IndieAgora

"True" and "truth" are words that are not so easy to define (even though we use them all the time and may even think they're simple). In an attempt to gain some clarity about them, I want to try to restrict them to what is clearly the case, and where they turn out to be limited in scope - or where they seem to be maybe not so clearly the case - try to sharpen the focus on them so that they can still be used, even if with some limitation. Let's see if some rules help. It seems to me there are really just three ways to respond to rules:
1. agree with them
2. modify and improve them
3. demonstrate where they're wrong.

Of course one may also dislike them, but that's neither here nor there. If we can establish or agree to some rules, then maybe we can test some things some of us think are true. If the rules are any good, perhaps we can learn something. Here goes:

1. Reality is real.
a. Only reality is real
b. Only things are real
i. For the moment the test of thingness is if in principle it can be felt, seen, smelled, heard, or tasted. Here, at least, neither numbers, love, justice, nor any ideas at all, are things.

2. Language qua language is descriptive only. By language, here, I mean meaningful sentences (MSs) of the general form S is P. For an MS to be true, it must accurately describe some aspect of reality, that is, be descriptive of a thing. Because no description can be perfectly accurate, no MS can be completely and absolutely true. And any MS can only be as true as the description is accurate. However, read on.

3) Within language, rules matter. We can start with the rules of identity, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle. Call it logic, for that's what it is.

4. Language applied to ideas can also be true, e.g., 2+2=4. But "true," here, needs clarification, imho. Let's say that the test of the truth of language about ideas - not real things - is whether it works and how well it works. MSs like 2+2=4, because they work perfectly, are here deemed perfectly true, or completely and absolutely true. MSs like "Justice is good," maybe are not perfectly true, or at least not without a lot of work on understanding what is meant by both "justice" and "good."

5) What complicates matters is that descriptive language is always expressed in concepts - ideas. It is easily possible, then, for an MS about reality to have a quality of absolute truth. For example, "That is a table," is true only insofar as the "that " described just is a table. It may not be a table; it may be a table-like thing of some kind. (Keeping in mind that the law of the excluded middle applies only to MSs within language, logic, not descriptive MSs about reality.) So it may not be entirely true that the thing is a table. On the other hand, the idea of "table" is certain, so that if it were ever possible to determine that the thing is entirely a table, then the MS that asserts it is a table would be a descriptive MS that was absolutely and completely true.

And that's it. My goal is a tool to handle beliefs. Beliefs do not have to be true at all to be beliefs. They merely need to be believed. The difficulty - my difficulty - is with people who represent their beliefs as being true, and acting on them as if they were.

I do not think there is anything new or difficult or original here, but I like the idea of limiting "truth" to preserve its strength, by not applying it to ideas or things that are not or cannot be true.

And that's it. My goal is a tool to handle beliefs. Beliefs do not have to be true at all to be beliefs. They merely need to be believed. The difficulty - my difficulty - is with people who represent their beliefs as being true, and acting on them as if they were.


So you're trying to define 'truth' in such a way so that theological, metaphysical or religious ideas can be excluded?

what true and truth mean seems to depend on what's being considered, as if they were not a one, but a many. And there are no end of traps and rabbit holes to get stuck or lost in, here.

It seems to me that true is a quality that some propositions have, calling them here meaningful sentences (MSs). But I cannot do any better with truth than to say that truth is simply, and only, the abstract generalization of true taken across all true statements. It's a little like saying number means quantity, but that (clearly) "number" provides no clue as to any particular quantity.

Even if truth is a many, from there being more than one kind of true, there is still the problem of particular "trues." Which ones are, and by what standard, or must we say standards?

Kant famously limited knowledge to make room for faith. I'm looking at limiting faith to preserve truth. I think pure Positivism is a one-size-fits-all solution that creates more problems than it solves. At the same time, I wonder if it can truly be that "true" comes in so many sizes and flavors that we need resort to large cardinals to understand how many there are. Godel might argue this way.

Back to simplicity, if possible. A useful idea here is about presuppositions. In order to think or do anything, we presuppose, usually not consciously. In the course of any endeavor we may question some of these presuppositions - and indeed we should! But if you plow deep enough you find presuppositions that you don't question, because, for example, they ground the thinking you're doing. You could question whether they're true, but that questioning simultaneously destroys the thinking you started with. With these presuppositions, "it is not their business to be true, it is their business to be presupposed." (RG Collingwood).

We can thus set aside some claims to truth by understanding that those who make the claims are merely making explicit some of the absolute presuppositions of their thinking (assuming they're honest to begin with!), and ignorantly claiming that they're true.

3) Within language, rules matter. We can start with the rules of identity, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle. Call it logic, for that's what it is.


These rules are about formal language, which is less unruly than ordinary language. 

As regards standards, I would argue we are talking about criteria and categories.

But I agree that pressupositions must be questioned.

1. Reality is real.
a. Only reality is real
b. Only things are real
i. For the moment the test of thingness is if in principle it can be felt, seen, smelled, heard, or tasted. Here, at least, neither numbers, love, justice, nor any ideas at all, are things.


Reality is more complex than this. There is also the movement of things. The movement of things creates a difficulty for the "S is P" form of sentence, because it is described as a relationship between one thing and another. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_motion

Also, what do you think ideas are if they are not real, do you mean they are not physical? Why have two different words for physical and real?

Thanks for commenting @"Burk"