So What Is The Truth

[HARDCORE]

12-2-2018

The difference between truth and fiction these days seems to be more a matter if interpretation than reality? As a matter of fact, I have noticed that with the recent passing of a former president, the aspects of his life are being juggled about in order to suit the political agenda of the people that are doing the telling – leave the man and his record alone! “Good, bad or indifferent, what any man did is not going to change facts, and only posterity itself is going to tell the real and the entire story!”

As presidents go, however, George H.W. Bush was not a bad guy, and I take great exception to any fool taking the opportunity of a person’s passing to demean (or even to glorify) what has already come to pass, and this for purely political reasons? Republican, Democrat, Independent, or what have you – the truth (any truth) is still the truth, and no amount of bull-crap in one direction or another, is ever going the change this fact, so give them their flowers while they live! Or do you really believe that every man who ever sat upon the saddle of power was beyond reproach on all things?

“We Are What We Are” – nothing more and nothing less – (Historically Speaking?) And it is usually up to us, (and us alone), to determine exactly what that something will be –

“For Better, or For Worse?”

Hardcore

[Boats]

Coherence And Pragmatist Theories (about Truth)

Starting in the mid-19th century, this line of criticism led some philosophers to think that they should concentrate on larger theories, rather than sentences or assertions taken one at a time. Truth, on this view, must be a feature of the overall body of belief considered as a system of logically interrelated components—what is called the “web of belief.” It might be, for example, an entire physical theory that earns its keep by making predictions or enabling people to control things or by simplifying and unifying otherwise disconnected phenomena. An individual belief in such a system is true if it sufficiently coheres with, or makes rational sense within, enough other beliefs; alternatively, a belief system is true if it is sufficiently internally coherent. Such were the views of the British idealists, including F.H. Bradley and H.H. Joachim, who, like all idealists, rejected the existence of mind-independent facts against which the truth of beliefs could be determined (see also realism: realism and truth).

Yet coherentism too seems inadequate, since it suggests that human beings are trapped in the sealed compartment of their own beliefs, unable to know anything of the world beyond. Moreover, as the English philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell pointed out, nothing seems to prevent there being many equally coherent but incompatible belief systems. Yet at best only one of them can be true.

Some theorists have suggested that belief systems can be compared in pragmatic or utilitarian terms. According to this idea, even if many different systems can be internally coherent, it is likely that some will be much more useful than others. Thus, one can expect that, in a process akin to Darwinian natural selection, the more useful systems will survive while the others gradually go extinct. The replacement of Newtonian mechanics by relativity theory is an example of this process. It was in this spirit that the 19th-century American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce said:

The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real.

In effect, Peirce’s view places primary importance on scientific curiosity, experimentation, and theorizing and identifies truth as the imagined ideal limit of their ongoing progress. Although this approach may seem appealingly hard-headed, it has prompted worries about how a society, or humanity as a whole, could know at a given moment whether it is following the path toward such an ideal. In practice it has opened the door to varying degrees of skepticism about the notion of truth. In the late 20th century philosophers such as Richard Rorty advocated retiring the notion of truth in favour of a more open-minded and open-ended process of indefinite adjustment of beliefs. Such a process, it was felt, would have its own utility, even though it lacked any final or absolute endpoint.

Tarski And Truth Conditions

The rise of formal logic (the abstract study of assertions and deductive arguments) and the growth of interest in formal systems (formal or mathematical languages) among many Anglo-American philosophers in the early 20th century led to new attempts to define truth in logically or scientifically acceptable terms. It also led to a renewed respect for the ancient liar paradox (attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Epimenides), in which a sentence says of itself that it is false, thereby apparently being true if it is false and false if it is true. Logicians set themselves the task of developing systems of mathematical reasoning that would be free of the kinds of self-reference that give rise to paradoxes such as that of the liar. However, this proved difficult to do without at the same time making some legitimate proof procedures impossible. There is good self-reference (“All sentences, including this, are of finite length”) and bad self-reference (“This sentence is false”) but no generally agreed-upon principle for distinguishing them.

These efforts culminated in the work of the Polish-born logician Alfred Tarski, who in the 1930s showed how to construct a definition of truth for a formal or mathematical language by means of a theory that would assign truth conditions (the conditions in which a given sentence is true) to each sentence in the language without making use of any semantic terms, notably including truth, in that language. Truth conditions were identified by means of “T-sentences.” For example, the English-language T-sentence for the German sentence Schnee ist weiss is: “Schnee ist weiss” is true if and only if snow is white. A T-sentence says of some sentence (S) in the object language (the language for which truth is being defined) that S is true if and only if…, where the ellipsis is replaced by a translation of S into the language used to construct the theory (the metalanguage). Since no metalanguage translation of any S (in this case, snow is white) will contain the term true, Tarski could claim that each T-sentence provides a “partial definition” of truth for the object language and that their sum total provides the complete definition.

While the technical aspects of Tarski’s work were much admired and have been much discussed, its philosophical significance remained unclear, in part because T-sentences struck many theorists as less than illuminating. But the weight of philosophical opinion gradually shifted, and eventually this platitudinous appearance was regarded as a virtue and indeed as indicative of the whole truth about truth. The idea was that, instead of staring at the abstract question “What is truth?,” philosophers should content themselves with the particular question “What does the truth of S amount to?”; and for any well-specified sentence, a humble T-sentence will provide the answer.

Deflationism
Philosophers before Tarski, including Gottlob Frege and Frank Ramsey, had suspected that the key to understanding truth lay in the odd fact that putting “It is true that…” in front of an assertion changes almost nothing. It is true that snow is white if and only if snow is white. At most there might be an added emphasis, but no change of topic. The theory that built on this insight is known as “deflationism” or “minimalism” (an older term is “the redundancy theory”).

Yet, if truth is essentially redundant, why should talk of truth be so common? What purpose does the truth predicate serve? The answer, according to most deflationists, is that true is a highly useful device for making generalizations over large numbers of sayings or assertions. For example, suppose that Winston Churchill said many things (S1, S2, S3,…Sn). One could express total agreement with him by asserting, for each of these sayings in turn, “Churchill said S, and S,” and then asserting, “And that is all he said.” But even if one could do this—which would involve knowing and repeating every single saying Churchill made—it would be much more economical just to say, “Everything Churchill said was true.” Similarly, “Every indicative sentence is either true or false” is a way of insisting, for each such sentence (S), S or not S.

Despite their contention that the truth predicate is essentially redundant, deflationists can allow that truth is important and that it should be the aim of rational inquiry. Indeed, the paraphrases into which the deflationary view renders such claims help to explain why this is so. Thus, “It is important to believe that someone is ill only if it is true that he is” becomes “It is important to believe that someone is ill only if he is.” Other broad claims that appeal to the notion of truth can likewise be paraphrased in illuminating ways, according to deflationists. “Science is useful because what it says is is true” is a way of simultaneously asserting an indefinitely large number of sentences such as “Science is useful because it says that cholera is caused by a bacterium, and it is” and “Science is useful because it says that smoking causes cancer, and it does” and so on.

While deflationism has been an influential view since the 1970s, it has not escaped criticism. One objection is that it takes the meanings of sentences too much for granted. According to many theorists, including the American philosopher Donald Davidson, the meaning of a sentence is equivalent to its truth conditions (see semantics: truth-conditional semantics). If deflationism is correct, however, then this approach to sentence meaning might have to be abandoned (because no statement of the truth conditions of a sentence could be any more informative than the sentence itself). But this in turn is contestable, since deflationists can reply that the best model of what it is to “give the truth conditions” of a sentence is simply that of Tarski, and Tarski uses nothing beyond the deflationists’ own notion of truth. If this is right, then saying what a sentence means by giving its truth conditions comes to nothing more than saying what a sentence means.

As indicated above, the realm of truth bearers has been populated in different ways in different theories. In some it consists of sentences, in others sayings, assertions, beliefs, or propositions. Although assertions and related speech acts are featured in many theories, much work remains to be done on the nature of assertion in different areas of discourse. The danger, according to Wittgenstein and many others, is that the smooth notion of an assertion conceals many different functions of language underneath its bland surface. For example, some theorists hold that some assertions are not truth bearers but are rather put forward as useful fictions, as instruments, or as expressions of attitudes of approval or disapproval or of dispositions to act in certain ways. A familiar example of such a view is expressivism in ethics, which holds that ethical assertions (e.g., “Vanity is bad”) function as expressions of attitude (“Tsk tsk”) or as prescriptions (“Do not be vain!”) (see ethics: Irrealist views: projectivism and expressivism). Another example is the constructive empiricism of the Dutch-born philosopher Bas van Fraassen, according to which some scientific assertions are not expressions of belief so much as expressions of a lesser state of mind, “acceptance.” Accordingly, assertions such as “Quarks exist” are put forward not as true but merely as “empirically adequate.” If some such views are correct, however, then an adequate theory of truth will require some means of distinguishing the kinds of assertion to which it should apply—some account, in other words, of what “asserting as true” consists of and how it contrasts, if it does, with other kinds of commitment.

Even if there is this much diversity in the human linguistic repertoire, however, it does not necessarily follow that deflationism—according to which the truth predicate applies redundantly to all assertions—is wrong. The diversity might be identifiable without holding the truth predicate responsible. “Vanity is bad” or “Quarks exist” might contrast with “Snow is white” in important respects without the difference entailing that the first two sentences are without truth value (neither true nor false) or at best true in other senses.

Postmodernism And Modern Philosophy
Postmodernism is largely a reaction against the intellectual assumptions and values of the modern period in the history of Western philosophy (roughly, the 17th through the 19th century). Indeed, many of the doctrines characteristically associated with postmodernism can fairly be described as the straightforward denial of general philosophical viewpoints that were taken for granted during the 18th-century Enlightenment, though they were not unique to that period. The most important of these viewpoints are the following.

1. There is an objective natural reality, a reality whose existence and properties are logically independent of human beings—of their minds, their societies, their social practices, or their investigative techniques. Postmodernists dismiss this idea as a kind of naive realism. Such reality as there is, according to postmodernists, is a conceptual construct, an artifact of scientific practice and language. This point also applies to the investigation of past events by historians and to the description of social institutions, structures, or practices by social scientists.

2. The descriptive and explanatory statements of scientists and historians can, in principle, be objectively true or false. The postmodern denial of this viewpoint—which follows from the rejection of an objective natural reality—is sometimes expressed by saying that there is no such thing as Truth.

3. Through the use of reason and logic, and with the more specialized tools provided by science and technology, human beings are likely to change themselves and their societies for the better. It is reasonable to expect that future societies will be more humane, more just, more enlightened, and more prosperous than they are now. Postmodernists deny this Enlightenment faith in science and technology as instruments of human progress. Indeed, many postmodernists hold that the misguided (or unguided) pursuit of scientific and technological knowledge led to the development of technologies for killing on a massive scale in World War II. Some go so far as to say that science and technology—and even reason and logic—are inherently destructive and oppressive, because they have been used by evil people, especially during the 20th century, to destroy and oppress others.

4. Reason and logic are universally valid—i.e., their laws are the same for, or apply equally to, any thinker and any domain of knowledge. For postmodernists, reason and logic too are merely conceptual constructs and are therefore valid only within the established intellectual traditions in which they are used.

5. There is such a thing as human nature; it consists of faculties, aptitudes, or dispositions that are in some sense present in human beings at birth rather than learned or instilled through social forces. Postmodernists insist that all, or nearly all, aspects of human psychology are completely socially determined.

6. Language refers to and represents a reality outside itself. According to postmodernists, language is not such a “mirror of nature,” as the American pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty characterized the Enlightenment view. Inspired by the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, postmodernists claim that language is semantically self-contained, or self-referential: the meaning of a word is not a static thing in the world or even an idea in the mind but rather a range of contrasts and differences with the meanings of other words. Because meanings are in this sense functions of other meanings—which themselves are functions of other meanings, and so on—they are never fully “present” to the speaker or hearer but are endlessly “deferred.” Self-reference characterizes not only natural languages but also the more specialized “discourses” of particular communities or traditions; such discourses are embedded in social practices and reflect the conceptual schemes and moral and intellectual values of the community or tradition in which they are used. The postmodern view of language and discourse is due largely to the French philosopher and literary theorist Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), the originator and leading practitioner of deconstruction.

7. Human beings can acquire knowledge about natural reality, and this knowledge can be justified ultimately on the basis of evidence or principles that are, or can be, known immediately, intuitively, or otherwise with certainty. Postmodernists reject philosophical foundationalism—the attempt, perhaps best exemplified by the 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes’s dictum cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”), to identify a foundation of certainty on which to build the edifice of empirical (including scientific) knowledge.

8. It is possible, at least in principle, to construct general theories that explain many aspects of the natural or social world within a given domain of knowledge—e.g., a general theory of human history, such as dialectical materialism. Furthermore, it should be a goal of scientific and historical research to construct such theories, even if they are never perfectly attainable in practice. Postmodernists dismiss this notion as a pipe dream and indeed as symptomatic of an unhealthy tendency within Enlightenment discourses to adopt “totalizing” systems of thought (as the French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas called them) or grand “metanarratives” of human biological, historical, and social development (as the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard claimed). These theories are pernicious not merely because they are false but because they effectively impose conformity on other perspectives or discourses, thereby oppressing, marginalizing, or silencing them. Derrida himself equated the theoretical tendency toward totality with totalitarianism.

Postmodernism And Relativism
As indicated in the preceding section, many of the characteristic doctrines of postmodernism constitute or imply some form of metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical relativism. (It should be noted, however, that some postmodernists vehemently reject the relativist label.) Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements (objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some things with certainty; and that there are objective, or absolute, moral values. Reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourses; hence they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of modern science, when considered apart from the evidential standards internal to it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative perspectives, including (for example) astrology and witchcraft. Postmodernists sometimes characterize the evidential standards of science, including the use of reason and logic, as “Enlightenment rationality.”

The broad relativism apparently so characteristic of postmodernism invites a certain line of thinking regarding the nature and function of discourses of different kinds. If postmodernists are correct that reality, knowledge, and value are relative to discourse, then the established discourses of the Enlightenment are no more necessary or justified than alternative discourses. But this raises the question of how they came to be established in the first place. If it is never possible to evaluate a discourse according to whether it leads to objective Truth, how did the established discourses become part of the prevailing worldview of the modern era? Why were these discourses adopted or developed, whereas others were not?

Part of the postmodern answer is that the prevailing discourses in any society reflect the interests and values, broadly speaking, of dominant or elite groups. Postmodernists disagree about the nature of this connection; whereas some apparently endorse the dictum of the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx that “the ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class,” others are more circumspect. Inspired by the historical research of the French philosopher Michel Foucault, some postmodernists defend the comparatively nuanced view that what counts as knowledge in a given era is always influenced, in complex and subtle ways, by considerations of power. There are others, however, who are willing to go even further than Marx. The French philosopher and literary theorist Luce Irigaray, for example, has argued that the science of solid mechanics is better developed than the science of fluid mechanics because the male-dominated institution of physics associates solidity and fluidity with the male and female sex organs, respectively.

Because the established discourses of the Enlightenment are more or less arbitrary and unjustified, they can be changed; and because they more or less reflect the interests and values of the powerful, they should be changed. Thus postmodernists regard their theoretical position as uniquely inclusive and democratic, because it allows them to recognize the unjust hegemony of Enlightenment discourses over the equally valid perspectives of nonelite groups. In the 1980s and ’90s, academic advocates on behalf of various ethnic, cultural, racial, and religious groups embraced postmodern critiques of contemporary Western society, and postmodernism became the unofficial philosophy of the new movement of “identity politics.”