What Is Truth
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Question of the Month
What Is Truth?
The following answers to this question each win a signed re-create of How To Be An Agnostic by Mark Vernon. Sorry if yous're not hither; in that location were lots of entries.
True beliefs portray the earth as it is; faux beliefs portray the world as other than it is. A direct ruler appears bent when half-submerged in a glass of h2o. What is the truth of the matter? Truth's character is both logical and empirical. The logical 'principle of not-contradiction' ensures that the contradictory propositions 'the ruler is direct' and 'the ruler is not direct' cannot both be true at the aforementioned time, and in principle observation should settle which is the case. In practice, things are not so simple. The observable truth would seem to change as the ruler enters the h2o. Perhaps this is to be expected? After all, if true beliefs draw the world, and the world changes, then truth must alter as well. However, relativists rubbing their easily at the thought that we each construct our own truth, and sceptics finger-wagging that this shows there is no such thing every bit truth, should both hold fire. As well as the principle of non-contradiction, we are also guided by the empirical principle that nature is uniform and not capricious. Solid objects are not normally deformed by immersion in water. And so, nosotros tin can approach a truth that is independent of detail observations by, ironically, taking business relationship of the observer in looking at the bigger picture: optical effects resulting from refraction of light explicate why the ruler appears bent but, actually, is straight.
Merely how can we be sure there is a world to describe? What if reality itself is an illusion, like the bent stick – a flickering shadow on a cavern wall? We may never know whether our observations are just shadows of what is existent, just nosotros should resist both mysticism and metaphysics when thinking about truth.
Reaching a consensus on an objective description of the globe is possible in principle. That is the wonder of science. Consensus on our subjective descriptions is impossible in principle. That is the wonder of consciousness. Truth is the unmarried currency of the sovereign listen, the knowing subject field, and the best thinking – in philosophy, science, art – discriminates betwixt the objective and subjective sides of the coin, and appreciates both the unity of reality and the multifariousness of feel.
Jon Wainwright, London
Let's not ask what truth is: allow us enquire instead how nosotros can recognize it reliably when it appears. Four factors determine the truthfulness of a theory or explanation: congruence, consistency, coherence, and usefulness.
• A true theory is congruent with our experience – pregnant, it fits the facts. It is in principle falsifiable, but nothing falsifying it has been found. One way we can infer that our theory is coinciding with the facts as we experience them is when what we feel is anticipated from the theory. But truth is ever conditional, non an finish state. When we detect new facts, we may need to modify our theory.
• A true theory is internally consistent. It has no contradictions within itself, and information technology fits together elegantly. The principle of consistency (same as the principle of non-contradiction) allows us to infer things consistent with what we already know. An inconsistent theory – one that contains contradictions – does not allow us to practice this.
• Alongside this criterion, a true theory is coherent with everything else nosotros consider true. It confirms, or at to the lowest degree fails to contradict, the residue of our established cognition, where 'cognition' ways beliefs for which we can give rigorous reasons. The concrete sciences – physics, chemical science, biological science, geology and astronomy – all reinforce each other, for example.
• A truthful theory is useful. It gives united states mastery. When nosotros act on the basis of a truthful theory or explanation, our actions are successful. What is true works to organize our thought and our exercise, so that nosotros are able both to reason with logical rigor to true conclusions and to handle reality effectively. Truth enables the states to exert our power, in the sense of our ability to get things done, successfully. It has predictive power, allowing united states of america to make good choices concerning what is likely to happen.
Does this mean that what is useful is truthful? That is not a useful question, as it's not the sole benchmark. Rather, if a theory is congruent with our experience, internally consistent, coherent with everything else we know, and useful for organizing our thinking and practise, so we can confidently consider it true.
Beak Meacham, by e-mail
Proposition P is true if P is the instance, and P is the case if P is true. Together with all other propositions which come across the same criterion, P can then claim to inhabit the realm of Truth.
But is P the case? P may exist a sincerely-held belief; but this alone is bereft to institute its truth. Claims to truth must be well justified. Those beliefs based on prediction and forecast are particularly doubtable, and can usually be discounted. The recent prediction that 'the world volition end at 6.00pm on 21 May 2011' is an instance. There was never whatsoever systematic attempt at justification, and without this any claim to truth is seriously (and unremarkably fatally) flawed. If information technology cannot exist shown that a belief either corresponds to a known fact, coheres with a 'consequent and harmonious' system of beliefs, or prompts actions which have desirable outcomes (the businesslike arroyo), so any claim to Truth becomes impossible to justify.
The realm of Truth may incorporate those arising from mystical convictions, which are more difficult to justify than those based on observations. Although attempts are fabricated to pragmatically justify religious behavior, the many competing claims leave us in defoliation. As regards Truth in the Art-World, Aquinas identifies Truth with Beauty, and defines the truth in art as 'that which pleases in the very apprehension of it'.
And then, Truth is the realm populated by well-justified beliefs. To a certain extent truth is subjective, although a conventionalities gains greater currency past its wider acknowledgment.
Truth is not constant. Some beliefs which were held to be true are now considered faux, and some for which truth is now claimed may be deemed faux in the future, and vice versa. Truth is good for helping united states of america make up one's mind how to human activity, because it serves as a standard for making some sort of sense of a globe populated also by one-half-truths and untruths.
Ray Pearce, Manchester
Our ancestors did themselves (and us) a great favour when they began using noises to communicate. They probably started with "Hide!" "Wolves!" "Swallow!/Don't eat!" and "Mine/Yours!" The invention of linguistic communication enabled united states of america to do many things. Nosotros could use information technology to describe the world as we found information technology; merely nosotros could also utilize it to create things, such as boundaries and private belongings. As John Searle has argued, the vast construction of our social world, including our laws, businesses, politics, economic science and entertainments, has been built out of language.
Telling the truth is just one of the uses of linguistic communication. Telling the truth is complicated by the fact that we alive in a hybrid world, partly natural, partly invented. "World rotates" is a truthful business relationship of a natural given. "Earth rotates once every 24 hours" is only truthful within the language customs which imposes that system of time-measurement on the given reality. Another complexity is that we ourselves are physical objects which can be described using objective terms, but we are also social beings, in roles, relationships and structures which are all man-made.
Classifications are a key component of language. A sentence of the simple grade 'X is Y' tin locate an individual within a course ('Socrates is a human being') or one class within another ('Daisies are weeds'). Some classifications are givens in nature (the periodic tabular array, biological taxonomy, physical laws) while others are inventions (social roles, types (uses) of piece of furniture, parts of speech). Sentences can mix natural classes with inventions: 'daisies' refers to a class of constitute given in nature, whereas 'weeds' refers to an invented form of 'dislikeable plants'. In their search for truth the natural sciences seek to observe natural classifications, as distinct from social inventions.
Truthful descriptions are like maps. Some descriptions map objective reality, as the natural sciences do, which is like a map of physical contours. Other descriptions map our socially-constructed world, equally journalists, historians, novelists and theologians do, like a map showing political borders.
We have made great progress since our ancestors offset grunted at each other. Language was essential to that progress and it provided the true/false stardom which enabled u.s. to analyse and understand the natural world which sustains united states of america.
Les Reid, Belfast
I would like to say that truth exists outside of us, for all to see. Unfortunately, humans can be stubborn, and so the actual pinning down of what a truth is is more than complicated. Society plays host to two types of truths; subjective truth and objective truth. Subjective truth is given to us through our individual expe riences in relation to those around us: in short, information technology'south the truths we accept been raised with. Objective truth is discovered by a search which is critical of our experiences until sufficient evidence has been gathered. The subjective truth is not always in opposition to the objective truth, but it does depend on the subject valuing their worldview more than others'.
Our preference as a order is, I believe, revealed through our utilise of language. If nosotros say: "Expect, the dominicus is going down" we are speaking from our subjective viewpoint. Information technology is true from our individual standpoint, but information technology is non a truth in the objective sense. The truth, in an objective sense, is that we live on a planet which spins on its axis and it orbits the Sun. And then in fact what we should say is "Look, the world is spinning away from the Dominicus and will shortly obstruct our view of information technology." This may seem a pedantic signal to make; however, if our language does non reverberate the objective truth, it must hateful that truth stands firmly in the subjective camp. Based on our utilise of linguistic communication in the majority of situations, an alien may then well approximate u.s. to exist very ignorant, and that our truth is self-serving.
It could exist said that subjective truth isn't truth at all, more belief; but because every bit a society our values give more strength to the individual and to personal experience, nosotros must bow to the ability of the private conventionalities as truth, as we seem to do through our everyday apply of language.
Anoosh Falak Rafat, St Leonard's on Sea, East Sussex
Anybody knows perfectly well what truth is – everyone except Pontius Pilate and philosophers. Truth is the quality of beingness truthful, and being true is what some statements are. That is to say, truth is a quality of the propositions which underlie correctly-used statements.
What does that hateful? Well, imagine a man who thinks that Gordon Dark-brown is still the British PM, and that Gordon Chocolate-brown was educated at Edinburgh (as he was). When he says "The PM was educated at Edinburgh", what he means is clearly true: the person he is calling the PM was educated at Edinburgh. Therefore, if (somewhat counter-intuitively) we say the statement itself is true, nosotros're saying that what the statement really means is true: that what anyone who understands the meanings and references of all the words in the statement means, is true. Still, information technology is perfectly natural to say that a statement itself is truthful; people who recollect this would say that the in a higher place statement, as uttered past the man who thinks Gordon Dark-brown is PM, is false (even though what he meant past it is truthful).
Yet, to generalise, information technology is not really the statement itself that is truthful (or false), but what is meant past it. Information technology tin can't be the possible state of affairs described by the statement which is true: states of affairs are not true, they only exist. Rather, there must be some wordless 'proffer' nailed downwardly past the statement which describes that state of affairs, and which could be expressed accurately in diverse forms of words (in a variety of statements); and it is that suggestion which is either true or false. So when we say that a particular statement is true, that must be shorthand for "the proposition meant by someone who utters that argument, in total cognition of the meanings and references of the words in it, is true."
Bob Stone, Worcester
I dilute my solution, place it into a cuvette, and take a reading with the spectrophotometer: 0.8. I repeat the procedure once again and get 0.7; and once again to go 0.9. From this I go the boilerplate of 0.8 that I write in my lab-volume. The variation is probably based upon tiny inconsistencies in how I am handling the equipment, and so three readings should be sufficient for my purposes. Take I discovered the truth? Well yes – I have a measurement that seems roughly consequent, and should, assuming that my notes are complete and my spectrophotometer has been calibrated, be repeatable in many other labs around the world. All the same, this 'truth' is meaningless without some agreement of what I am trying to reach. The spectrophotometer is set at 280nm, which – so I have been taught – is the wavelength used to measure out protein concentration. I know I have made upwardly my solution from a bottle labelled 'albumin', which – again, as I take been taught – is a protein. Then my experiment has determined the truth of how much protein is in the cuvette. But again, a wider context is needed. What is a protein, how exercise spectrophotometers piece of work, what is albumin, why do I want to know the concentration in the first place? Observations are great, only really rather pointless without a reason to make them, and without the theoretical knowledge for how to interpret them. Truth, even in science, is therefore highly contextual. What truth is varies not and so much with different people, simply rather with the narrative they are living by. 2 people with a similar narrative volition probably hold on how to treat certain observations, and might agree on a conclusion they phone call the truth, but as narratives diverge so too does agreement on what 'truth' might be. In the finish, even in an entirely materialistic world, truth is just the word we use to describe an observation that nosotros call up fits into our narrative.
Dr Simon Kolstoe, UCL Medical School, London
Truth is unique to the individual. As a phenomenologist, for me, that I experience hungry is more a truth than that 2+3=5. No truth can be 'objectively verified' – empirically or otherwise – and the criteria by which we define truths are e'er relative and subjective. What we consider to exist true, whether in morality, scientific discipline, or art, shifts with the prevailing intellectual wind, and is therefore determined past the social, cultural and technological norms of that specific era. Non-Euclidean geometry at least partially undermines the supposed tautological nature of geometry – unremarkably cited as the cornerstone of the rationalist's claims that reason tin provide cognition: other geometries are possible, and as true and consequent. This means that the truth of geometry is over again inextricably linked with your personal perspective on why i mathematical prototype is 'truer' than its viable alternatives.
In the finish, humans are both fallible and unique, and any knowledge nosotros find, true or otherwise, is discovered by a homo, finite, individual mind. The closest we tin can go to objective truth is intersubjective truth, where we take reached a general consensus due to our similar educations and social conditioning. This is why truths often don't cross cultures. This is an idea close to 'conceptual relativism' – a radical evolution of Kant's thinking which claims that in learning a language we learn a way of interpreting the world, and thus, to speak a unlike language is to inhabit a unlike subjective world.
So our definition of truth needs to be much more flexible than Plato, Descartes and other philosophers merits. I would say that a pragmatic theory of truth is closest: that truth is the 'thing that works'; if some other set of ideas works amend, then it is truer. This is a theory Nietzsche came shut to accepting.
The lack of objective truth leaves us costless to carve our own truths. As in Sartre's existentialism, we aren't trapped by objectivity; rather, the lack of eternal, immutable truths allows us to create what is true for ourselves. Truth is mine. My truth and your truth have no necessary relevance to each other. Because truth is subjective, it can play a much more unique and decisive role in giving life meaning; I am utterly costless to choose my truths, and in doing so, I shape my ain life. Without subjective truth, at that place can exist no self-determination.
Andrew Warren, Eastleigh, Hants
Truth is interpersonal. We tell each other things, and when they work out we call them truths. When they don't, nosotros call them errors or, if nosotros are non charitable, lies. What we take as truth depends on what others around usa espouse. For many centuries European Christians believed that men had i fewer rib than women because the Bible says that Eve was created from Adam'south rib. Nobody bothered to count because anybody assumed it was truthful. And when they finally counted, it was because everyone agreed on the result that the real truth became known. Fifty-fifty when we are solitary, truth is interpersonal. We express these truths or errors or lies to others and to ourselves in language; and, as Wittgenstein pointed out, there can be no private language.
Just the most essential truth, the truth by which we all live our lives, is intensely personal, private. We might telephone call this 'Truth', with a capital T. Even though each of the states lives our life by Truth, information technology tin be different for each person. Shall I believe and obey the Torah, the New Testament, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Zend Avesta, the Dhammapada? Or none of the higher up: shall I find my own Truth in my own way?
We thus need a community of seekers with a commitment to meta-Truth, recognizing that personal Truths are to be respected, fifty-fifty though whatsoever Truth will differ from someone else's. But even in such a community, some beliefs would be acceptable, and others non: my belief that I am exceptional and deserve preferential treatment, perhaps because I alone accept received a special revelation, is non probable to exist shared past others. From inside the in-group we await with fright and revulsion on those who deny the accepted beliefs. From outside, we admire those who hold aloft the light of truth amid the darkness of human ignorance. And in every case it is nosotros who judge, not I alone. Even the most personal Truth is adjudicated inside a community and depends on the esteem of others.
Robert Tables, Blanco, TX
The word 'true' comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'treowe' meaning 'believed'. 'Believe' itself is from 'gelyfan', 'to esteem love'. So etymologically, 'truth' would be something believed to be of some value, rather than necessarily being correct. 'Believe' is still used in the older sense, every bit in "I believe in democracy" – a dissimilar sense to 'assertive in Begetter Christmas'. Such ambiguity facilitates equivocation – useful to politicians, etc, who can exist economical with the truth. One function of language is to conceal truth.
In an experiment by Solomon Asch, subjects were given pairs of cards. On 1 were three lines of dissimilar lengths; on the other card a single line. The examination was to make up one's mind which of the 3 lines was the same length as the single line. The truth was obvious; but in the group of subjects all were stooges except one. The stooges called out answers, most of which were of the same, obviously wrong, line. The self-doubt thus incurred in the real subjects made just one quarter of them trust the evidence of their senses enough to pick the correct answer.
Schopenhauer noticed the reluctance of the establishment to engage with new ideas, choosing to ignore rather than risk disputing and refuting them. Colin Wilson mentions Thomas Kuhn'southward contention that "in one case scientists have become comfortably settled with a certain theory, they are deeply unwilling to admit that there might be annihilation incorrect with it" and links this with the 'Right Homo' theory of writer A.E.Van Vogt. A 'Right Man' would never admit that he might exist wrong. Wilson suggests that people showtime with the 'truth' they want to believe, and then work backwards to find supporting evidence. Similarly, Robert Pirsig says that ideas coming from outside orthodox establishments tend to exist dismissed. Thinkers hit "an invisible wall of prejudice… nobody inside… is e'er going to listen… non because what you say isn't true, but solely because you lot have been identified every bit outside that wall." He termed this a 'cultural immune system'.
We may recollect our experiences and relate them accurately; but as to circuitous things like history, politics, peoples' motives, etc, the models of reality nosotros have can at best exist just partly true. We are naive if taken in by 'spin'; nosotros're gullible, paranoid or crazy if nosotros give credit to 'conspiracy theories'; and, with limited cognition of psychology, scientific method, the nature of politics etc, the 'truth' will tend to elude us there besides.
Jim Fairer, Kirriemuir, Scotland
As I gather amongst my fellow lovers of wisdom for another round of coffee, debate and discussion, I try to filter in the question I am trying to reply: 'What is Truth?' With many a moan and a sigh (and indeed a giggle from some), I attempt to wiggle out the truth from these B.A. philosophy students. I think information technology is interesting to examine why philosophy students should hate the question so much. It seems that the question itself is meaningless for some of them. "Really?" they asked, "Aren't nosotros a little too postmodern for that?" Actually, I reminded them, the question itself can be considered to be postmodern. Postmodernism is not the opposite of realism. Rather, postmodernism merely questions the blatant credence of reality. If postmodernism did not ask the question of truth, but rather, assumed that [it is truthful that] there is no truth, information technology would be just every bit unassuming about truth as realism is.
"Just wait," said one crafty little Socrates, "You mentioned, realism: so are the questions of what is true and what is existent the aforementioned question?" Then it became terribly frightening, because we entered into a contend about the relation between language and reality. Nosotros agreed amidst ourselves that information technology certainly seemed that both questions are roughly treated as equal, since when one questions certainty, i questions both truth and reality, and postmodernists certainly question both. The question and so became: If Truth and Reality are so intimately connected, to what degree practise we have admission to reality, and what do we apply to access this reality and come to truth? We perused the history of philosophy. It seemed to us that from Descartes to Kant (and some argued that even in phenomenology and existentialism) there has been an unhealthy relationship between us and reality/truth. Indeed, you could fence that a great deal of the history of Western philosophy was trying to bargain with the problem of alienation, ie, the alienation of human beings from reality and truth.
Abigail Muscat, Zebbug, Malta
'Truth' has a variety of meanings, but the almost mutual definitions refer to the state of being in accordance with facts or reality. There are various criteria, standards and rules by which to estimate the truth that statements profess to claim. The problem is how can there exist balls that we are in accordance with facts or realities when the man mind perceives, distorts and manipulates what it wants to see, hear or decipher. Maybe a better definition of truth could exist, an agreement of a judgment by a torso of people on the facts and realities in question.
I have indeed always been amazed at how far people are willing to exist accomplices to the vast amount of lies, dishonesty and deception which continuously goes on in their lives. The Global Financial Crisis, the investment scandal of Bernard Madoff, the collapse of Enron, and the state of war in Iraq, are familiar stories of gross deception from the past decade. The Holocaust is another baffling instance of a horrendous genocide that was permitted to take identify beyond a whole continent which seemed completely oblivious to reality. And withal even today we observe people who deny such an barbarism having taken place, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
Discovering the truth will be a hurtful and painful experience when the facts or realities turn out to be different from what is expected. Yet at that place ought to be no grounds for despair if we accept that the platonic of truth, like all other virtues, can be approached rather than attained. This ideal truth tin can be glimpsed if we manage to exist sceptical, independent and open-minded when presented with the supposed facts and realities. However, in searching for the truth, precaution must be taken, that we are not trapped into a life overshadowed by fear, suspicion and cynicism, since this would suspend us in a state of continuous tension. 1 might easily conclude that living a life not concerned with probing for the truth would perhaps afterward all yield greater peace of mind. But it is the life that continuously struggles with the definition of the truth that will ultimately give scope and meaning to human being.
Ian Rizzo, Zabbar, Republic of malta
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Source: https://philosophynow.org/issues/86/What_Is_Truth
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