the manipulative. Its when a person takes the emotional and cultural connotation of the word, then repurposes it for their own advantage. "Truth" has the feeling of "Certainty that cannot be wrong." "My opinion" or "My viewpoint" has the connotation "I could be wrong." My truth implies "I hold a truth that is beyond your criticism or the possibility of being wrong."
Its powerful because the person can twist the meaning to their advantage. "No, I don't think your view point is valid," But its "My truth". You can't question the truth. Its mine, only I know it, you can't.
The repurposing of language is used as a sneaky way of getting what you want when you know if you use accurate language, that you won't. It also undermines the notion of the original word too. "No, you can't repurpose truth, that's not what it means." That's YOUR truth, my truth can be whatever I want and you can't say anything about it.
Part of the reason why this is effective is that many times emotions guide people's thoughts, not rational thinking. Using something blatantly irrational often does not give a person an emotional feeling of being right. But if you can repurpose a word and get the emotional feeling of, "I'm right" while simply saying it, it emboldens the individual to keep using it and attack those who question it. It might be irrational, but if you personally don't feel it is, you'll sit there with dead eyes defending it.
I once has a poster on here try to twist the meaning of subjective to mean 'objective', because they wanted all the benefits of subjectivity and the cultural 'feeling' that the normal term objective gave. Basically they wanted something, reality wouldn't let them have it, so they tried to repurpose the word as if it would give them the reality they wanted. As a tactic it can work for some time. The problem always is that the concepts underlying the original word's meaning do not go away. People still usually need them, so they invent new words that convey those concepts and ruin the original's attempt at thinking that language can change reality.
A modern day example is the famous, "Trans women are women". Certain individuals want to be seen as females, can't logically argue that its the case, so repurpose the words to get the meaning of what they want. I bring it up because its also an example of something that can only work for so long as its slowly fading away now. When it leaves the emotional realm and has to be considered in something rational like the law, the concept is more important than the feeling of the phrase. That's why there's a major push back to keep the concept of sex separation, despite the use of 'woman' for males who transition.
So always keep an eye out for it. People will always try to emotionally pressure you into believing something they want and you have to be savvy enough to not fall for it.
I agree that it implies the opposite of the OP's interpretation. In fact while it happens to use the label "truth", it really means "my interpretation", since it's not describing objective facts, rather how objective facts appear to them subjectively, given their personal experiences. And we're all allowed to have our subjective interpretation/opinion.
You go tell that to your boss. Or your arresting officer. Or any such person who is in any way relevant at any point in your life.
Quoting Questioner
When did it not?
For some people (many, probably), the concept of "interpretation" is unintelligible, unacceptable, a sign of inferiority, or a sign of evil intent.
As a religious/spiritual person told me, "I do not interpret, I tell it like it is, I speak the truth." I've known many such people. What you just said above is unintelligible to them, or dismissed as "sophistry".
Then how about "figuring out on your own terms" what is a mistake and what is fitting in regard to being gay, for example?
Anyway, some believe that subjective truth doesn’t exist. They are reluctant to apply the word “truth” to human thought. (It’s almost like I sense a fear of any who have a different truth from them.) They dismiss the idea that a human mind can have a relationship with truth, a relationship which involves a bigger commitment (and often a passion) to one’s position – "going all in."
For example, we may speak of activists “living their truths” and thus forwarding progress in society.
But of course, sometimes there are questions about the value or rightness of one person’s subjective truth. However, that does not change the fact that the truth is true to the subject. If it fits that definition, it is truth.
The only criterion required to call a human position a subjective truth is that it be true to the subject.
I learned a new word this week - shraddha – a term derived from two Sanskrit roots: shrat meaning "truth," "heart" or "faithfulness," and dha, meaning "to direct one’s mind toward."
https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5360/shraddha
Shradda -
"is literally 'that which is placed in the heart,' : all the beliefs we hold so deeply that we do not think to question them. It is the set of values, axioms, prejudices, and prepossessions that colors our perceptions, governs our thinking, dictates our responses, and shapes our lives, generally without our even being aware of its presence and power. This may sound philosophical, but shradda is not an intellectual abstraction. It is our very substance."
Ecknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita, Introduction, p. 63 (Nilgiri Press 2007)
There’s not really an equivalent English word. In the Western tradition, the best we can do in a similar vein is refer to our subjective truths. We all have our subjective truths.
If I determine that something is true to me, I’m not sure how anyone else can effectively contradict that (in any case, it would require they call on their own subjective truth).
On that note, watching Bad Bunny’s Superbowl halftime show (the most watched halftime show in its history) – it came to me – the show was an expression of the performers’ truth – and also another truth became apparent – that love and joy can be political acts.
If you missed the show, you can watch it on YouTube -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6FuWd4wNd8&list=RDG6FuWd4wNd8&start_radio=1
Yep.
Given that I have family, a boss (two actually) and employees under me - give me a thought experiment? I can't see where you want this to go. I work in law. We do not have "our truths".
Oh, sure. The Moon is cheese in my mind.
Of course not. You have might makes right.
We definitely don’t have “our truths” in law, since its grounding basis assumes strict normative precedent. But we do in our personal relationships. These differences in personal truth, or I should say personal vantage on truth, come out every day in our emotional conflicts with friends, family, work colleagues and strangers. This is not to say that our personal vantage on truth is wildly different from our peers. If this were the case we could never reach consensus in law, science or publicly accepted norms. It’s just that those norms aren’t enough make sense of the more nuanced aspects of personal relations which lead to personal estrangement and political
polarization.
No, not "might makes right." Just the law. But as Gaius Petronius Arbiter said, "What power has law where only money rules?"
Quoting baker
I’ve never met two gay people who construe what it means to be gay , or what it means to be mistaken about gayness, in exactly the same way.
BTW, you are correct about "my truth" becoming more common -- in print, anyway. Google Ngram uses the vast corpus of scanned texts to measure word frequencies over the last 400 years. Peak "my truth" was in the 1800s. Then it subsided down to a minimum level. Around 2000 it picked up again -- not to early 1800 levels, but still more than in 1980, say.
This seems too harsh though because there are instances where you might say "my truth" to acknowledge the comment is less than universal truth and something you accept based upon personal experience. As in, "my truth is that dogs are vicious" which arises from having been bitten by dogs on prior occassions. That is a qualified statement that doesn't eradicate universal truth, but it concedes it is based upon personal experience maybe not shared by all, but it lets people know why the bias against dogs.
This just makes the point of contextualism, where given proper context words can have differing meanings.
Something along Moore's paradox would be more troubling, like "My truth is that it is raining, but it is not" (or "I believe it is raining, but it is not"). I think Witt considers such statements as contradictions, which might be what you were in a round about way getting at with the misuse of "my truth." "My" implicates a personal belief and "truth" references a belief founded upon agreed upon epistimilogical grounds, which means that "my" "truth" is actually a contradiction because it can't just be "mine" and therefore be a "truth" without something else making it true.
That is, it's not just offensive to suggest there is a "my truth," but it so abuses the term truth that it makes it meaningless because the statement properly understood is per se contradictory.
Exactly this. Its a person using language to manipulate an outcome that they personally want vs using language to clearly communicate accuracy and clarity. The only way to defeat accuracy and clarity, is to attack the words themselves and diminish anyone who would dare use them in that way. Hate, unwarranted moral justification, and self-righteousness of cause are all tools to attack the one who wishes to be clear, rational, and assess the claim honestly.
Sure, and that's not in argument I don't think. But attaching hte word 'truth' to it unjustifiably semantically rarefies the concept beyond "my feelings" or "my opinion" which is what we're talking about, and those terms are completely adequate. Entering "truth" into these phrases is dumb, ambiguous and unhelpful. As a couple of responses here show clearly.
Except that I would argue that the kind of truth you would
claim to be beyond mere feelings or opinions is an abstraction derived from those feelings and opinions which never actually transcends them toward some reality independent of the subjective stances which they are based on. Empirical , objective truth creates the factual object by flattening and smoothing over the multitude of opinions which participate in its construction. This isnt a problem when we are working within legal theory or scientific endeavor, since for those purposes we can ignore the variations from one person to the next in the interpretation of the meaning of facts and laws. But it becomes a hinderance when we need to clearly recognize perspectival differences between. persons.
I’m sure when you get home from your job interpreting the law and you deal with your wife and children, you don’t judge their behavior on the basis of strict laws, bit instead try to see things from their perspective. Their ‘truth’ is more than mere opinion, since each of us has to validate our expectations and predictions of how events will unfold against what actually happens. We can make any kind of wild predictions, but some pan out better than others. When our expectations are validated by the actual course of events, we have achieved a provisional truth. But is the mesh between your predictions and the way events unfold in relation to them identical to the relation between my anticipations and how events unfold for me? There will certain be a lot of similarities, but they will diverge enough that I will need to construe how you construe the same events as me.
I think it's related to the rise of "I feel like ..." as an alternative to "I think ..." or even "I believe ..." In 21st America, your feelings are not open to critique. They just are what they are. Your opinions, your thoughts, your beliefs (but not your faith)—these are all open to critique and by saying "I think we should do this," you're practically inviting others to give their opinions or to critique yours. Not the case when you're expressing your feelings.
I very often hear "my truth" among the young folks where I work when they're expressing what is clearly a taste or a preference. ("My truth is that I like Oreo Thins better." They never stop talking about food, I don't know why.) And of course taste is also not supposed to be open to critique.
I think it's all about inoculating yourself against criticism. If what you're about to say is just your feeling, or your taste, or your preference, or your truth, then that's that. People you're talking to are expected to hear what you say and accept that it's just part of who you are. They do seem to enjoy endorsement, though. It's nice when someone shares your taste. But those are the only options.
I won't bother connecting it to the shocking levels of narcissism among young people. Most of their parents seem awfully narcissistic too.
It's all pretty horrifying. I worry about the future my children are stuck with.
The ancient phrase "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" refers to a subjective truth. So it's not a new trend.
There are plenty of American phrases which make no logical sense at all.
One primary example being: "I could care less" which of course is just a contraction of "I couldn't care less". I have heard other variants of this like "I give a shit" which I have deduced in the context is that they don't give a shit.
Those are just variations of the older double negative of "I didn't do nothing" aren't they? As in it isn't about the content but the sentiment and the way it is said rather than the logical consistency of the words.
I am not sure how "my truth" came about but it seems to be on the back of the #metoo movement and wokeism and the idea that one must not discredit a statement and it is true for them so must be respected. I guess in the same vein that anyone's gender must be respected? Seems to come from the same camp. If someone is none binary or trans or whatefer that is 'their truth' that one must not do the violence of not acknowledging.
I don't think they don't know, it is just that they don't care in the context of informal communication. I am sure they would be able to tell you the difference if pressed on the matter.
It is about saying something to fit in to the group. Being logical doesn't usually factor into that unless you are in some hard science circle or whatnot. It is like slang language, I don't think people who use colloquialisms are policing each other for the rational substance of what they are saying to one another.
The broader ideal being promoted is that of tolerance of diversity as this phrase is born out of the Leftist soup so to say it is 'your truth' it is (virtue) signalling your support for diversity. Whether it is 'true' or not is not relevant, but rather that you show you are the type of person who promotes tolerance and diversity.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Have you asked anyone whether their feelings about an issue have changed and what made them change? What if they respond that their feelings express their personal assessment of the meaning of something, and they can reassess the basis of that assessment such as to change the resultant feelings? Would you respond that their personal assessment must be open to critique from the vantage of third personal criteria of objective empirical truth in order to be valid?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
To label a generation as narcissistic is to stop construing their ways of framing situations and start condemning. It replaces an inquiry into how people are organizing experience with a global judgment that forecloses reconstruction. Such labeling may itself be a defensive maneuver. It protects the speaker’s own construct system from challenge by treating unfamiliar forms of self-expression as moral failure rather than as alternative ways of making sense of social life. The rise of “my truth” may not simply be narcissism run amok, but evidence of people experimenting, sometimes clumsily, with ways of owning their constructions while navigating pluralism. The task, then, is not to shame those experiments, but to ask which ones expand the range of anticipation and which ones constrict it.
Quoting Joshs
It's interesting that you should mention estrangement. "My truth" seems to be particularly prevalent in that area, especially by adult children who have chosen to estrange, rather than the parents. See, for example, this video of one "life coach" interviewing another about family estrangement. I think the phrase "my truth" is used at least three times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwZ2jk_rkLY
You really need to shrug off this sense of victimization.
I am sure when people speak their truth, they are not thinking about you.
You will hear no argument from me as to the laziness and stupidity of society at large. I just feel that that accusation would be misplaced in this particular instance.
It is not that they don't understand 'my truth' is logically wrong; it is that they don't feel it is relevant but more that the sentiment is what is relevant.
"My truth" is more about some narcissistic thing of saying what I say is important and you must hear it and believe it. I think that is what it is about, the 'me me me' mentality. If someone says "I am speaking the truth" then it does not give them an ego boost like 'my'.
Incidentally I had a discussion about this exact same thing a couple of years ago with someone. He was saying how "that's your truth" used to be used pejoratively to basically say "you're full of shit" but it now has the opposite meaning of "hear me and take me seriously".
Quoting unimportant
Would you agree that none of us will ever experience truth with a capital ‘T’, that naive metaphysical sort of truth that was so popular a century or two ago? And what we have instead are theoretical constructs like the sort that our sciences generate, constructions which can only be falsified by not exhaustively proven? And that what we call scientific facts or truths are beholden to theoretical frameworks which are likely to be falsified at some point? If so, then each generation has its own set of scientific theories, and can in a certain sense be described as embracing its own truths in comparison to other eras.
Furthermore, I as a lone scientist might come up with a novel theory that only I have subjected to test. Do I say that the facts organized by my theory are my own truth, a truth derived from my novel framework of interpretation, or do I wait to declare them true until they have been replicated by many other scientists? It would seem to be the latter, but when a consensus is reached among a majority of scientists concerning the truths generated by a theory, do all those scientists interpret the meaning of the theory in exactly the same way, or does each adherent to those truths retain a slightly different perspective? In other words, does each scientist retain their own variant of the truth?
Isnt this even more the case with political, spiritual , ethical, psycho-sexual and gender attitudes? Do any two people interpret the meaning of these domains in exactly the same way. And what are the implications of this for navigating the day to day conflicts among family, friends and strangers? Should we scoff at the idea that the source of interpersonal conflicts and disagreements is often the result of different perspectives on the truth of situations? Do we then look to find the one objectively correct interpretation that must apply to everyone? Or do we recognize that each individual perspective is a valid datum that must not be discarded when trying to reach between-person understanding?
Well it seems you are implying science is 'useless' because it can't find truth 100% capital T.
I don't think science claims 100% certainty but it is very useful as the best guess. It has provided lots of things, like the machine you are typing with now, so it isn't all a case of total relativism, where "I am a little teapot short and stout" has as much truth value as Newtons laws of gravity, like you are implying.
I am not interested if it tells the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, if it allows us to manipulate the world to our own ends better then it serves its purpose.
You, on the other hand, seem to be making the 'all or nothing' argument.
You are talking, in this entire post, about feelings and opinions. I have addressed that explicitly and carved it off from what we're talking about. THose are simply not truths. They are feelings and opinions. It is true that the person thinks/feels/believes what they do - and there's no issue there, as I said. Its calling it "truth" that's a problem. It rarefies those feelings into something we are not able to argue against, despite empirical evidence to the opposite in many cases. Even within law a subjective impression needs to be reasonable. So even in a system which leaves space for this particular type of disagreement, it requires a certain benchmark to be "valid". And I think that is correct, to avoid people making claims against reality and saying its "their truth". I hope that is now clear that I'm not arguing what you are saying in this reply.
Quoting Joshs
I can't quite make sense of this, I don't think. Either their expectations meet reality, or they do not. They have opinions which they can put forward, and I can do what I do with those - or they can, as is almost always hte case, submit to an investigation whereby between us, we understand the facts of hte matter as against our perspectives. Our perspectives are what is being adjudicated against reality. I would appreciate if you could elaborate in terms that congrue with what's being put forward here - namely, that your description is precisely hte one I am trying to avoid using for the reasons I've put forward.
I am in complete agreement, and that was the point I was making. Science works, not because it is truth with a capital T, but because it allows us to predict events in a useful way in spite of the fact that each participant in the enterprise of science contributes their own perspective on the meaning of what is called true. But if we ignore these variations in perspective by attacking the validity of one’s ’own truth’ , we degrade our ability to manipulate the human world to our own ends.
Let me quote Thomas Kuhn:
I don't think so. You have quite sneakily appropriated what I wrote to be that science is its own relativism just like 'my truth' so they are 'equal'.
Just because it is not 100% truth that doesn't make it the same as someone saying their own opinion, as the good sir @AmadeusD is patiently explaining to you.
If I say my truth about my own gender is unique to me, is that an opinion or true?
This is only half the case. THe first half seems to be true - but that's because we aren't God, not because we cannot adjudicate what the case is. This is why the second is false - science does not proceed on mere consensus. Kuhn is well aware of this and makes much of it in "The Structure..". I'll respond with a couple more from him:
"Nature cannot be forced into an arbitrary set of conceptual boxes"
"Though the world does not change with a change of paradigm, the scientist afterward works in a different world."
"I am not suggesting that there is no reality or that science does not deal with it."
"Scientific development must be seen as a process of evolution from primitive beginnings—a process whose successive stages are characterized by an increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature."
A very key one, which I think illustrates that while Kuhn does reject T truth (as many do - or at least, access to it), he explicitly rejects subjective notions of it, too:
"Later scientific theories are better than earlier ones for solving puzzles in the often quite different environments to which they are applied."
His Revolution is in structural applications of scientific apparati. It's not about whether or not true things can be known and adjudicated, from what I can tell. The position is more than science, as a practice, is not concerned with trivial things and so the paradigms relating to which questions to ask are unstable and go through these cycles. I don't think there's much to suggest he thinks "my truth" could be a reasonable phrase.
What I understand to be a common critique of Kuhn is encapsulated here well - The first half of this suggests we cannot improve, because conclusiory notions are incoherent in some way ("illusive"). But goes on to say does not doubt hte results of that very activity occurring. It was certainly the most obvious tension I picked up in the book.
While I agree, there's no need to slide down into suggestions of motivation. Joshs is a well-spoken and respectful poster. I doubt anything is "sneakily" being done here.
Quoting AmadeusD
Kuhn’s skepticism about capital-T Truth is not grounded simply in human finitude, as if better epistemic access would solve the problem. It is grounded in the historical and conceptual fact that different paradigms carve the world differently. When Kuhn says that after a paradigm shift the scientist “works in a different world,” he is not making a merely psychological or perspectival claim. He is saying that standards of relevance, similarity, explanation, and success have shifted. Your response treats this as compatible with a stable notion of adjudication, just better tools applied to the same underlying court of appeal. Kuhn’s insistence on incommensurability questions that reading Paradigms are not just rival hypotheses evaluated by neutral criteria; they partially determine the criteria themselves.
When Kuhn says “later theories are better puzzle-solvers” he introduces that formulation precisely to avoid saying that later theories are “truer” in a correspondence sense. “Better” is indexed to puzzle-solving within a tradition, not to convergence on an ahistorical truth. You seem to read this as a reassurance that objectivity is intact and that subjective variants of truth are excluded. But Kuhn’s own formulation blocks naive relativism, but it also blocks the idea that we can cleanly separate epistemic success from the historically situated standards that define what success is.
Kuhn would reject “my truth” if it meant idiosyncratic, private belief unconstrained by communal practice. A lone scientist does not get to baptize a new paradigm by fiat. But But I’m questioning whether, even within a shared paradigm, individual scientists inhabit it identically, interpret its results in precisely the same way, or attach the same meanings to its key terms. I think Kuhn’s answer is clearly no. Paradigms are learned through exemplars, not through explicit rules, and that learning always involves a degree of tacit judgment and variation. Scientists agree enough to work productively, but not so much that their perspectives collapse into a single cognitive point.
Kuhn doesn’t license “my truth” as an all-purpose slogan, but he does show how truth-claims are always embedded in practices, traditions, and shared forms of life. Outside highly regimented domains like mature sciences, where paradigms are relatively stable and consensus is enforceable, the room for divergence in interpretation is much wider.
That's fair enough. But I think that there is a little more to be said. Kuhn is not wrong to emphasize paradigm shift and incommensurability in an argument to establish the importance of those concepts. But I think there is an implicit continuity in what he describes.
He identifies anomalies as the prime movers in the shift of paradigms. These are, inevitably, to be described in the "old" context. The point is that, in that context they appear insoluble but that they are perfectly soluble in the new context. So it is critical that the same anomalous phenomena can be recognized across paradigms, in spite of any incommensurability.
Further, it is not sufficient that the anomalies are resolved in the new paradigm. In addition, the new paradigm has to solve (explain) all the phenomena that were solved or explained in the old.
I'm not certain how much Wittgenstein talks about change and development in practices and ways of life. I have the impression that what impressed him most about them was their stability. In making this comment about Kuhn, I'm trying to reconcile the two without overthrowing either.
We need more conviction, not less.
I think this is more to do with avoiding using "true" at all, because a theory isn't a truth. Its a "best possibility", and the scientific method essentially gives us license to take it as "true". But hte scientific method is not private, or even caught in labs. The layperson can carry out a scientific investigation, and so truth can be shared. But what is not possible is for some scientific method to come to a conclusion across multiple individuals/labs/whatever and another to come to another conclusion (other than interpretation - that doesn't seem apt for the true/not true distinction but I admit this is hard to tease apart) and for both to be the case. There is only one "the case" about the vast majority of questions science can answer. I think we would be doing a disservice to the world and ourselves by suggesting that our access to those "is the case" statements is mediated by context. It is the questions being asked that are mediated by context, and I think this is specifically what Kuhn is talking about.
The success of the method, in answering those questions, doesn't appear to be his target basically.
Quoting Joshs
Hmm. Not quite. But rather that facts are intact, and we should be striving for them. We often obtain them. But "practice" is not stable or sound in this regard. It may be accidental that a particular paradigm was able to answer questions C, F and J while we must await another to also answer G, Q and V. I don't think Kuhn is, anywhere, suggesting that we understand truth as anything other than a 1:1 match between the world and ourselves, but that we can't actually achieve that so let's take a step down and approach what we can approach - which is understanding paradigms and contexts as motivators for what science investigates.
Quoting Joshs
I agree, but I guess I wouldn't (and take it Kuhn wouldn't, even before having these thoughts that lead to Structure...) call that truth in any epistemic sense. Those interpretations are the raw materials that must be adjudicated between, with reference to the "is the case" of the questions at hand. Maybe this is not achievable. I think that's ok, though.
Why do you care? What non-logical mindset requires others to publicly declare any and everything they happen to believe to complete strangers, possibly those incapable of even understanding? Particularly in situations of little relevance. We live in a society of the perpetually afraid accusing others of being "afraid" when they don't do things the afraid person wants that the other person simply has no desire or reason to do. Afraid people are the most violent and accusatory. They know they're controlled by their fears and find fleeting, short-lived, and shallow alleviation from such by instilling or attempting to instill the same in others.
"You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you."
Truer words have seldom ever been spoken. Avoiding something you would avoid because you are (or would be) afraid, is hardly a matter of emotion but is instead one of pure, calculated logic. We assume we know all there is to know about ourselves, and thus human nature in general. It's this fallacy that assumes no other person performing a given action does so for reasons that can't be comprehended by (or worse, magically and perfectly aligned with) our current mindset.
We fear what we don't understand. And so our mind takes the path of least resistance. "Oh, that guy doing something, well if that was me, Explanation XYZ is why I would be doing it, and I know all there is to know so obviously he's doing it for the same reason I would be doing it, if it were me in his shoes." This is basically how the unenlightened mind works. It doesn't mean the person is dumb. It's basic pattern recognition. Reliance on memory, experience, and what has seemed to work in the past. Keeps us alive. Until it doesn't.
I have fixed this for semantic consistency and logic.
Quoting Ludwig V
From a Kuhnian vantage, the continuity you emphasize can’t be understood as neutral continuity. You say anomalies are “inevitably described in the old context” and recognized as the same phenomena across paradigms. But for Kuhn, what counts as “the same phenomenon” is not theory-neutral. Observation is theory-laden. Scientists working in different paradigms may literally see different things when looking at the same instrument readings or experimental setups. The “same anomalous phenomena” are not bare data standing outside frameworks; they are structured by the paradigm that renders them anomalous in the first place. After a shift, what was once an anomaly may no longer even be described in the same conceptual terms.
Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis doesn’t deny all translatability, it denies perfect translation. The fact that scientists can argue across paradigms doesn’t mean they share a fixed observational language that adjudicates the dispute from nowhere. A new paradigm preserves much of the old paradigm’s puzzle-solving ability, but it may reclassify what counts as a legitimate puzzle. Certain old problems may be dismissed as ill-posed, meaningless, or peripheral.
Wittgenstein would likely go even further by questioning the Kuhnian picture of anomalies driving development as though reality were pressing back against theory in a structured way. For him, what counts as a failure, an anomaly, or a contradiction depends on rules internal to the practice. When those rules shift, the “problem” may dissolve rather than be solved. That is not puzzle-solving in Kuhn’s sense; it is conceptual reorientation
Quoting AmadeusD
You claim that Kuhn avoids “true” simply because a theory is not a truth but a “best possibility,” and that the scientific method licenses us to treat it as true. This reframes Kuhn as offering epistemic humility about access, not a structural account of scientific change. But Kuhn’s avoidance of “truth” language is not merely caution about overstatement. It reflects his deeper claim that standards of theory appraisal, what counts as explanation, simplicity, accuracy, even what counts as a problem, are internal to paradigms.
Quoting AmadeusD
The issue isn’t just that we fall short of a 1:1 correspondence with reality. The issue is that what counts as matching reality is itself partly paradigm-structured.You say “There is only one ‘the case’ about the vast majority of questions science can answer.” But for Kuhn, the Newtonian question “What is the absolute motion of this body?” and the Einsteinian framework that denies absolute space are not simply two answers to the same neutral question. The very structure of the question changes. So to say “only one is the case” presupposes a shared conceptual framework in which the case is described.
Paradigms don’t just select topics, they shape what counts as a legitimate solution and even what counts as evidence. Observation is theory-laden. Puzzle-solutions are judged by paradigm-specific standards. That doesn’t mean reality is invented, but it does mean that “the case” is never accessed from nowhere. You read Kuhn as saying there is one truth, and we just approach it imperfectly and context shapes our interests.
Kuhn argues instead that there is one world, but what counts as a true account of it is inseparable from the historically evolving practices that define problems, evidence, and explanation. Kuhn’s point is not that the ideal stands but is out of reach. It is that scientific rationality does not require that ideal to function. Science progresses by increasing puzzle-solving capacity within shifting frameworks, not by demonstrably approaching a fixed description of “the case.”
I am genuinely sorry if I was insufficiently clear, but this is exactly what I have explained in my response. I'm really sorry if anything sounds short, but its probably going to be things I've either stated, or intimated.
Quoting Joshs
I do not read Kuhn this way. I read him as presenting an issue with falsifiability. If questions are asked within a paradigm, then the answers come within the paradigm and interpretation is an issue - but this does not mean we are not truly (pun intended) aiming at "the case". I realise this is a tricky concept, not because its clever, but because it took me a while to actually figure out in "The Structure..". I couldn't get my head around the claim you're making precisely, but when I shifted to noting his issue is with structural choices and not an epistemic issue per se everything fell into place.
If this isn't how you read him, that's all good. Quoting Joshs
This is hte issue, as I see it, in Kuhn. And I think what I've described accurately captures how he approaches it. If you don't, that's all good with me :) We are, after all ,interpreting from different paradigms.
But the kicker here is that asking Kuhn would give us a fixed "the case" if he were alive! Heh.
How does this imply victimization? If a person is being manipulative with language it doesn't mean I personally am being manipulated.
Quoting Questioner
This is just ignoring the discussion and insisting on using manipulative language. When people are speaking on their subjective view point, of course they don't have to think about me. But if they're trying to speak a subjective viewpoint that twists language to their own ends, its being manipulative. I consider using manipulative language one of the few clear evils that people can do. And your response being completely unintelligent and lacking is one of the reasons why. You cannot be a manipulative person and be good. It infects your mind as a poison, twists your emotions into hate, and utterly ruins otherwise good people.
@AmadeusD now this is being sneaky. :) To say we are 'afraid' because we point out a logical fallacy.
I see the asking of the question was not in good faith and it is more of a propaganda effort to get us to buy into this way of thinking.
I’d be interested in your thoughts about what I posted earlier, re: the Eastern concept of shradda – a concept for which we don’t have an equivalent word in the English language. Here’s what I posted –
shraddha – a word derived from two Sanskrit roots: shrat meaning "truth," "heart" or "faithfulness," and dha, meaning "to direct one’s mind toward."
https://www.yogapedia.com/definition/5360/shraddha
Shradda -
"is literally 'that which is placed in the heart,' : all the beliefs we hold so deeply that we do not think to question them. It is the set of values, axioms, prejudices, and prepossessions that colors our perceptions, governs our thinking, dictates our responses, and shapes our lives, generally without our even being aware of its presence and power. This may sound philosophical, but shradda is not an intellectual abstraction. It is our very substance."
Ecknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita, Introduction, p. 63 (Nilgiri Press 2007)
Quoting Questioner
He is literally describing standard world-view, base-level belief. There is no reason to think this is special in terms of various concepts of deep belief. It's probably dangerous, having beliefs you wont question.
A little, yes, but I don't think it's on purpose. I trust Questioner is being fully earnest in these replies.
Quoting Philosophim
I do think this is occurring, though.
It can't be understood as the continuation of specific elements unchanged, if that's what you mean. I had in mind something more like an overlap, as between different languages or different perspectives (economic, geological, political, etc.) on the same events.
Quoting Joshs
I would not dream of denying that. However, some cases may be like the Copernican system. There, the data were common to both theories. It was the interpretation (and the physics) that changed. Again, even though the concepts were radically different, we can trace the concept of "heat" from alchemy to molecular theories. Perhaps, it comes down to the shared life and shared practices outside the theoretical perspective. Heat is welcome in the winter, but often unwelcome in the summer. Common humanity.
Quoting Joshs
Yes, of course. I found it difficult to describe all those possibilities without getting unduly wordy.
Quoting Joshs
Certainly, Wittgenstein would insist, I think, that there could not be a definition of reality that was not part of a language game. But, perhaps, a language (game) is not quite the same thing as a theory.
There are different kinds of anomaly. The rejection of epicycles was not based on data that could not be reconciled, but on the awkwardness and complication of the application of the theory. The Brownian motion was different and did consist of data that could not be explained. But perhaps that was not a case of paradigm shift. After he wrote "paradigm" became over-used and diluted to. imo, a ridiculous extent.
However, I feel a bit awkward about this. One of my reasons for believing that idealism is false is precisely that the phenomena do not always conform to our theories. More generally, experimental methodology assumes that there is a theory independent reality that may or may not conform to our theories. So presumably, this possibility must be built in to any respectable theory - shades of Popper. That doesn't mean it must be built in to any language (game).
Use whatever words you want. Having a dear belief does not make it true. Nor does it excuse manipulating language to describe a situation. I may believe with all of my heart that something exists, that does not make it so. That is a child's viewpoint of the world.
If you are using language to imply that what is objectively not true, is true, you're using manipulative language. Humanity loves to rationalize and shape language to fit a belief system instead of using language as a clear and accurate representative of reality from which to rationally come to a correct conclusion. This is nothing new.
That is what philosophy is supposed to teach us. To separate our convictions and beliefs from rational thought. 2+2=4, and no amount of belief, want, desire, or anger will change that. It is not someone's 'truth' that 2+2=5. Manipulative language puts one above the idea that their belief can be wrong. If you cannot honestly say, "My belief could be wrong, I will fairly consider it," then like a child, you will lie, ignore anything which would counter that belief, and go to the manipulation of language to dodge accountability. It is irresponsible, childish, and makes the world a worse place.
All of that.
Especially when you don't like what they're saying.
So, you see, it's you imposing your subjective truth
You can't possibly think that's going to convince me or anything else of anything. The only one you're trying to convince is yourself.
You know, I was deep into Christianity growing up. I had all the answers. I shaped the language to get what I wanted. And I remember being angry at the people that denied God or my belief system. And I remember with shock one day that I, a supposedly good and rational Christian, had to really open myself up to the idea that I could be wrong.
I understand what its like to have a conviction in something that feels like its too precious to let go. I stopped, because I realized that if I was to be a good person, I had to be open to the fact that I didn't want to be tied to the wrong conviction. Defending an unworthy conviction isn't good, its destructive to yourself and others around you. I want you to think about your interactions with me in holding your conviction. Are you being the best person and conversationalist that you can be, or are you struggling with the emotional weight and purpose of something that might be wrong, and thus resorting to less than stellar behavior and arguments?
I say this because I think you're a good person. But anyone can get trapped in that. Not having the answer right now also doesn't mean you won't have it later. But please don't resort to conversation tactics like you just did. We cannot be thinking of only ourself when we converse, but the other person's points and arguments as well.
Quoting Philosophim
let's cut the b*llshit. We both know I was alluding to your insistence that transgender persons are "sexist" because they choose to live in the gender that their brains tell them they are. Nothing, not all the scientific evidence to the contrary, could shake you from that position. You held it as a sacred truth. So don't you start lecturing me. My point is that if a truth is true to the subject, it is indeed a subjective truth. And you have in fact corroborated my position without even realizing it.
I wasn't thinking that at all. I'm talking about this conversation here.
Quoting Questioner
Incorrect. If the science demonstrates a new position, I go with that. You're getting wildly off topic here.
Quoting Questioner
Present clear arguments on point with the current thread you're in, and I won't.
Quoting Questioner
If a subjective point is true, then it is the truth. Truth it what simply is, despite what we may think it is. Truth is not 'mine' or 'yours'. Truth it what is, and it isn't owned by anyone. There is no "My truth". I've already mentioned a few posts up why its disingenuous and harmful language. Feel free to address the points I've already made.
i disagree.
In your rush to push forward that only the objective matters, you forget the person.
I do not forget the person.
Can two competing beliefs both be right? Is demanding a one-size-fits-all truth the sign of maturity or a kind of childish tantrum in the face of perspectives that don’t fit neatly into the established norms?
From Wittgenstein’s On Certainty 612
And
“Wherever I found a living thing, there found I will to power; and even in the will of the servant found I the yearning to be master. That the weaker should serve the stronger, thereto it is persuaded by its own will, which would fain be master over what is weaker still: this delight alone it is unwilling to forego.”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
If they are competing? No. Competing beliefs mean that they are at odds. Meaning if one is correct, the other is incorrect.
Quoting Joshs
I fail to see how this has anything to do with the topic or my point on manipulative language.
You are free to disagree. Disagreement alone does not mean you are correct or have captured the truth adequately. That's my point. A strong emotional belief or insistence about something doesn't make it so. What is, is, whether we like it, believe in it, or not.
Quoting Questioner
Where did I say only 'the objective' mattered? Where have I forgotten the person when my point about manipulative language was all about a person?
Quoting Questioner
You seem to have ignored a lot of what I stated, put things in my mouth I did not say, and have not provided much but personal emotional disagreement. I think you're only thinking about your own ideas in this conversation and have forgotten about me. :)
Why should emotion be dismissed? I prefer a person who passionately holds their views to one who pretends they are above it all.
The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But one can be absent, obviously, either in the past or in the future. This adequately circumscribes the entire territory of the unhappy consciousness.
Ecknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita, Introduction, p. 63 (Nilgiri Press 2007)
“It should not be a surprise if contemporary philosophy perceives the world as though it had no substance.”
~ Viktor Frankl
The former, as far as I'm concerned, without question. It is the child who refuses to accept their position is wrong because they want to hold on to it. It is the religious impulse in the species that grasps onto empirically false beliefs. It is immature historically and individually. The idea that Questioner is putting forward is one which requires stay in intellectually infancy for life, and encouraging others to do the same, never transcending one's emotional reaction to the world around them. It is the stuff of nightmares.
I think here you've moved from the concept of 'truth' to 'norms'. They are not the same, and even if you think they are, we are not discussing this topic in that light. So the above is both slightly disingenuous (as in does not accurate represent what's been said, not suggesting it contradicts what is "true"), and probably so easily answerable its hard to grasp the point of asking, other than to rationalize behaving that way. I really enjoy how most of your replies to anything are open-ended and don't quite land on claims as such. It's cool. But in this case, it comes across as prevarication.
Quoting Questioner
This doesn't mean anything to anyone but you. So be it. That is exactly what we're discussing, and you've given ample example of exactly why the concept of "my truth" is incoherent, unhelpful and causes people to be worse interlocutors.
it has caused you to be unable to stay on a topic, answer a question directly or do much but post other people's ambiguous, and usually unrelated thoughts in service of belittling those who disagree with you. Its childish, anti-intellectual and likely a result of an emotional defiance to other people's views. Ironic.
Quoting Richard B
I suggest this is probably a sure sign you're in the wrong lane. But that is literally an opinion, I'm not making an argument of any kind - just noting why this wouldn't move someone in my position.
Not adding anything to this debate, think of it as more of a reaction to the debate as it unfolds.
The concept of “my truth” has an ontological basis. “My truth” – as manifested in the concept of shradda, - refers to the “substance” of a person – is comprised of all that defines their world – and is an inherent part of their nature. It transcends the idea that truth is merely a property of language or knowledge. It is in fact an internalization of one’s reality.
To reject another’s concept of “my truth” based solely on a disagreement with whatever the other’s truth might be, is also intellectually dishonest. That position understands only at the level of language and knowledge, and does not address the concept.
A very common piece of advice to writers and poets is to, in their works, express their truth. The best poetry, the best writings, are those that creatively convey the artist’s truth.
As Rainer Rilke (Letter to a Young Poet) advised – “Go into yourself.”
And Emily Dickinson advised - “Tell all the truth but tell it slant —”
Walt Whitman collapses the distinction between poet and poem when in The Song of Myself, he writes -
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.”
Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray) – makes a similar distinction - the artist is his art -
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
And James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) spoke his truth when he wrote –
“To forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
"Truth" and "facts" are not synonyms. Facts are objective; truth involves an interpretation of facts and is inevitably subjective.
Quoting Philosophim
A teacher lecturing to manipulate his students into passing a test is "using manipulative language". A politician trying to persuade the electorate to vote for him is "using manipulative language". A scientist writing that experimental evidence supports his theory is "using manipulative language".
These are "clear evils"? Isn't your attempt to vilify "manipulative language" and example of manipulative language (or at least an attempt at manipulative language -- I doubt your attempts actually manipulate anyone).
Wasn’t rhetoric considered one of the highest arts by the Greeks?
Theoretically, not. Practically, it's everything.
Quoting Ciceronianus
How long can one idealistically maintain a sharp distinction between what law, theoretically, ideally is or should be, and how it is actually practiced?
“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.”
? Jonathan Swift
Do you mean whoever is the best lawyer wins, regardless of truth? Cause there's no "might" in the law at all until you get activist judiciaries.
You've been given several direct challenges that you've failed to rise to. You're free to see that however you want to. But you are lying about what's occurred and are projecting hte fact that you resile into ad hominems every single time a robust rebuttal is given to you. You then post someone else's irrelevant ideas as if that's somehow going to support the situation.
Once again, when all are giving you the same feedback, it's time to drop the ego and have a think.
Incorrect. A fact is something tested and understood within a language. "Pluto is a planet." Years later..."Pluto is no longer a planet". Both are facts.
Truth is "What is". Whether we classify Pluto as a rock, a planet, or dust ball, 'it' is still exists.
Quoting Ecurb
Give an example please so I know what you mean by 'manipulative'. I've given a clear example of manipulative language. How exactly is the teacher using manipulative language? Same with your other examples. They're so general nothing specific can be gleaned without further details from you.
Quoting Ecurb
Instead of asking me, demonstrate you understood what I meant in my example of manipulative language. Then if you think what I've stated by 'clear evil' is manipulative, demonstrate why.
Quoting Questioner
What do you think of the idea that truth evolves via transitions in cultural norms and knowledge. For instance, Hegel argues that truth develops through dialectical becoming. The art, music, science and philosophy of the classical period makes way for the renaissance, and from there to the Enlightenment, the Romantic and modern eras. My truth as an artist can then be understood as my truth as it expresses my participation within a given period of cultural becoming.
A Christian "friend" (who believed that vegetarianism was wrong or inferior) once told me that I was allowed to be a vegetarian, on the condition that I believe it is wrong or inferior to be vegetarian.
Seriously. I couldn't believe it when I heard it. But it wasn't the only instance of such reasoning on his part; after that I began to notice it in in some other people as well. A more common example is the way some religious people expect homosexual people to believe homosexuality is wrong.
There are people who do expect us to believe contradictions. This has to count for something.
Quoting Philosophim
Speaking of "honestly". In the recent years, this adverb has become something of a filler word, frequently used in contexts where it makes no other sense to use it than as a filler word; but it's also used in what seems like a deliberately offensive manner. "Truth" to be a similar type of word: sometimes just a filler word; other times, an invocation of an offense and hostility.
Again, my experience has been that this is not the case. Say that something is your opinion or your feeling or your experience, and sure enough others will shoot you down. Even when you are in fact talking about your opinions, feelings, and experiences. I find it is extremely rare to find people who take one's expression of one's feelings, opinions, and experiences as in fact one's expression of one's feelings, opinions, and experiences. Because most people tend to take them as criticism and judgment.
Which also explains why they are so eager to rebut them, and why "my truth" can emerge as a defense against that rebuttal.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Interestingly, where I come from, feelings would be among the first to be attacked, especially in religious/spiritual circles.
"I don't feel the presence of the Holy Spirit."
"Then you're wrong. Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it's not there."
Excellent question. I do admit that I have been coming from the viewpoint of personal truth, but cultural truths are worth consideration. I'm just not so sure they are universally accepted, if they conflict with personal truths. I would say that what is foremost in any one human heart is their personal truth.
Quoting Joshs
But at the same time, we have individuals writing within the same cultural context coming from entirely different angles, or positions. Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte were both writing in Victorian England. Active were William Gladstone and William Wilberforce, who held diametrically opposed views about slavery. So, personal truth trumps cultural truth.
At least for the courageous among us. :)
I'm not sure what you mean by "idealistically" here, but as long as I've been a lawyer I've always thought the law and morality are different things, and shouldn't be equated. The law may be good or bad, but is always the law. The practice of law consists of the application of the law and its interpretation in the best interests of the client. But one may choose one's client.
I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to how the practice of the law is in the service of power.
For example, how the traffic police doesn't hunt down and fine people in fancy cars, even when it's clear they've broken the law, but they hunt down people in middle-class cars and poor-people cars for minor transgressions.
Or how a high politician who was sentenced to a prison sentence can walk out of a prison -- physically wallk out of the building -- and no guard stops him. And this is in a first-world country.
Or when a judge asks you a question with a double negative and demands you to answer it with only a yes or no; and when you ask for a clarification or answer with a full sentence, he threatens to hold you in contempt of the law. (Real example.)
Hm. For example: I live in a jurisdiction where, after a routine traffic stop by the traffic police, the driver is offered to sign a document stating that the police officers have acted professionally and in accordance with the law. If you sign it, you can go. If you refuse to sign it, you're taken to the police station where trouble ensues, and you have to hire a lawyer and so on. (And forget about free legal representation. It's virtually impossible to qualify for that here.) We could discuss whether this is a use or an abuse of power. Case in point: The traffic police likes to wait for people on an overpass, with very poor visibility and little room. So after they're done with you and they let you go, you have to drive backwards onto the main road, on an overpass with poor visibility. As far as traffic laws go, this is illegal and punishable, yet the police are forcing you to break the law.
Quoting AmadeusD
Why not simply be assertive? Textbook assertiveness pretty much does away with the majority of the problems brought up in this thread.
Both Dickens and Brontë are considered Romantic writers. This is not just because they happened to be working in the same time period, but because their work shows the influences of the larger artistic and cultural trends that fall within the umbrella of Romanticism. Two Romantic artists can have diametrically opposing views on a given subject while both approach that subject in a way that is recognizably ‘Romantic’. Viewpoints can be variations on shared thematics.
Its hard to judge what is deliberately offensive. Regardless, offensive or not, if someone is being honest they are not using manipulative language. A person who was not being honest, but twisting the word 'honest' to imply they were, would be using manipulative language.
You'd also have to consider the themes of their work, though
Wrong. The subtle distinction is that "Pluto exists" is a fact; "Pluto is a planet" was a "truth", but no longer is. The description "planet" is an interpretation of the facts.
"Manipulate" means "handle or control (a tool, mechanism, information, etc.) in a skillful manner:": When the tool is language, there are some negative implications: To "manipulate" a person means to control or influence him cleverly (or unscrupulously) . Obviously, unscrupulous behavior is by definition.
wicked, but clever behavior is not.
How you are using the phrase "manipulative language" remains a mystery. But influencing and even controlling people through clever speech or writing seems the goal of a great deal of speech and writing. What's wrong with that? Aren't you trying (unsuccessfully) to influence people by posting here?
Sorry, what hasn't?
Quoting baker
This seems confused. Do you mean its rare to find people who hear other people's opinions and feelings, and read them as such?
Quoting baker
I cannot understand what you're driving at here, I am sorry. Assertive about what? Which party in the above tension? Being assertive against someone who claims 'my truth' either results in circular nonsense, as, fair enough, this thread became - or violence.
Quoting baker
What? Is this some weird like early 2000s caricature? Traffic police cannot "hunt down" anyone. They ticket cars which are parked illegally, or automatically ticket cars that run red lights, drive in bus lanes etc...
You can't get around those by having an expensive car my man. The issue is it is more likely for people in shitty cars to break traffic laws. Various reasons for that.
Quoting baker
What are you talking about? Not incredulousness, I just have no clue what you're talking about. I do not know of any prison anywhere who would let any inmate walk out in the way you describe.
Quoting baker
Are you able to provide it? I have never seen a judge do something similar, and not have their judgment recalled at a later date. It is not a contempt of court to not answer a question. You have every right (in a criminal case. If you're not talking Criminal many other considerations to consider).
Quoting baker
Where do you live? This seems to me a gross misunderstanding of any related practices i've ever come across. Would be interested to see what the policies are. Particularly given your description of a document for signing is Federally illegal in most states I'm aware of.
I hope i'm not coming across dismissive - I'd love to see these things!
All you did was reverse the definitions I gave you on the terms. Let me explain it another way. A fact deals with knowledge. What you know is not necessarily the truth. What is true exists whether you know it or not. A fact cannot exist if no one knows about it. Truth does.
Quoting Ecurb
You are manipulating this context right now. I said 'manipulative language'.
manipulative - especially : serving or intended to control or influence others in a deceptive and often unfair or selfish way
a clever and manipulative child
manipulative behavior
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manipulative
Quoting Ecurb
Only to someone who does not understand basic English or context.
Quoting Ecurb
You're blending two different concepts together into one question. Influencing is the act of trying to convince someone of an idea or action. You can influence someone in a positive or negative way. The term influence alone has no negative connotation. Being manipulative is an attempt to deceive someone into doing something they would not want to do if they saw through your deception.
Controlling is an act of asserting your will to do something another person would not want to do if free. To be controlling, you must have some type of threat that the other person would be more concerned about than their own freedom. This generally has a negative connotation among free and equal people, as it is a means of asserting a power dynamic that is not concerned with the other person's choice.
Quoting Ecurb
Yes, but the influence is not being done with manipulation or coerrssion. It is an appeal to rational thought. No one has to think rationally. You are free to get drunk and spout off that we're all controlled by little green men named Steve. You are free to use irrational arguments or even to initiate disrespectful language towards a person because you have insufficient experience in rational thinking yourself.
You make your own decisions about what I say. There is no knife, no clever twisting of language to trick you. Just me pointing at the moon and saying, "That's the moon". Maybe its not the moon. Maybe you think its something else. But whether you agree with me or not, I approach you as an equal and will speak with you like a person who can think and make good points until you prove to me that you cannot.
Well, we can define words however we want to, as long as we agree. I'd say that "a fact is a statement that can be proven or verified through evidence or data, while truth is a more abstract concept that is subjective and can vary depending on individual perspectives." Since this discussion is about "my truth", the standard distinction I've noted here is significant.
Using the words this way, all facts are truths, but not all truths are facts. In court, witnesses present the "facts of the case", but the jury must decide on the "truth" of the defendant's guilt or innocence.
Here's a link to a discussion about this usage:
https://thisvsthat.io/fact-vs-truth
Quoting Philosophim
You've chosen the most negative definition of "manipulative" -- which, in my previous post - I noted. Nonetheless, even using this definition, "manipulative speech" is not evil, as the following hypothetical examples will demonstrate:
Noble, kindly Ecurb (who is also brilliant and handsome) was being questioned by a jack-booted, ugly Gestapo who looked suspiciously like Philosophim. "Where are zee Jews hiding?" asked the Gestapo. "If you don't tell me now, you vill be tortured until you talk!"
Ecurb assessed the options. He could either tell the truth, refuse to talk (in which case he would be tortured and might spill the beans), or deceive the predatory gestapo and send him on a wild goose chase, which would give him a chance to move the Jews to a safer hiding place. "Last I saw, they were hiding in the basement of the church in the next village," Ecurb lied. He was using "deceptive speech to control or influence others". Was this evil?
Here's another example:
A masked man who looked suspiciously like Philosophim had seized a young child and was holding a knife to her throat. "I am kidnapping this child, and will molest and murder her," he crowed. Such would have been the eventuality, except that noble Ecurb happened to be nigh. Thinking quickly, Ecurb pulled his phone out of his pocket and pointed it at the villain. It was dark, and in the dim light, the phone could be mistaken for the barrel of a gun. "Release her, or I will shoot you," lied Ecurb, using manipulative language to deceive the predator. "I don't want to die," moaned the cowardly villain, who released the child due to Ecurb's manipulative speech.
-------------------
Now, it is not a 'fact" that Ecurb's use of manipulative language is justified, but perhaps you will agree that it is a "truth" (using my definitions).
Given these examples, it is clear that using "manipulative language" is not wicked ipso facto. Lying and deceiving are evil only if the intent or result is evil -- not in and of themselves. Telling young children that Santa Claus will bring them presents if they are good is controversial -- but not evil. It's fun. It adds to childhood joy and wonder (although it is also "manipulative").
If we are ignoring the context of the English language and doing whatever we want. And further, we don't agree.
Looking at your examples I feel like you're trolling at this point and not taking the conversation seriously. I'm getting ready to leave town, so this isn't really worth my time. I'll check the thread when I get back and see if anything is worth addressing then.
Quoting Philosophim
Examples of situations in which "manipulative language" is clearly the only morally correct choice prove that manipulative language is not evil ipso facto. You are taking the discussion too seriously. It's not worth it. A little humor can liven it up. Humor does not constitute "trolling" -- unless someone (you, for example) takes himself too seriously.
Did you really try to bully, then when you were called out on it say, "I was just joking bro?" The worst people are those who are convinced they can do no wrong. A little self-awareness is good if you don't want to be one of those people.
. "Bully"? This is nonsense. I was trying to write a mildly entertaining post that was also on point. You must be thin-skinned indeed to think it constituted "bullying".
Ecurb's objections have been entirely reasonable and polite. Please stop sabotaging the discussion with unjustified accusations and emotional reactions. NOTE: this is a warning, not the opening of a conversation.
Take it to the Feedback section if you want to respond or complain.
When you post here, keep to substantive philosophy. Anything else, take it to feedback. Do not reply to this, please.
Considering what goes on in politics nowadays, it's prudent to rethink this. That many people in positions of such great power cannot simply be written off as childish or throwing tantrums.
Quoting Joshs
Ha ha. That's exactly the situation I was in with a Christian "friend". We were talking about our relationship, and yet he expected me to prove, objectively, that my feelings on the matter mattered. !!!! He actually said he expected me to quote reputable sources. Seriously.
When a teenager pushes me away and cuts in front of me in the waiting line at the grocery store, what is this?
Should this behavior be applauded?
By their fruits ye shall know them.
I'm not entirely unsympathetic to your perspective here. But there is such a thing as too much empathy, having too much understanding for others. This is when that empathy starts to destroy you, put you in disadvantageous positions.
Quoting Joshs
You can say it is true, while there are esp. religious people who say it's merely your opinion.
So now what?
Quoting Joshs
Oddly enough, there is a mode of communication called "assertiveness" that is supposed to address and solve precisely this problem. It's not particularly popular, and when one uses it, it's usually interpreted to be either a mark of weakness or too aggressive.
In other words, this comes down to might makes right.
A child doesn't accept another person's position because that person would "be right", but because that person is in some position of power over the child.
(And to begin with, the dispute between the two probably arose because the older person was using their position of power against the child in some way.)
Of course.
Where do you live that you have not heard about assertiveness?
If all involved would use I-messages, the conflict would either go away, or be shaped into something solvable. Alas, people don't seem to be fond of assertiveness ...
Some people get to live the Trumpian dream ...
It's not in English and the records are not available online.
Welcome to the EU!
Bottomline, my point is that for some -- many -- people, the experience with how the law is practiced is quite dismal, and it's a good example of "my truth" vs. "their truth".
This makes no sense to me either semantically, conceptually or attempting to figure out some bespoke application. You didn't quote the whole thing though, so maybe you're thinking something you're not quite saying.
The rest is just a child having a problem with being a child, best I can tell.
Quoting baker
Well, That's definitely not the case In my life, but I wont argue if you think this is common in yours. I understand hte problem it presents and generally, I encounter this in children (sub-13 years old). I tend not to engage much with adults who behave like petulant children, as a general rule.
Quoting baker
I asked you a set of questions which would clarify a crazily ambiguous statement. Your response not only refuses to answer them/clarify but instead takes a pot shot, as If I don't know what "assertiveness" is. Odd.
Quoting baker
Becuase you have refused to clarify what you're talking about, I have no idea what you're talking about. But the link goes to nothing, fyi.
Quoting baker
Could you please refrain from ambiguous, senseless drive-by statements and clarify something for me? If you don't want to, please just say that. This exchange is a bit ... eccentric, let's say.
Quoting baker
Convenient.
Quoting baker
It's not, and I can't see that you've illustrated anything that would move that needle. Some actual information could help?
Lets continue from your definitions of facts and truth.
Quoting Ecurb
You linked to a site which contradicts itself. Notice in the chart it places truth under objective, than later claims its subjective. Even at the bottom it states "Comparisons may contain inaccurate information about people, places, or facts". So I'm going to dismiss this.
To be clear, we can state that something is a fact and true that is not true. The difference as I've noted is a fact deals with knowledge, while truth remains despite knowledge. It was a fact that Pluto was a planet, it is now a fact that it is not. What remains true is that there is something that existed then and now that we have facts about. Truth is the primacy of unquestionable and unchangeable reality. We can change facts about things that are true, we cannot change what is true, because what is true is what exists.
Quoting Ecurb
Yes, because that is the term that I'm using. So if you're going to argue against the term that I'm using, you have to understand the context and definition of the term as I'm using it. Which is fine, I provided it. You can propose to expand upon the definition, but if I'm noting, "No, this is what I meant," then to engage in what is being discussed you'll need to address the definition being used, not another one.
Since its been a while, I'm going to sum the context of the original point I was making.
Quoting Philosophim
Now lets refer to your examples.
Quoting Ecurb
Nothing is. What is good and evil is all about context. I'm assuming you're referring to a response I had to Questioner.
Quoting Philosophim
First, this is a statement of context with Questioner. We are having a discussion on a philosophy board. No one is holding anyone at gunpoint. The goal of communication between good parties is to use accurate language to convey concepts as clearly as possible, then let them respond to that understanding. When you begin to use manipulative language, you distort language clarity for your own purposes. The only reason you would do this is because you fear that if the other person has a clear understanding of the picture, they won't give you what you want, or you'll have to admit that what you hold isn't correct.
I find this to be evil. It is selfish, a misuse of intelligence, and the break of trust and open communication that people need to have a clear eye about concepts. Now, in a different context, one where both parties are not attempting to clearly communicate with respect and freedom, do things change? Of course. Stabbing another person because they disagree with you is usually wrong, but if the other person who's disagreeing with you is about to murder people and there is nothing else you can do to stop it, stabbing them first is good. Of course, this requires a clear instance of what is good and evil to make such a call, and 'deciding' "That person is evil, I'm going to stab them," without careful justification leads to the stabber being the evil one.
So the context I am noting is that in a polite and non-coersive conversation between two people, using manipulative language to get what you want when the other person would not give you what you want if you used clear language, is wrong.