The power of truth
"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." -- Somebody other than Nietzsche
But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right?
Or not? Maybe we're always in a fictional world even when the shit hits the fan.
To what extent does truth have power?
But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right?
Or not? Maybe we're always in a fictional world even when the shit hits the fan.
To what extent does truth have power?
Comments (246)
Why would you imagine truth had power? By truth I presume you mean something like correspondence with reality, yes? Consider the possibility that reality is actually extremely complex and full of rare anomalies. Which is the more 'powerful' model, one which is easy to calculate and works 99.99% of the time, or the extremely complex one, which covers all situations but is virtually impossible for a human to understand?
Same goes psychologically. Which is more 'powerful', a true assessment of your liklihood of jumping that gap (to get away from the chasing tiger, obviously), or an optimistic one?
Selectively true?
No. I don't think truth is definable, yet we know what it is (or isn't). Note the way Nietzsche uses the word.
Quoting Isaac
Isn't this a case where optimism makes the truth?
This is the best angle of investigation.
There is something about the truth that makes people want to suppress it, oppose it, forge it, manipulate it, possess it etc. So it does appear to have some intrinsic power.
I think that power is only revealed when a judge (the one deciding the value of facts) honours the truth, and as such, people who misuse their power when truthfully they shouldn't, are choosing to exercise their power against the truth. The only reason they do that, is because they don't fear consequences of justice (because justice must operate according to the truth).
So there is also an element of morality that contributes to the power of truth, or where morality is insufficient, a moral authority is required in order to enforce moral rights according to the truth.
I'm not sure how much progress can be made if you can't define it.
Quoting frank
Yes, probably. I'm a pragmatist when it comes to truth values.
Quoting Serving Zion
I think you're mistaking 'the truth' with a claim to it. Many use those tactics despite knowing full well they're lying.
Interpretation is not the difference between fact and fiction, it's a necessary step in understanding the truth. Meaning cannot be a byproduct of truth because meaning comes from interpretation. Interpretation is not a product of truth either because it comes from us.
I don't think it's definable. The concept is in use in the act of defining. Still, we all know what it is.
Nietzsche's point is that where there are multiple interpretations, power determines the prevailing one. Do you agree with that?
Wherever there is contradicting views, therefore, there is some element of untruth - as, for example, one might desire to use his view of the truth that people are entitled to secure their nation by controlling who comes and goes, while another might use their view of the truth to say that people are entitled to go wherever in the world they may, while seeking a secure lifestyle. (To use a real, current event as an example). So they are both using the truth, but coming to have opposing views as to which view of the truth is ultimately more valuable.
If the world was a perfect world where nobody was thieving or murdering, then we would all agree which view of the truth is more valuable. But, since the world does have problems that produce a need for security, then a nation has to decide whether it's values of freedom to come and go are greater than the values of security.
An interesting question, I quite like this take on it.
It seems like we reside in fiction at our own peril. Truth is that which reasserts itself regardless of our interests. Base your decision on fiction, and there's always the chance it's going to backfire. So in that sense, truth has power.
Fiction can work better than truth as a decision-making tool if the fiction is more easily calculated and still right most of the time. Newton's theories on gravity are a fiction, they're not a true representation of how gravity works, but for making a quick judgement on thruster adjustment in a returning apollo capsule it's better than Einstein.
So it's not its lack of truth that's making fiction more likely to backfire, it's its lack of utility.
I think that the real power is in consistency. There is of course the assumption that the truth is consistent, but you can simplify the matter by just looking at the requirement of non-contradiction.
Someone who is lying will eventually end up claiming the thing and its very opposite. From there on, you can often exploit that to take the liar to the cleaners. Lies tend to be costly.
In the allegory of the cave, both worlds are equally albeit selectively true. Selective truth is subjective truth though by itself is objective; it only appears subjective when layered against a background of other truth/s.
Yes. Morality was N's preoccupation. The predator has one interpretation of events, the prey has another. Lacking a God's eye view, all we have are interpretations. Truth is only found in that divine perspectuve unavailable to us.
Yes?Quoting Echarmion
Truth appears amidst catastrophic failure? Otherwise we might be completely deluded? :razz:
Why not: all is interpretations (save a few useless philosophical insights).
This a description of how power plays out, right?
Yes. In my impression, there is a price tag to telling lies. It is not cheap.
It seems like it should. It is only a matter of time before cognitive dissonance creeps in.
Sure. You can also selectively employ fiction to achieve a goal, and this may be more efficient than using the truth. But it's an exercise in risk management. By deviating from the truth, you risk being blindsided by it.
Quoting Isaac
Arguably, Newton's theories were truth at the time, since they were arrived at using proper methodology and not yet falsified. I think there is a distinction between fiction and simulation. You can tell the truth without going into every conceivable detail.
Quoting Isaac
But the thing about truth is that it limits the utility of fiction. There are things we can afford to be wrong about, but we can never outright ignore truth.
Now that's what I call a persuasive argument. I think a case could be made that a lot of what we take for truths are interpretations which succeeded because of a power structure behind them. It's just easiest to see it in the realm of morality.
For an example of how failing to see this creates problems, see the recent thread on morality as it relates to care of common property.
Quoting tim wood
It's unanalyzable.
Absolutely, but if it's an exercise in risk management, then the measure of the 'power' of any belief is no longer truth is it? Its the valuation resulting from your risk assessment. The most 'powerful' belief is the one with the greatest payoff for the least risk, which may or may not turn out to be true (where 'true' is corresponding with reality). That's the point I was making.
Quoting Echarmion
I agree with the first part, I'm a pragmatist, but not the second. Newton's theories (to my limited knowledge) were not just less detailed. They were completely wrong, totally not the way things actually are, a fiction. Just a very useful one.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, that's a good way of putting it.
The first thing I look for when interpreting a statement is to read it in context. Although this is attributed to Nietzsche, it appears he did not say this. In the collection of notes Will to Power) we find:
As I interpret this, Nietzsche is not setting interpretation over and against truth. It is not simply that those in power say what truth is. It is that the desire for truth, our needs, our drives, is itself is will to power. It is not simply what those in power impose on others but it is also internal, one drive against another.
Quoting frank
This is an age old question. It is the heart of Socrates battle with Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic. Plato plays off of the different senses of strength between Thrasymachus' sense of the advantage of the stronger in both its political and rhetorical aspects and Socrates' appeal to the stronger argument. The stronger argument is the argument that persuades, but persuasion and coercion are not clearly distinct as we can see with such expressions as the force of the argument. A skillful speaker can may win an argument, but winning an argument does not mean that one has established the truth. We can see this in political, legal, and philosophical arguments. It should not be overlooked that Socrates was not above using sophistical arguments himself.
In the Rhetoric Aristotle says:
but then goes on to say:
He concludes:
Rhetoric is important not only to learn to persuade others of the truth but to counteract those who are skillful in using argument against the truth.
We would need to define 1) Power and 2) Prevailing but I don't think that interpretations can be "true" in that they're objectively correct. So within a business, the business owner will make the rules according to his views and hence power defined the prevailing interpretations. It's more complicated within a culture or society, there are many prevailing interpretations and each of them determined by more than just power but the basic idea, I agree with.
I don't think I can agree entirely with that, but I agree that essentially the objective view is least prone to bias. It doesn't mean to say that a predator is unable to recognise the views of the prey, and to do morality accordingly.. just that it's personal interests are more likely to pervert the justice that the prey is morally entitled to. (Eg, cats like to catch birds but they will respect the birds' moral rights if he knows his owner will condemn his immorality).
I also considered the example of a fly and a spider when somebody said "what is bliss to the spider is chaos to the fly".
So, it is true that the spider's web is bliss to the spider and chaos to the fly, but so far as objective truth goes, we ask "is the web bliss or chaos?" .. to which, the answer depends upon one's personal experience with it. If I am a spider, the web is bliss. If I am a fly, the web is chaos. That's the extent that truth can behave as evidence, so when we judge whether the web is to be condemned, we consider other factors - "is the web ultimately more valuable when it exists, or when it doesn't?".
Of course, the OP question is about the power of truth, so the fact is that a web exists, and if I am a fly, I will not like to be caught in it. So, whether truth is power, probably is a question more relevant wherever justice is being perverted through someone's misrepresenting of truth, as a claim to truth, for example.
Is there an example of the question existing when there is no disagreement about the truth?
https://www.yourdictionary.com/truth
I would specify constraint 1(c) for the purpose of this thread: "the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality; conformity with fact".
All interpretations are based in selective truths.
Here's the chain of events in two fold:
Truth > Aspect > Interpretation
Produce > Ingredients > Dish
Read his phrasing carefully - subject to interpretation. Meaning interpretation is just an aesthetic, Rorschach.
Truth is always in power as it's the base.
Quoting Judaka
:up:
Quoting Serving Zion
I disagree. The objective view is most prone to bias because so much of it is made of interpretations.
Quoting Shamshir
Yep. I agree.
But the notion that our own worldview is just like that: a favored interpretation, is a difficult pill to swallow. The will to truth says "I will not be deceived by appearances.."
Somehow we're supposed to be different from those who went before.
A wise move!
If truth is actuality, is the prey's interpretation any less true than the predators, or vice versa? Is there another absolutely true interpretation, something more than merely an amalgam of the two perspectives, or a retelling set against a larger horizon?
When it comes to what we might think of as moral truth, do we equate truth only with good or evil as well?
It's still a good quote.
Quoting Janus
In an era of predator dominance, the predator's interpretation is generally taken to be true and the world's divinities supposedly back this up. When the tide turns and the prey comes into power, the prey's interpretation is taken for granted, and again, the divine view aligns with the view of the dominant class.
Think about what happens when belief in divinity disintegrates. The idea of absolute truth persists by inertia, but there's nothing there to align it with.
We pat ourselves on the backs for realizing that absolute truth is a problematic concept and we declare that we don't need it because it isn't useful. In fact, it's incredibly useful. And therein lies the problem. Right?
What if it was "All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation is believed at a given time is a function of power and not truth"?
It is if you find something to align it with. The problem is that it fails to be absolute if it is aligned with anything less than absolute; which would seem to make the idea of divinity indispensable. But what use is a divinity who is invisible except through scriptures which purport to be divine revelations?
The only other candidates for absolutes would seem to be nature and humanity. Can they also be counted as divinities, worthy of our reverence? Reverence for all of nature, including humanity, would seem to be the most useful influence I can imagine right now, given the current looming convergence of crises that have resulted precisely because of a general lack of this kind of reverence.
That works.
Quoting Janus
Once we realize that changes in worldview are really changes in power structure, it occurs to us that our own worldview is rooted mainly in such a structure. From there, the word "truth" goes into acrobatics:
Is our worldview true? Is it false? Is it as true as any other worldview? Or should we dispense with truth and admit that 'there are no facts, only interpretations?'
The basis for the question is a missing divinity, no matter how we may poo poo the concept.
Wait. I don't think I'm explaining this correctly. Maybe tomorrow I'll get the right words.
A transcendent divinity is always a missing divinity, and ultimately a useless one since it will never become a universalised norm. Spinoza recognized this almost 400 years ago, and proposed that God be equated with nature.
...and brings out the fiat; "the world is this-and-so".
Of course, the world does not care what you believe; truth has the last say. If you like, that's the power of truth.
What might that mean... that you can choose whatever you wish, and call it "true"? Sure, but that does not make it true.
Quoting Banno
Truth has the last say? Absolute truth? Or today's interpretation?
What makes it true? I thought you were deflationary about truth.
Adding the word "absolute" to the word "truth" only causes discombobulation. Like adding "Pink" to "disestablishmentarianism"...
What makes what true? "P" will be true IFF P... that's all there is to it, apart from a bit of pragmatics.
That's deflation. There is no truth-maker in it.
The context of the garden path you want to wander up? :razz:
How could there be one thing that makes each proposition true - a thing shared by all propositions?
Nuh. Truth-makers are a distraction, not a help.
I know the metaphysical sorcery to make it sort of work, but then it's not really an account of any specific proposition, so it's just confusing in discussion of theories of truth.
The similarity shared by all truths (that they are the case) is never an account of how any of them are true.
Yes - know in the way not too dissimilar to how you know how to ride a bike, not in the way you know that Brexit is a bad idea.
Then why were you saying the world is thus and so?
Redundancy is just about assertions.
Yea.
What else is human life if not a wandering up one garden path or another?
This is not to say that we can ever know what is true per se, we know only relative truths (and our knowing them is also relative) but merely that we can define truth in these different ways.
But absolute (in this context cross-cultural) truths of human life or nature can be posited, not as things known in any propositional sense, but as guiding ideas that "hit the mark", as I suggested above. And I would add that these kinds of guiding principles always involve some idea of divinity and a feeling of reverence.
No, I don't see any problems with the definition. Could you explain the problems you see? Thank you.
It is also least prone to bias because it's role is (supposedly) impartial in it's interpretation of facts. The subjects themselves are no less interpreting the truth than the objective judge is, but they are interested only in how the truth supports their own views.
A sheep says that it would never slay a human, and that a human does not need to slay the sheep. That is usually true except in exceptional circumstances. So when the human is rationalizing that truth in order to slay the sheep, he has to say that he will starve if the sheep is not slain, or that the sheep is not a conscious being that can possibly have that point of view.
But what does an objective judge say about it? (Ie: one who is not a sheep, and one who does not slay sheep). I think that is why vegans are so easily angered when they are opposed. Their judgments see that the truth supports the sheep in justice, while the sheep-slaying human is resorting to untruths to rationalise that injustice.
(You probably have experienced in your own way, how frustrating it is when someone is insisting that you are wrong, but they are refusing to acknowledge the truth.)
So, it drives the vegan mad, because they are also simultaneously pained by their empathy with the sheep that suffers injustice, and they, though being an impartial judge, are powerless to exercise justice.
Then, in their desperation for power to do justice, they have been known to implement untruth, as for example, thinking that the sheep-slayer knows he is doing injustice to the sheep, when in fact the sheep-slayer has not yet seen the truth according to the sheep's point of view.
So I have found from this, that power is distinct from truth, and that truth is only powerful when it is effective for conviction.
I'm pretty dubious that the concept of having reverence can obtain (or not be a lie to oneself) without a concept beyond the given (nature) or the personal/relational (humanity).
Besides the idea of nature is not necessarily confined to phenomena (See Spinoza).
I don't see how this is an argument because i can turn the reverse around on you, no? Can you extrapolate that it must therefore be so for others "for yourself", within your view?
But, as a quick argument for my position... I would say that "reverence" is a concept that originally obtained within a religious context. Reverence suggests something "holy", something "set apart". You can make an argument that "nature" or "humanity" fill the role of something "set apart", maybe, but you're still indebted to the original religious context, and so, at the least, you're required to show how the old religious context of this concept is out dated, and how your new context of understanding this concept holds new water. If that makes sense.
Quoting Janus
Was just using your language there.
I think we mostly agree here, I am just using "power" a bit differently. Not as instrumental value but as inevitability. Truth seems to be inevitable in a way that fiction isn't. Perhaps, quite apart from any theories of what truth refers to in a specific field, inevitability is the overall characteristic of truth. But I admit this is a bit of whimsical speculation.
Quoting Isaac
Right. I am not well versed in the particulars. But I think it could be said that, as long as we only want a certain degree of accuracy, like when we are controlling a thruster, we aren't using fiction. We're still interested in getting a true result, within the parameters. That's difference from claiming our calculations are actually correct for all parameters.
Well. I know it is so for me, and I have not claimed it is necessarily, but merely possibly, so for others.
Quoting Noble Dust
From what I have read about hunter/ gatherers they characteristically have dispositions of reverence for nature; it is not that particular things are holy, but the whole of the land (although some places may be special places; of ceremony or ritual, for example). So the sense of the holy and the feeling of reverence have arguably a much more ancient lineage than that of any of the axial religions.
Quoting Noble Dust
Spinoza distinguishes between two senses of nature and equates God, as substance, with one of them, and as mode, with the other. You could think of them as natural law and phenomena respectively.
I don't see that this distinction can be made to work. But if you want to try, go ahead. Then show how it helps with the topic.
You can do all that, if you like. Just keep an eye on what you do, so as to not confuse your new creations one with the other. So, for instance:
Quoting Janus
If you mean cross-cultural truths - things that are true for more than one culture - then why not say that, instead of using the ambiguous term absolute.
Because the commonest error is to suppose that truths (all of them) are relative to cultures; a notion that can quickly lead to one denying what you have called absolute truths, and hence to all sorts of poor thinking.
Not at all.
Yep.
"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation is believed at a given time is a function of power and not truth."
Frank observes that we can only reside in fiction for so long, then ponders if truth, then, exerts some power of its own. Hence, to what extent does truth have power?
And the answer is that truth has power, because regardless of your interpretation, regardless of your beliefs, some things will be true, some false.
That's all.
Not true.
Quoting frank
Right.
Quoting frank
I don't think so.
Quoting frank
To the extent that it's convincing or otherwise compelling. There's that old saying that knowledge is power.
I hope it is clear from my last that I think this is the wrong answer.
Redundancy means that truth is an aspect of the act of assertion. This is what I assumed you believe since you handed me the T-sentence as if it says something significant.
You can't hold to redundancy and also say that truth is independent of what anyone believes.
You mean morally?
You shouldn't think that, because we're both right. I certainly didn't mean to rule out your answer, which I took for granted. I was thinking about the power of truth beyond it's most basic function.
Are we using "truth" as another term for "states of affairs" ("the way things are") here?
And how are we defining "power"? "Power" talk, outside of physics contexts, always seems very fuzzy to me.
Per Russell, a proposition is a state of affairs. Propositions are truth-apt, states of affairs either obtain or don't.
Historically, kings were closely allied to religious authority (in many cases they were the same person). So obviously, the cultural worldview, as preserved by priests, was a reflection of the king's worldview.
Imagine that the same is true today. Our prevailing morality is a reflection of a power structure. Do you agree with? Or disagree?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Like a poodle?
I don't know if you were answering yes or no to the first question. Per Russell, who was one of the primary influences of this being the standard view in analytic philosophy, truth and facts (facts being states of affairs) are definitely NOT the same thing.
The standard view gets weird (for us nominalists) re positing real abstracts, or at least seeming to without wanting to directly confront it, when it comes to propositions, truth, etc., but that's a different issue.
The reason I was asking was because a lot of people (colloquially especially, which carries over to boards like this) seem to use "truth" so it's the same as "states of affairs." (I don't want to say "the same as facts," because it's common to colloquially use "fact" oddly, too.) If we use "truth" in its standard analytic phil sense where it's a property of propositions, I'm not sure the question asked in the first post of the thread makes sense.
The debate seems to me to be sterile since so far none of the participants define the meaning of Truth.
Yes he did. Look up states of affairs in the SEP.
There are two uses of the word in play. One is about what we take to be true. The other is akin to absolute truth.
The focus should be on the conflicts that arise due to these two uses, not annointing one to be correct usage and the other incorrect.
The truth has power to the extent it is unknowable. Unknown, unforeseeable apparitions of truth always have and always will shuffle the deck of the planetary biosphere along with everything on it. Homo narcissus has stayed with its science and tech. determinism for long enough now, men have convinced themselves they are the guardians of truth. Funny. Men are subject to truth in exactly the same way as other animals on earth.
Truth is an ontological force compassing not only the physical, but also mental. Epistemology can't take us to the truth. It's important then to understand truth goes where science or any human organization can't go. Science, as it's become the most dogmatic and exoteric (heavily socially determined as in peer-review and crowdsourcing), thoughtless organization ever known to man (seeming to exist to destroy the truth of mind) is ignorant of incomplete information which is a part of every experiment or decision. Truth=incomplete information. There are unknown ways (truth there may be an unlimited ways) this planet could meet its dissolution unpredictable to scientists. Once there's no planet left, there can be no more supercilious beings who have believe they have truth confined to their bailiwick of power or influence.
It makes no sense to say truths (plural), maybe facts can be plural...facts are always partial and obfuscate truth; facts are propaganda. The very nature of experience bars truth. Once you have had an experience, you live through conditioned responses...like glasses which polarize light, so is truth polarized by experience.
Yes he did what?
I think there is indeed some overuse of the term, which prompts me to blabber for a while here, to put my current thoughts on record if anything. Feel free to skip any or all of the following.
I think that you cannot say that a statement is true if it doesn't involve some interpretation. Also, many statements are not accounts of particular place at particular time, but principles. What makes them different is that they will be subject to interpretation contexts, some valid, some distorted. Meaning that an idea may be subject to the wrong interpretation. The interpretation has to be fixed first, to even talk about truth. Truth is not about the statement, but the belief in the fact matter of the statement, or the validity of the statement after "interpretation". (Note that in formal logic, the correctness of the interpretation is implied, but this is a foundational assumption that mathematics needs to make.)
If two people mean two different things by the same statement, those are not two different perspectives on the fact matter, those are two different vocabulary uses or mixed-up notions. We can achieve consensus about the proper (or "correct") interpretation of some notion or assertion, but this is not essential to the quality of truthfulness, but to the quality of communication. If on the other hand, two people actually mean the same thing by their statements, and they convey contrary statements (whose interpretations are directly contrasted), I believe that one of them is more true to the matter of fact.
To elaborate on the last point - what does it mean, and how does it become apparent, whether some view is true to the matter of fact. In my opinion, being true indicates that the subject has mentally captured some amorphous representation of its hosting reality, which affords it the benefit of making projected value judgements of its plans and actions. At least in the sense of the final utility of the interpretation of two opposed statements, one will carry more benefit then the other. Note that for interpretation that has no practical utility (such as a non-realizable belief), then its negation may have no direct application as well, but would be less costly, reducing the distortion of value and attention expenditure.
How does the utility of an idea become apparent - through adversity, failure, or demise. Or through expiration. If the utility of a non-factual idea works for one individual as a happenstance, or for groups of individuals as a transitory effect, it will probably become too costly for the majority eventually, as they contend between the resistance to change and their practical needs. The obsolete idea becomes expelled through exclusion.
Also, it is relevant that most statements are self referential. A statement about a statement requires interpretation whose subject matter are the interpretations of statements. For example, "this statement is true" can be seen as a statement, or as self-assertion. This nuance applies when we communicate - sometimes statements imply their truthfulness and are implicitly self-referential, and sometimes we elaborate them and don't comment on their truthfulness. But usually the outermost statements are implicitly self-asserting. Truth as a concept arises from this self-reference, by making statements about the interpretation of other statements.
What I am trying to get at is that what is true can be relative or absolute; i.e. relative to some context or true independent of any and all contexts. And what is true can also be relative or absolute relative to any particular context. So in the context of humanity as a whole there will be some things which are true always and everywhere and other which will be true only relative to certain cultures.
You can say that truth is an assertion of actuality, which is what Tarski's formulation amounts to. The way I look at it is that truth just is actuality.
The t-sentence doesn't reference actuality.
No, the part that follows IFF is a statement or sentence.
Its called the identity theory of truth. A proposition is identical to a fact. The late Russell tried to drop propositions in favor of beliefs, but it's generally accepted that that doesnt work.
Thanks guys! I'll respond later.
No.
Are you saying that truth is something we reach for (as if beyond us in time and space)?
I don't understand. Are you denying that in the Philosophy of Logical Atomism Russell forwarded a view that "fact" and "truth" are different and that that was and continues to be hugely influential on analytic philosophy?
And what does this have to do with me trying to clarify the senses of terms we're using, which you keep not really addressing?
Not in the t-sentence. Read about it. It's semi-fascinating. Tarski never finished his obscure project, but he inspired others.
Also, note that I am not claiming that the T-sentence must refer to any particular actuality but to the idea of actuality in general. So if you it wrote instead as: "X is F" is true iff X is F, I would say that X being F is the general or abstract idea of an actuality, of something that obtains.
Tarski was a logician, not a poet. He explained very explicitly what the parts of his t-sentence mean.
If we say that law is an expression of the society's moral values (which, sometimes are immoral laws), and the Police are the power, then the courts are responsible for interpreting law according to it's moral intention, in order to instruct whether Police should seize and enforce a penalty. If there ever is a disagreement about the intention of a law, it is the moral interpretation of law that prevails.
Moreso than that, morality is used as the frame by which each side makes it's case that the law should serve their interests. Nobody tries to persuade a judge that the immoral application of law should prevail if the judge is aware that he would be judging in favour of immorality. A judge is constrained firstly by law, and secondly by (his, or society's conscience toward) morality, to deliver a verdict that is in the interests of justice.
I have an old Oxford dictionary somewhere that defines justice as "the exercise of power for the maintenance of right". This dictionary says a similar thing:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/justice
"the maintenance or administration of what is just by law, as by judicial or other proceedings:"
Yes. Tarski's t-sentence is a rule for the use of the truth predicate in formal languages.
Structuring an assertion requires belief, and truth is a predicate of assertions, hence truth requires belief.
That's not something special about redundancy theories.
Judgment, in order to be of any significance has to have the power of enforcement. The greatest power on the scene has that power. Any lesser wielders of power are themselves subject to this greatest power.
Unless the government is divided against itself. Aha!
Cool.
What to do here.
"...what is true can be relative or absolute..."
Are you claiming that any truth can be either relative or absolute?
"...relative to some context or true independent of any and all contexts"
Any truth is embedded in a context - any assertion is part of a language. Nothing is independent of all contexts.
" ...in the context of humanity as a whole there will be some things which are true always and everywhere and other which will be true only relative to certain cultures."
Yeah. Nuh.
A little side not on the Special Theory of Relativity. Some folk think is shows that a certain observation will be true for one frame of reference, false for another. That's not quite right. What it does is provide a set of rules for translating that description of an observation so that what it says, if true in one frame of reference, will be true in any frame of reference.
So if it is true for you that the ball is moving at 20m/s, then for me it will be true that for you the ball is moving at 20m/s.
The supposed distinction between true-for-me and true-for-you vaporises right there.
Morality was never placed in the mouths of divinities by powerful kings. We projected ourselves onto the heavens millennia after millennia like a giant piano in the sky. A king just plays a particular song on that instrument.
If it appears that contradictions arise, so that a giant man carrying around a lion is the icon of virtue in one era, and a crucified man is the icon in another, it's because we ourselves are contradictory.
So losing faith in the divine doesn't actually do anything to truth or morality. Thoughts?
To my eye talk of carrying lions or of being crucified serves to hide this basic existential fact: the choice is down to you.
But perhaps such myths are about the tension between the choice one makes and the choices others make. They provide social pressure to make such and such a choice.
The man carrying the lion is Gilgamesh. He encourages people to go off and steal somebody's cedar trees. There are multiple ancient cultures in which theft by raiding was central to their economies. One of the few remnants of celtic culture we have is a story about a big cattle raiding trip.
In my culture, this way of life is anathema.
And this is the flaw in Davidson's attitude to conceptual schemes, isn't it? It's just a flat-out contradiction.
How to you picture both kinds of morality coming from the same species?
How's that a contradiction?
I would beg to differ.
:wink:
Banno beat me to it. Differently too!
There could be any number of reasons why a particular interpretation prevails. Epistemology deals with the norms for assessing claims, of which power and authority are only two possible issues. But truth itself is not one of those norms, it is simply what the interpretation asserts, and is being assessed.
For example, Donald says it is raining outside. Should Rudy accept his assertion?
Perhaps Donald is a power figure. He might fire Rudy for disagreeing with him. Or perhaps Donald has a PhD in Meteorology. If anyone knows whether it's raining, surely he does. Or perhaps Donald is reliable and trustworthy, the sort of person who doesn't make rash assertions.
Maybe Rudy can ask around to see what others say, or perhaps launch an investigation. Or, if all else fails, he could look out the window and see for himself. Though there are always edge cases where people can be mistaken about what they thought they saw.
What truth has going for it is that the world stands behind it. Nonetheless, it can also be the last option remaining after people have exhausted all the preferred alternatives.
Assuming sincerity in speech, 'X' is equivalent to "X is true" or "I believe X is true". Let X be a belief statement.
"Is true" is what's redundant here.
Doesn't make it true...
:smile:
What sorts of things can be true/false, and what makes them so?
Looks like the most helpful question one can ask when one seeks to understand.
We know belief alone is not enough.
You want us to list the things that all truths have in common?
Think on that.
No.
I want us to list what it takes for statements, assertions, thoughts, beliefs, and propositions to be true.
Tarski's own thoughts, beliefs, and ideas are the standard by which we determine which report of Tarski is more commensurate with and/or amenable to Tarski.
If Tarski never used the term "actuality" then Tarski was not referring to actuality.
It seems to me that Tarski's schema shows the irreducibility of an account of truth.
On the left is a statement, belief, assertion, thought, or proposition. The middle reminds us of what we're doing(setting out what makes a statement, belief, assertion, thought, or proposition true). On the right are the truth conditions of the statement, belief, assertion, thought, or proposition on the left. The right sets out as precisely as possible what must be the case in order for the statement, belief, assertion, thought, or proposition to be true.
The former is belief not truth. The latter is very problematic, as Banno has been demonstrating.
Quoting frank
Can we focus upon what counts as good ground to reject both?
I agree. That is why sometimes truth does not have power, even though it could (and I would say it should). Ultimately, the greatest power has to love the truth enough to act for the interests of justice, which is why I have specified that only a "righteous authority" empowers the truth. A morally compromised authority, rather, empowers corruption. Corruption relies upon deceit, untruth, evasion of, and suppression of truth.
Quoting frank
I don't think that negates the principles though. Notice Proverbs 28:2's observation of a nation in rebellion: they are not clinging to a supreme power, thus there are factions of power (the nation is divided against itself, as you said). The same principle still does apply though: "the greatest power on the scene enforces his own judgement".
What is interesting, for its relevance to the thread, is part B of the quote: "a man of discernment and knowledge sustains it".
Saying that the hope for a nation is found in a man of discernment and knowledge, is saying that the deliverer is one who is able to recognise truth from error (Proverbs 29:12, 1 Kings 3:22-28), and who is equipped with facts.
It is implying that wisdom is the hope of deliverance during times of rebellion (Ecclesiastes 9:15), but specifically teaching us that his strength is the ability to discern (to recognise truth from deceit) and that knowledge is his vital equipment (because without facts, he cannot give examples for his reasons to persuade).
"Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one sinner destroys much good." Ecclesiastes 9:18
That is what makes statements, beliefs, assertions, thoughts, and propositions true. Correspondence to fact/reality is presupposed with all thought, belief, and statements thereof. That's what makes "is true" a redundant use of language when talking about sincere speech acts.
The statement "A cat is on the mat" is true if and only if a cat is on the mat.
The statement "I believe a cat is on the mat" is true if and only if the speaker believes a cat is on the mat.
The statement "I believe 'A cat is on the mat' is a true statement" is true if and only if the speaker believes a cat is on the mat.
Notice there is no difference in the truth conditions of the last two(what makes them both true) and the first. That marks the difference between belief and truth. Truth is existentially dependent upon belief. However, belief is inadequate for truth. Truth requires more.
Here's the rub Banno alluded to earlier...
A statement can be true regardless of whether or not a particular person believes that it is. In that sense, in such circumstances... the particular individual's belief is completely irrelevant. It's not needed.
Whenever I get to your construct
Quoting creativesoul
I get stuck and must move on to a different post, thread, forum or activity to reboot my mind.
I think it can be eliminated. Those particular marks... I mean. Most often though, the reader can choose either one and carry on just fine.
I like the T-sentence.
Try now. I eliminated it.
Imagine a world where there are no sentient beings at all. Are there any truths in that world according to you? I'm not saying I think there are, but I take you, based on your comments over the years, to be someone who would say there are.
Quoting frank
I realize that is what Tarski thinks the function of the whole T-sentence is. I'm asking you what the phrase "snow is white" refers to and what the ontological sense of snow being white is. I'm asking you to try thinking outside the box. Or, do you believe formal languages can operate completely independently of any actuality?
What power could truth have if it is merely a property of propositions?
Quoting Banno
You don't believe there are some things true of all humans regardless of culture? Why not?
You'd have to go to imagining a world about which we could not speak; and asking if there were any truths in such a world. Then my position might be difficult.
I didn't make such a claim.
I suppose I'll just keep quiet about that.
I didn't read through every post since I last addressed frank, but for anyone, did we ever sort through just what we're using "truth" to refer to? That's necessary to sort out before we try to answer a question like this.
I get the impression that "truth" is being used as a term for states of affairs, or in other words, "the way things happen to be," including independently of persons (assuming one thinks realism has any merit). We at least need to think about what we're using the term to refer to.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Janus
Quoting Banno
Your interpretation of Tarski or someone else's?
Quoting creativesoul
I didn't say Tarksi intended to refer to actuality; it's probably quite the opposite. But the T-sentence basically codifies truth as correspondence. The logic inherent in that formulation is " a statement that predicates some attribute of something is true iff the thing in question has that attribute". Having (or not having) an attribute is an actuality; what else could it be?
Here you're saying the same thing yourself:
Quoting creativesoul
"What must be the case" is the same notion as "what must be actual".
Tarski's thought, belief, and/or ideas are the standard by which to 'measure' anyone/everyone else's interpretation of Tarski.
You and I are largely in agreement here. Although, I reject the conventional Correspondence Theory. On my view, correspondence with/to what's happened and/or is happening(reality/fact/actuality/the world/the way things are, etc.) is what makes thought, belief, assertions, propositions, and statements true. Truth is correspondence.
The T-sentence shows this nicely. Truth cannot be further reduced. Correspondence requires exactly what Tarski shows. Nothing less. Nothing more. Of course, a statement is a statement of belief. Statements are not required for belief. Thus, statements are not necessary for truth. Belief however, most certainly is necessary for both statements and truth.
Shake it off!
:wink:
We can stick with belief if you like. We've had this discussion multiple times. I don't mind doing it a bit differently...
Take the lead.
Pointing at Tarski doesn't help.
Truth requires belief.
But...
The world is spherical regardless of whether or not anyone believes the world is spherical.
If "the truth" is the set of germane true statements, then no. Absolutely not. Statements do not exert power. People should value true statements('the' truth) because doing so is imperative for successfully navigating the world. That's the power of true belief. Having true belief decreases the odds of making mistakes.
Quoting creativesoul
On the face of it you seem to be contradicting yourself, as I can discern no difference between the 'conventional" account and what you write here.
Sometimes correspondence is close to what's meant by truth, but that doesn't bear up to close inspection. Corresponds how?
Truth as actuality also makes sense until we think of the truth of an if/then statement. All of science could be thought if as a massive if/then statement.
It's the nuanced account of what correspondence consists of in the conventional account that I disagree with. The explanation as it were.
Those are all different senses of the term "truth".
That question gets somewhere.
I'm familiar with the notion that truth is a property of propositions. It gets dualistic.
Think outside the dualistic box (without losing your mind).
No need to step off into irrelevancy.
That's not the sense of "true" or being true that we're concerned with. Although, it could be argued that a true drill bit corresponds to conventional quality standards. It would make no sense to call one that fails to meet that standard "false". "Sub-standard"... sure. "Inferior"... sure. "Low quality"... sure. "False"?
No.
Drill bits aren't the sort of things that can be true/false. I think convention calls those things truth-bearers. Thought. Belief. Assertions. Statements. Propositions. Etc. Truth-bearer allows us to continue to talk about what makes those things true(or false) without getting sidetracked. It remains neutral. I like the notion for that reason.
Just briefly glanced through the SEP article. There's much to be agreed with.
Yes. That is the conventional standard I reject.
One must first have a mind prior to being able to lose it.
Every issue is many-sided. Each side has its own truth. While truth can't be chosen , for it's undeniable, we can choose the side or interpretation. This choice maybe based on power but one could easily say that power was/is derived from the truth that a particular interpretation yields.
So, with that caveat :
I think there is one aspect of truth - summed up in the 'correspondence theory' - where affinity with the truth is something like 'capturing' the truth. You have a 'picture' of the truth, which is a proposition. Like where early Wittgenstein goes.
There is an element of this view of the truth that makes sense to me. Say, you're a general, leading a military campaign. True statements - statements that correspond with the reality of what's going on - are very important. You can't launch an assault or a defensive maneuver effectively without having a good model of the state of things. And 'true statements' are a major element of that (I don't really know military stuff well, but hopefully this makes sense or works despite being very naive sounding to people who know military stuff.)
But, I think importantly, this proposition/correspondence thing is only one part of what's going on - the part that builds 'models' of the world, and tries to make the model correspond to the situation as much as possible. It relies a lot on fixity, and macro-perspectives. This all changes quickly when the battle begins and then you need a
Pragmatic theory of truth. Which is: what's true is what works. You're not trying to represent the world anymore, but react, moment to moment, by seeing which of your ideas meant resistance. They don't work because reality stands firm, and (what you thought were) truths crash up against it. Your truths are shown to be false when acting upon them fails. Resistance, rather than noncorrespondence, becomes the test of truth. You're not testing a model against the world (conceived as that 'state of affairs' which the model represents). You're constantly updating your sense of how to act based against what doesn't yield to those actions. This doesn't mean merely that the exigencies of the moment are preventing you from attaining the true perspective of the model, of correspondence - That whole sphere relies on fixity. Reality is constantly moving, and can't be captured moment to moment. This is a different, equally valid conception of truth.
Deflationary theories of truth fit formal systems. They're true enough, they just outsource truth-making to something outside the system. That's a fair move. It helps highlight characteristics of formal systems (that affect real life, and are affected by it.) To take an analogy: You can probably, I'm guessing, do a whole bunch of economic analysis about the formal structures of a delimited economy without considering what sustains that economy. Of course, those conditions are important to the total picture, and need to be understood. But that doesn't mean that the systems don't develop a semi-autonomous logic of their own.
And then there are a class of 'truths' - moral, aesthetic, etc - which can only be realized by accepting your situation and knowing what things impel you to act and perceive in certain ways. These truths can only be realized through acting on them or through letting them act upon you. This is where 'radical immanence' and the collapse of subject-object and 'no view from nowhere' or 'not totality' stuff comes into play. That stuff, as well as meditation, presence, being-in. None of the above three theories can substitute for this embedded truth, though they can play a part in it.
Relativism -which Nietzsche wasn't (tho maybe sometimes)- plays on a discrepancy between Moral Norms and the Universal Absolute. 'Everything is an interpretation' is scandalous, only if that means everyone is a monad transcendent to the world, rewriting the entirety in its own way. If not, the truth is still there - it just works through all actors, who can only partially access it. It's not necessarily denying truth. It's just saying there is no way that a particular actor can wrap it all together in a satisfying whole that they can possess. You can keep truth, while ditching the idea that any finite being can lay full claim to it. the idea that things really are the way they are is fully compatible with the idea that we can't make a fixed picture of how those things are.
I do not understand this at all. Before battle, we need true belief to know how to plan. Battle begins. Sometimes what we predicted would happen does not. So, our belief about what was going to happen ended up being false.
Falsehood works very well for getting people to believe something that is not true. According to what you've just said... falsehood is true because it works.
Something is wrong there. Wouldn't you agree?
It may be true that certain that certain people are liable to believe a certain falsehood. That doesn't mean the falsehood is true. It means it's true that some people are liable to believe that falsehood.
Of course there is a real, and important, ethical question of whether someone should willfully lead others to believe falsehoods (even if in pursuit of a noble end.) But that's a separate question.
is 'working' a sufficient condition of truthood? No, the pragmatic conception of truth is a negative one -constraint, falsifiability. The truth's working is a necessary condition though.
That doesn't look like a good way to go... at least not from here. I mean, what's the sense in invoking working as a necessary condition. Whether or not something works is goal oriented. Whether or not something is true is not. A true statement may not work to convince another. It does not work for that. It's true nonetheless.
Realizing where we went wrong(after the war begins) and/or adjusting our plan according to day to day activities doesn't require pragmatism or the pragmatic notion of truth.
I agree wholeheartedly with csalisbury, that for sentient beings seeking self-preservation (which is essentially given for sustained and independent sentient life form), the truth is both a relation between the personal view and the matter of fact, as required for correct decision making, and is also rejection of the penalty of living inefficiently and against the conditions of the environment.
Some caveats have to be addressed. There is difference between "the truth" and the quality of "being true". This is similar to the usage of "the world" and "worlds". To my understanding, we use "the truth" synonymously to the matter of fact. The latter doesn't need witnesses in order to be, at least in principle. For example, billions years ago, we were supposedly pieces of rock in the earth's crust. The precise details have no accounts by sentient species. The environment left traces, which we use to partially retrodict it, meaning that something was defined in detail, but the detail is not subject to experience. However "true" statements and ideas, or representations of reality used by intelligence of any kind (primitive or artificial one), can only qualify when there is a degree of purposeful behavior, determinism, interactivity, and pursuit. Otherwise, there is no meaning to calling the internal state of some system truth representative.
The second caveat is that without speculations regarding the universality, intransience, or at least statistical significance, the quality of truthfulness of statements and ideas can be very limited in scope. A person attached to reality simulator has to maintain correspondence and efficiency, but the limit to the representational and pragmatic aspects of their comprehension is set by the extent of the simulation. In a more realistic sense - a person's views are a product of time, culture, social class, etc. Their ideas and beliefs are reduced to this scope, somewhat ironically, by natural necessity. However, critical analysis of someone's personal belief in some extended scope, tentative as it might be, is justifiable as attempt at self-improvement. The concept of lasting, universal truth is similar to the projections of an architect for infinite maintenance and operation of the bridge they built, even though the bridge and the species that use it are likely to both have an expiration date.
Seeing these truths is a matter of coming to know yourself (which may involve living enough to grow into who you are)?
Once a moral truth comes into view and it seems like the leaves on a growing plant, is it a mistake to feel downward toward its roots? To see whether it comes from within or without? And if its within, is there a collective unconscious down there?
Are you saying there are just different myths for what's at the root of these truths?
Having to be a responsible citizen is not "true". Society being adversely affected by irresponsible behavior is "true". Therefore, being a responsible citizen is an imperative to aid the group (whether the subject realizes it or not). Affections, morals, ambitions, all have this pragmatic dimension. They also carry self-expression, which is not less important for the individual. (That is, we have character, which is part of our reality as well, albeit on a personal level.)
Finally, conceptualizations, like cause and consequence, space and time, quantification, approximation, etc, are not truths, but methods of reasoning. They can be validated, but only in so far as they affect the decisions of the subject. They do not exist independently of the subject's interaction with the environment.
I appreciate your comments. :)
That's the question. As if there could be one sort of correspondence that fit every true statement; the statement s"2+2=6" corresponds to 2+2=6 in the same way that the statement "My foot hurts" corresponds to my foot hurting.
As an explanation the correspondence theory doesn't tell us much at all.
But then, correspondence isn't wrong here. Perhaps it is right but inadequate.
I'm not sure what you mean by "corresponds how". Don't you understand how, for example, an account of events can correspond or fail to correspond to what happened?
Quoting frank
I don't think of truth as actuality as being really any different than correspondence; it's just a simplification. Truth corresponds to actuality becomes truth is actuality. Of course statements are not literally the actualities they are stating, but nor are they the truths they are stating. To state an actuality just is to state a truth. (I might be speaking nonsense here, but I'm trying to pay attention to it).
Quoting creativesoul
I'm not sure what you're referring to: can you explain what you think it is about the conventional account that is wrong?
Quoting Banno
As I see it it tells us exactly as much, and exactly the same as the T-sentence tells, or shows, us; that the inherent logic of our notion of truth is that it consists in the correspondence of beliefs, propositions or accounts with actuality; with what is the case.
Quoting Banno
Where do you see the inadequacy?
I don't think it is incorrect to say that truth is a property of propositions; but I do think it is wrong to say that it is merely that.
That they may not correspond in the same way is not that they do not both correspond.
It's dualistic, though.
Quoting Janus
This is an old objection to correspondence: that all we have is a vague intuition about what it's supposed to mean. How exactly does a statement correspond to ...whatever it's supposed to correspond to? What is supposed to be matching up to what?
With a formal language, we might be able to work out something, but with natural language, it's not likely. Meaning has a holistic aspect. Meaning is often use. Sometimes behaviorism is an accurate assessment. So yes, I get the intuition. I don't see any rigor to it.
Quoting Janus
Again, I understand what you're saying. Devil is in the details.
There are two of them?
The point is that the intuition is all you're going to get. All accounts rely on intuition, it's not the other way around. For example how would you know an account or explanation of correspondence gets it right apart from simply seeing that it does?
If truth is irreducible, like actuality, then we are committing a category error in demanding an account of it. All we can do is produce something like the T-sentence which shows the inherent logic of correspondence.
Wrathall argues that (even) Heidegger endorses the correspondence account (not theory, mind) of truth. According to Wrathall Heidegger disagrees with the theory that involves the notion of representations corresponding to objects (against early Wittegenstein?). See here:
Are you referring to the "iff"? If so, I would respond that the correspondence theory also affirms that statements are true iff they correspond to actuality. Or are you wanting to highlight a difference between "equivalence" and correspondence? If so, what is the difference in your book?
Propositions -- world
There's two.
I think we should be clear about one thing: truth is a concept, maybe a multi-faceted one. It is too fundamental to be analyzed. There is rigorous proof of that.
Is it?
It's only dualistic if one holds that all statements are true or false(bivalence). I'm a strong advocate for correspondence, but do not think that all statements are truth-bearers. Predictions are neither true nor false.
The question of "how" may be an old objection, but it's toothless unless one thinks that it is a legitimate and/or valid objection. I do not. Correspondence is truth. Truth is what makes true statements what they are( that is not amenable to the conventional correspondence theory).
Truth-bearers can correspond to fact/reality(or not) solely as a result of saying something meaningful about it(or not).
That's how.
"2+2=4" is meaningful because we say so. "The cat is on the mat" is meaningful because we say so. "I love vanilla ice cream" is meaningful because we say so.
The arithmetic claim is true because it corresponds to fact/reality. In this case, our rigid standards(names for quantities). The claim about the cat and the mat is true because it corresponds to fact/reality. In this case the cat is on the mat. The claim about the ice cream is true because it corresponds to fact/reality. In this case one's personal tastes/preferences.
It's not that hard to understand. Philosophy proper has made a mess out of it though.
I kind of agree with that. I think truth is more of a general notion than a clear concept with clear facets. And I think the inherent logic(s) in the notion of truth can be analyzed. If that logic (in at least one of its incarnations) consists in correspondence with actuality I think we have arrived at notional "ground zero" because we will become tangled in aporias if we try to unravel how sounds or marks could correspond to other actualities.
I'm not convinced there is, or could be, any "rigorous proof" of any of that though. :wink:
I would say that actuality is what makes statements true or false, and I'm still not seeing how that is out of sync with the "conventional" understanding of correspondence. As I said above I also think that truth just is actuality in the final analysis; statements speak truth when they speak actuality, so we are perhaps not disagreeing.
There are remarkable differences between truth and actuality. If one equate the two, one is essentially defining "truth" as the way things are.
Statements correspond to truth... ???
You see the problem?
I'd love to debate that in the proper forum.
:wink:
We're not that far apart.
Of course if you think narrowly that truth is only a property of statements then of course the idea that statements correspond to their own property seems nonsensical.
Truth is a concept.
You seem to be conflating different senses of the term.
Ok. Let's see where this leads...
Concepts are existentially dependent upon language use. Do you agree?
But here you have not relied on truth functionality to define correspondence. It still waves in the wind.
So, so what?
You are still so far as I can see saying that truth is correspondence without telling us anything about correspondence, or else saying that the sort of correspondence changes with each sentence - in which case it's of no use as a definition.
If there aren't two things, then how is the word "correspondence" being used?
If truth is correspondence and this question aims at that then "truth functionality" needs to be re-worded. Otherwise, the substitution of "truth" with "correspondence" results in a nonsensical question.
What do you mean? I thought we are here to discuss all senses of the term, not merely the notion of propositional truth. The OP is concerned with the idea of the "power of truth" and truth has power only as actuality, as "unconcealment", as revelation, not as proposiition, as far as I can see.
Dualism is a severing of the world into two things that are irreducible, one to the other. So are you going to say that word corresponds to, but is irreducible to, world?
Or what?
I do not understand what you are doing.
Gimme a minute. No worries. I'll set it out for you.
A discussion of all senses requires a very careful progression, and can lead to quite a bit of confusion. They are not compatible.
I thought he was referring to bivalence...
Just trying to understand, as always.
So correspondence is saying that one aspect of the world corresponds to another aspect of the world?
And by virtue of that correspondence, one part of the world is true?
WTF?
What more does the T-sentence tell or show us in your opinion? As I've said repeatedly I'm not claiming we can do any more than unravel the logic inherent in our idea(s) of truth. We all know what correspondence is, just as we all know what time is. Sometimes we just have to be satisfied with our ignorance, instead of making unreasonable demands for impossible definitions or explanations.
Think of Wittgenstein here: there does not need to, cannot, be one essence, one strict definition, of truth; if you ask for that you are trying to drill down to ore that isn't there, it is more a matter of family resemblance.
Using more than one sense of the same term constitutes a formal fallacy. Equivocation. It also inevitably leads to self-contradiction.
Yep; that's what I am saying.
Ok.
We're currently talking about truth as correspondence to fact/reality. To change the referent from correspondence to fact/reality to fact/reality(actuality) is a big problem. That's an entirely different conversation.
Don't devolve Janus.
Propositions are abstract objects. So is the world (as the set of all the stuff that happens). Are propositions in the set of all the stuff that happens?
I have no idea. I don't think so.
The two notions are related and the OP is explicitly about the "power of truth", which truth as the merely formal property of propositions on its own cannot have. For truth to be revealed in propositional form is for actuality to be revealed in propositional form; and that is the actual power of truth; I'm not interested in empty formal logic. Even in that context, though, actuality, truth as actuality, cannot be dispensed with since it is the formal requirement for soundness.
That's the way I see it anyway, unless you, or someone, can come up with some actual argument to convince me otherwise.
See for yourself
But we all know what true is, too; so why bother with correspondence?
Sure, we don't need to think about it any more than we need to think about what time is in order to know how to deal with it; but if we do want to think about the conditions of truth, what viable alternative to correspondence or revelation (and no, I don't mean that in the Scriptural sense) have we been able to come up with?
Propositions did for philosophy what dark matter/energy does for physics.
Do we all know what true is?
I used "requires" very deliberately. It means - if one cares to understand what I'm setting out here - that something is existentially dependent upon something else. The phrase "without language" is problematic to me for it cannot draw and maintain the distinction between things in terms of existential dependency.
To wit...
Something can be both existentially dependent upon language and without it. Thinking to oneself about what one wants to do tomorrow is something we do that is existentially dependent upon language, but because it is unspoken many say that that is done 'without' language.
So...
Substitute that phrase with "is not existentially dependent upon language" and not only is the problem dissolved, but we also adopt a framework that is capable of setting out existential dependency.
Quoting Banno
Here's what I know...
"True" is a word. The word does not make a statement correspond to fact/reality. Being called "true" does not make a statement correspond to fact/reality. A statement's being true requires correspondence to fact/reality.
We make statements meaningful. Statements say something because of us and only because of us. Being meaningful is necessary but insufficient for truth. It's meaningful regardless. It's not true unless what it says is the case. That is, it's not true unless it corresponds to fact/reality.
:kiss:
A beautiful bare minimum explanation/criterion. Perhaps "rendition" is better.
I was responding to "Being true does not (require language)" and agreeing with that. As I said I think a human being without language or an animal could have a true or false picture of things. This would mean that they either see or do not see what is actual. One gazelle blithely drinks at the waterhole failing to see the well-camouflaged lion just ten metres from her, for example. Another gazelle notices the lion, and runs to safety. The former has a false picture of actuality in respect of the lion and the latter a true picture.
If they could speak the first might say "there is no danger here, I can safely drink" and the other might say, " there is danger, I'd better run".
:smile:
I was in the middle of attempting to offer a more charitable reading(one that was more amenable to my own view, since you're claiming agreement). You've done a much better job than I was doing, but that account/report of the gazelle's mental ongoings still doesn't quite work for me.
I know this will undoubtedly come off as my being nit-picky but...
The hypothetical gazelle speech act you've offered is one that requires fairly complex language use. The gazelles have none. So, I cannot grant the part about "if they could speak" as even a possibility. They do not have what it takes(as best we can tell). They do, however, have the capability to draw mental correlations between different directly perceptible things(as best we can tell anyway). I do not think that either gazelle acts deliberately as a result of thinking about their own physiological sensory perception.
More to my liking would be an account in which the content of gazelle mental ongoings consisted entirely of correlations drawn between directly perceptible things. The gazelle believed the lion was in the bush. The gazelle believed it was about to drink from the waterhole. The other gazelle did not believe the lion was in the bush. Rather, it had drawn no correlations including the lion at all. It had no belief about the lion. So, I would not agree to saying that it's picture(belief) was false. That would require believing the lion was not in the bush. Follow me?
Gazelles are constantly wary of danger. I would say that the gazelle that sees no danger where there is danger has a false picture.
I acknowledge that my imagining what they might say is an anthropomorphic projection. But in order to posit a link or commonality between perceptions that are not linguistically mediated and perceptions which are linguistically mediated, I think the tendency, the need even, to anthropomorphize is inevitable; we cannot but think in our own terms. It's similar to the necessity of talking in terms of purpose in biology. We are always trying to frame things in terms that we can understand, and that activity is inherently anthropomorphic. We just need to remain mindful of what we are doing.
But what is Flooble?
Perfect. P's are floobie. Changing the terms in an argument/explanation is only acceptable if the truth conditions are maintained. You've changed the entire meaning, and thus the truth conditions alongside. You'll have to explain what you find relevant in that reply.
Good for you. I don't think being flooble is any less clear than corresponding to reality.
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
Where did you learn how to substitute?
Good for me?
C'mon Banno...
I disagree that anthropomorphism is inherently in our accounts of 'dumb' animals. We can acquire knowledge of all belief by looking at the right sorts of things when it comes to examining our own.
We can know that all of our examples are existentially dependent upon written language. We can know that all written language is existentially dependent predication. We can know that all predication is correlation. We can know that not all correlation is predication.
That's a good start.
Seeing danger is not the same thing as seeing a lion. Danger is not a directly perceptible thing.
Sums up the whole thread.
Yeah, I feel ya. We are simply abbreviating “the totality of conditions adverse to survival” and conceive “danger” by it. Non-rational animalia do neither of those, but they do share sensibility with humans, such that the formal concept “danger” in us, and the natural predicate “instinct” in them, carry exactly the same weight, as sufficient causality for self-preservation.
By the same token, it is absurd to consider that a non-rational animal can “believe” it is either in danger or out of it. It can no more than sense or not sense the presence of “danger” by the only means available to it, i.e., perception. It follows that the “danger” sensed by them isn’t true or false, but rather, present or not present, insofar as some perception triggers the instinctive criterion in which “a condition adverse to survival” immediately exists, or it does not, and can say nothing whatsoever about the truth of it at all, that isn’t a post hoc fallacy by those that call themselves rational animals.
The sensing of danger by instinct, belongs to the gazelle; the truth about the sensing of danger by reason, is ours alone.
——————
Quoting Janus
Perfect.
I agree with what I think you are saying there: the gazelle senses danger just as we do, and responds instinctively rather than rationally. My point about the relation of the perception of the gazelle to truth and falsity was concerned with what you called sensing present or absent danger.
If the gazelle senses present danger when there is present danger or does not sense present danger when there is none, then we can say it has a true picture, and when it does not sense present danger or senses present danger when there is none then it has a false picture.
So, animals can be right or wrong, in their own way in terms of what they sense or fail to sense, about the actual situation. Which is not at all to suggest that animals think in terms of right and wrong or true and false.
D’accord. As long as things are qualified by “we can say...”. Or at least carry that tacit implication.
That's not true.
I may be responding at an angle to what you're getting at.
It's a weird thing to talk about because so many categories get blurred. And I am still far on the pre-side of embodying any moral truth I may have glimpsed. I want to say an enactment of a moral truth takes the whole plant, down to where the roots of the individual plant dissolve in a larger network.
On the other hand, I think the kind of foundational analysis of roots you'd get in a Descartes is less important here, and can even muddy things.
On the other other hand, you have to have something self-monitoring because fully embodied moral truths have a bad tendency to end up in [inquisition, fascism, genocide]
I feel like it is important to know what is fear and resentment masquerading.
Explain the criticism Banno. It's unacceptable. Textbook problem. Salva veritate. Leibniz.
Not to mention, it's not allowed in substitution to begin with. We cannot substitute one term for several different terms unless they all mean the same thing. In this case, in this use... they do not.
Hey that could make for a cool-sounding adage of sorts.
"We all know what true is, but we don't know all that is true."