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I'm moving the suggestion I posted at talk/truth back here. To split the disucssion no longer seems like a good idea. Here is what I propose for sentence number one:
Truth is a word used to describe assertions that are honest or accurate, or to express agreement, affirmation, or assent. Rick Norwood 19:34, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
This is fine; but I feel obliged to say again that an honest assertion is true in a different sense to that in which a sentence is true because it expresses what is the case; also, a true sentence can be inaccurate (This sentence contains about a half dozen words); and finally one can express agreement, affirmation or assent with a false sentence, unwittingly, unwillingly, in error, or by mistake. All these represent some sense of truth, but not the sense about which the bulk of this article speaks.
It may be worth pointing out that when one makes an honest assertion, one is claiming that it is true, even if one is mistaken. Hence my preference for that previous wording. Banno20:00, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to take "this is fine" to mean that Banno would be willing to accept this formulation even though he prefers a previous one. The point you make, Banno, is the reason I allowed for five different uses of the word "truth" even though personally I think only "accurate" is correct. The article discusses other "theories of truth", and my understanding was that an introduction that favored the "correspondence theory" would be unacceptable to many. Rick Norwood20:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
With some apprehension, yes, this would do, perhaps preceding the present intro. The main benefit it has is that it talks of the use of the word rather than attempting to give a definition, thus circumventing much of the theoretical dispute - philosophers disagree on the meaning of truth, not on its use. Banno21:39, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
How would this go:
Truth is a word used to describe assertions that are honest or accurate, or to express agreement, affirmation, or assent. When one makes an honest assertion, one is claiming that it is true, even if one is mistaken. There is no single definition of truth that is not also...(etc)
This seems a perfectly fine way of starting of the article. Though I wonder if the qualification of an "honest assertion" is really necessary. Ig077423:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps not, but it is pedantically true that one can dishonestly assert a statement, and that in that case one is making an assertion without claiming it was true. I'll leave it to others to decide if this is too pedantic. Banno00:52, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
And here is my proposal for sentence number two:
Truth is an important concept in philosophy, linguistic, logic, and law. Philosophers down through the ages have developed many different theories about the nature of truth. Rick Norwood13:23, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Rick (logic dictates that...) before we proceed, you should explain why you "dont think its a good idea." Convenience isnt a substantive reason; we can also put a draft notice on the main article. (I will take care of that.) Organization and separation of precise suggestions from the talk page's diversions into casual philosophicality is IMHO a good reason to separate it. :) -Ste|vertigo15:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
Its not a split discussion - its separating comment from actual work toward consensus-finding. I should first-off state that this thread is prejudiced by its title, built into which is the inherent notion that things can go back to "the way things [were]." This is a particularly ragged scholastic philosophy which directly contradicts the dynamic wiki paradigm. This is not to say that dynamism is a virtue, but it is to say that deference to old and static notions of what does or does not constitute a valid process of argument and consensus is certainly not a virtue.
Draft versions are a very agreeable, proper, polite, and tried way to separate the men from the boys in terms of who is willing to actually work on finding line-by-line wordings which are agreeable, from those who 1) like to argue more than work, or 2) have given up completely and think a disclaimer is a sufficient introduction. Given the falseness of 2, we are left with at least a suspicion that 1) is a present phenomenenon that hindering the development of this article into the soaring upper limits for which it is destined. (See m:wikifaith). You can of course request Mediation, but since both the topic and the craft of writing articles which make sense is interesting to me, I have preemptively volunteered. :| -Ste|vertigo22:16, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
As I understand the Wikipedia approach to draft pages, they are mainly used for major article revisions, which this isn't. Attempts that are meant to improve something as small, but as controversial as the introduction really belong on the talk page because it makes it more visible to anyone interested in improving the introduction. The draft tag is unclear as to what, in particular, is on the draft page. BTW, I think the title of this section refers to moving the discussion back to the talk page, not to reverting to an older version of the introduction. Ig077423:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
They are also used for moderated or organized revisions - in this case going line by line top to bottom. What could be wrong with that? -Ste|vertigo01:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Moving toward closure
Stevertigo didn't like the old title -- neither did I -- so now we have a new title.
I notice (he said hopefully) that nobody seriously objected to:
Truth is a word used to describe assertions that are honest or accurate, or to express agreement, affirmation, or assent.
"True/Truth is a word to describe assertions that are accurate" while not wrong is not helpful - as the burden of unpacking then goes to "accurate" - and people make claims about the truth of assertions the accuracy of which is quite uncertain - and very inaccurate statements can also be true, eg: "Many editors are not happy"
More headway would be made if definition and synonymity were left for the main article and the intro started with something like
Truth is an important concept in philosophy, logic, mathematics, science, law, religion, and linguistics. It is a topic that poets have often dealt with. Various theories of truth have been proposed, but there is no definition on which all can agree.JimWae20:41, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh, God. Yes, Jim is quite right. Go with his intro. Banno
I like Jim Wae's "version" only as a secondary paragraph. Again, its a disclaimer, only this time qualified as being "an important topic." Start with what it is. We were doing some good work on the Truth/draft page - certainly could be improved if we leave comments out. -Ste|vertigo01:45, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Except neither we nor scholars can agree on what IT is. Absent objections, I plan to insert my new intro sentences by tomorrow. I think truth is better understood as "those things which are not false". There is more agreement on how to decide if something is false, hence not truthful --JimWae19:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Bacon
I'll give you the first paragraph if you will allow me to quote, in a later paragraph:
"The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the praise of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human natures." --Francis Bacon
(Assuming you are addessing me) If you think the article is ready to handle poetic notions of truth already, it would be better to start with Keats - something that scholars have commented on and with which some even agree ;) --JimWae00:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Interesting, that you classify Bacon, who was writing prose, as a poet. He was serious, though perhaps more fond of metaphore than is the style with modern philosophers. Rick Norwood18:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Update
Well, I've added the new sentences - but also organized the intro a bit to keep similar thoughts together & to more clearly introduce other parts of the main article. Maybe "The Truth" & Aesthetic truth can come someday, somehow, somewhere... --JimWae04:22, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Strange para
A common requirement for determining the truth, used often in science and in the courts, is that reliable observations be found to establish the facts of the matter.
This is not dealt with in the article; indeed, it appears to be contradicted by the section on true testimony. Perhaps someone would like to add a section on determining empirical truth? Banno21:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
How about, A common requirement for determining the truth, especially in science and in the courts, is that statements correspond with facts.
This is, of course, what the article calls the "correspondence theory of truth", that is, a correspondence between symbols, usually words, and the physical universe. Rick Norwood12:46, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
This is correct, and both the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories are true. Science accepts the Copernican theory based not on the criteria of truth, but on "Occam's rasor", since Copernican theory requires fewer entities (conics) than Ptolemaic theory (cycles and epicycles). But scientific truth is the same in any frame of reference. Rick Norwood14:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
So it's true the Sun (& the entire universe) orbits the Earth? and it's also true that it does not? (Btw, Ptolemy is not consistent with theory of relativity)--JimWae14:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
No, but the error in your statement is the use of the word "orbit". The laws of physics hold in any coordinate system, including one with the (center of the) earth as the origin.
But you do bring up an interesting point, which the article should cover. In science and in the courts the correspondence theory is paramount, but every thinking person realizes that the map is not the country. Thus, there is no absolute truth, only approximations that are better or worse. Copernicus was wrong in thinking planetary orbits were circles. Kepler was more nearly right, but still didn't take reletivity into account. Einstein is most nearly right to date, but no doubt something better will come along. The same is true in law. Suppose John has murdered his wife by shooting her in the eye with a Colt automatic. A witness testifies "I saw John shoot his wife." That's not the whole truth, but it is certainly more true than "I saw a Ralph shoot John's wife. Rick Norwood15:14, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
The only relevance of the history lesson I can see is that it is about "degrees" of truth" (perhaps not too trivial for its own section). Ptolemaic & Copernican theories can be expressed as contradictories - whether using the word orbit or not - and contradictories cannot both be true (yet contradictory statements CAN each correspond with the facts).--JimWae15:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Surely it is not still original research to suggest that ALL the robust theories be part of necessary conditions in "defining" truth & that none are sufficient - nor are they even all taken together always sufficient. Each one outlines a way of establishing what is NOT true. --JimWae15:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
Folks, why bother with such a paragraph anyway? is there a crusade of some sort here to have the correspondence theory appear in the introduction? Why is that thought important? It has it's own section int he article, so add any comments about science and correspondence there! But you should also be aware that, especially since Quine and the Churchlands, the coherence theory is at least as prominent in philosophical thinking; and that he pragmatic theory still maintains many adherents in the scientific community! Do you want to go down that path? How will you maintain the NPOV if you do? Banno19:59, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
This is exactly my point. "prominent in philosophical thinking" The point of mentioning the so-called correspondence theory in the introduction is that it is how everybody else uses the word. As it stands, the introduction only gives the POV of philosophers. Rick Norwood13:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Actually, one could see the whole Ptolemaic / Copernican debate thing as an example of pragmatic truth: Copernicus' theory not only requires fewer epicycles, but also allows more accurate mathematical models of planetary motion, allowing astronomers to more accurately predict planetary locations. On the other hand, the introduction and the majority of the article are primarily concerned with philosophical notions of truth, which do tend to see facts as true statements rather than true statements being composed of facts. Ig077401:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Please, let's leave epicycles out of this. If one's stance were Copernican, then epicycles would not exist per se; an epicycle would be an artifact of observation.
The argument using epicycles would be analogous to a plot of a logarithmic curve on a graph with a logarithmic scale: a straight line would result from that exercise.
The same straight line on a graph with a probability scale would depict a gaussian curve.
In both cases, the truth would be the logarithmic or the gaussian curve; a straight line would be merely the representation of said curves; the depiction of the correspondence between values on the graph axes would be only a representation of the functions.
The straight line graph is useful because it is far easier to manipulate, but the truth, in this case, would consist of the 'read-out' of the values on the axes, whether linear, logarithmic or probabilistic scale.
The computer analogy to this 'straight line' depiction would be the act of accepting whatever is displayed on the screen as 'true'; the reader seeking 'the truth' is then hostage to the editor or programmer, the 'man behind the curtain'. --Ancheta Wis07:24, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The first part is more or less my point. I'm not so sure that the computer analogy is precisely equivalent. Ig077415:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Big changes
In most of the cases I am familiar with, big changes in an article result in both repetition (earth flat mentioned twice) and non sequeturs. Even if some of the changes are improvements, the require others to go back over the entire article and fix it. This is why it is usually better to make a few changes at a time. Rick Norwood20:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Marx and Truth
Why I deleted "Marx's criterium of truth": Marx did not propose that practice is a "check" on truth but, in fact, that "truth" can only be found in the historical, material world. He distinguishes this notion most particularly from legal truth which works from an idea of what is true to the more concrete realization of how the law expresses "Truth".
I am not sure how well Marx's truth would fare as truth in science. There is a correlation between Marxian truth and experimental research (arguably Marxian truth is based on a notion that truth arises through experimental research); however, experimental research is not the only source of scientific truth. Indeed, experimental research often seems to be used for the confirmation of theory (and this begins to sound suspiciously like the sort of things that Marx labelled "Idealism").
Nothing even resembling the notion of truth given in deleted section can be found on Wikitionary (I checked), nor can anything like what I've hinted at above.
Finally, the word you wanted was "Criterion" and not a bike race (its helpful to actually consult a dictionary before writing about their contents). Ig077421:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Deleted paragraph
I have restored the deleted paragraph, since there is nothing in talk refuting it. Without it, the introduction to the article about "truth" says absolutely nothing about "truth" except that it is important but philosophers argue about what it means. That is no way to begin an article.
The Oxford American Dictionary defines "truth" in terms of "true" and defines "true" as "in accordance with fact".
The Random House Dictionary defines "truth" as "true or actual state of the matter".
The Oxford English Dictionary's first definition of "truth" is loyalty, but the second definition is "Conformity with fact, agreement with reality".
Dictionaries HAVE to give a definition - even if it is an inadequate one. Usually they give several definitions for truth. An encyclopedia is not a dictionary & can discuss different definitions. A NPOV encyclopedia cannot choose one definition & make it THE definition.
Further, as already discussed, if "correspondence with fact" is the complete definition of truth, then contradictory theories can both be true - Ptolemy & Copernicus.
Though one might think this is no way to begin an article, there really is no NPOV alternative. The same thing is true in Time & Space - which similarly need claims that there IS a definition in science removed. Science does not define time or space except (perhaps operationally) by defining the measurement units. Science does not define truth either - though it does give methods for determining what is NOT true. --JimWae16:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
There are limits to definitions. If you define truth completely in terms of correspondence to facts & correspondence to facts in terms of truth, you have a circular definition. --JimWae17:07, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I cited three sources. If you think the OED, for example, is wrong, then you need to cite a source saying that the OED is wrong. It is not enough to revert my edit and say that in your unsupported opinion the OED is wrong.
It has been explained to you, in some detail, why neither the Copernican nor the Ptolemaic theory is true, and why they do not contradict each other. If you still do not understand, I'll be glad to go over it again.
The definiton of truth as correspondence to the facts is not circular. To spell it out further, in science and law, at least, truth is a property of a string of symbols, usually a sentence, that corresponds to physical reality. E = mc2 is true. e = mc3 is not true. John Wilkes Booth murdered Abraham Lincoln is true. George W. Bush murdered Abraham Lincoln is not true.
I know that philosophers have a lot more to say on the subject of truth, and I have no problem with philosophers putting their views into the introduction. But introductions are intended for the ordinary reader, and should include what is understood by truth by the ordinary reader in addition to the views of philosophers. Rick Norwood20:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
It has been explained to you that people DO commonly call theories false & "correspond to the facts" is an insufficient definition to distinguish which of 2 contradictory theories is not true --JimWae21:19, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, people do commonly call theories false. For example, many people call the theory of evolution false. Is that where you are coming from? On the other hand, if two theories contradict each other, they cannot both be true (though both can be false).
Truth is a term applied to more than simple "facts". Ignoring that skews any attempt at definition. Some theorists claim simple "facts" are all there is. To take that position in the article is POV --JimWae21:38, 14 April 2006 (UTC).
There's a reason why some dictionary definitions go on & on - that being the term does not have a clear definition. Feeding back to the general public their naive notions of "truth" is not what an encyclopedia is about --JimWae21:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately I don't have access to the OED. I have a copy of the Shorter, which gives three senses of truth (the same three that are summarised in the link given above). These are of course in their order of historical appearance.
The first is "The quality of being true (and allied senses)" This is further qualified as "being true to a person"; as equivalent to "troth"; or as a disposition to speak without deceit. This is not the sense of truth with which this article is in the main concerned.
The second sense is sub-divided thrice, the first "Conformity with fact; agreement with reality; Accuracy; correctness (of statement or thought)"; the second "Agreement with a standard or rule" and the third "Genuineness, reality, actual existence".
The third sense is simply "something that is true", with a few variations, including "True statement or account; that which is in accordance with the facts", and "orthodoxy".
The Concise Oxford neatly combines these: "Quality or state of being true or accurate or honest or sincere or loyal or accurately shaped or adjusted". Very clever.
The sentence The Oxford English Dictionary defines "truth" as "loyalty", but gives a second meaning, "Conformity with fact, agreement with reality" seriously misrepresented the subtlety of the definition given in the SOED; I can't imaging that the definition in the OED would be less than that in the SOED.
Rick, your paragraph misrepresents the OED entry. The SOED lists three distinct meanings and more than a dozen senses, not just two. Banno23:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Science and Law
It turns out there are important distinctions between the use of "truth" in science and in law, which is why I reverted the two sentence paragraph throwing law, science and poetry together. Previously, someone had a definition for truth in science in the intro that was fair enough, to the effect that truth is conformity with observable evidence (though even this could be done more informatively with a well-considered brief paragraph, ideally along with a reasonable citation of course). In law, there are at least two basic definitions as I recall, one of which is modified by the concepts of "good faith" and "intent." I don't have time to find specifics and citations for these at the moment, but the statement "truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth" is tautological in the article's intro. I happen to like the Keats rendering for poetry, though it appears a stretch to put it so far up front in the intro, which is badly in need of stable, informative definitions at present...Kenosis15:25, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
The paragraph you reverted did not throw science and law and poetry, but rather contrasted the use of truth in science and law on the one hand with the use of truth in poetry on the other.
Apparently, your objection is that truth has different meanings in science and in law. I will recast the paragraph to omit law until you have time to find the specifics you mention. It seems to me, though, if someone on the witness stand sold an untruth unwittingly, that might be a defense against purgery, but would not make the untruth a truth under the law. Rick Norwood20:51, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
I can tell this article is somewhat dangerous territory, and I've only been watching for a few days. I'm willing to have a hack at seeing if there's anything I can do to assist the other editors with it, with due research and citations to support any proposed changes or additions. One of the problems with an introduction like this is it's a total POV magnet. It seems to me that "seems to me"-based definitions will not likely hold up for long in an article such as this. The Keats quote, on the other hand, seems a useful contribution and I would hope it will find a stable place if organized well enough into the rest of the basic slants on "truth."Kenosis21:12, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Truth is often spoken of by philsophers of science, but they do not generally attemot to deal with it's nature and meaning (with the occasional expeption such as Popper. but even in that case, he just adopted Tarski's theory and declared that it changed his mind about the existence of objective truth).
In philosophy, truth is generally treated as a part of philosophy of logic and/or philosophy of languge (it is, after all, fundamnetally a semantic notion).
That is the way is should be approached on the article and it is the way that it is apprahced in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Corresponce, coherence, pragmatic, identity, deflationary, etc.. --Lacatosias15:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Obviously "true" what you say. As I see it, the issue would then be how to explain to the preponderance of readers why "science" is reluctant to offer a proposed accounting of what "truth" is, or what might possibly be the "thing" or "quality" being sought. A possible solution to this issue (the fact that it is an issue being evidenced by the repeated insistence on inserting some kind of statement in the intro about what "scientific truth" might be) might conceivably be found in the turn-of-the-20th-Century pragmatists' explications of defining issues. Recall that what was first proposed by the proponents of what was then called "pragmatism" (at least the versions offered by Peirce and James) bears a remarkable resemblance to the most consensused aspects of "scientific method" today. Unfamiliar readers (i.e. much of the audience here) have legitimate questions about this sort of thing-- more so, I would immediately argue, than they have a familiarity with what is meant by a "robust theory". Just trying to challenge a few assumptions here with the goal of a yet more informative and stable article...Kenosis06:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: You'll need to look back in Archive 10 for the last time I gave up trying to start with anything so humble as a few dictionary definitions. There is a tide in WikiPedia, and it's a tide of WikiPablum. It's more relentless than Entropy, and when it reaches the shores of any article you care about, then it's time to go care about some other article. As Coriolanus might have said, "There's a wiki elsewhere". Jon Awbrey05:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Subjective/objective
From the second paragraph:
Is objective truth possible, or are we limited to subjective truth?
Not happy. The implication is that we certainly have subjective truths and it is objective truth that is problematic. But there are those who deny the very distinction between subjective and objective. I'm tempted to re-word it as
I was unhappy with it when I used it to substitute for an earlier atrocious version. I also think that subjective/objective is really a subset of relative/absolute - where subjective is relative to self & not one's group. I also preferred the point form for this paragraph, as it allows grouping similar questions & separating dissimilar ones --JimWae20:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Can we at least steal the image [1] from the Icelandic page? There are so few images on philosophy pages, partially accounting for why so few get to feature article status... Banno07:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Nice thought, Ancheta, but I suspect that Lefevbre[2] would attract more attention...
Or we could go for George Joy [3] just to be different... or perhaps "Time saving truth from falsehood and envy"[4]?
What truth is vs. what is true
I've removed the contribution on Buddha’s Four Noble Truths by User:Dhammapal. This is in keeping with other similar edits to contributions from a range of editors. My reason for removing them is that this article is about the nature of truth, not about particular statements that are taken to be true. Banno09:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Dear Banno,
What is true according to Buddhism?
Here is my latest deleted post:
"First, action really is happening -- it's not an illusion.
Second, you really are responsible for your actions. There's no outside force like the stars or some good or evil being acting through you. When you're conscious, you're the one who decides what to do.
Third, your actions have results -- you're not just writing on the water to only have it disappear -- and those results can be good or bad depending on the quality of the intention behind the act." Source by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
dhammapal, Welcome to this article. My point is that we should write here about what truth is, not about what is true. I think your latest addition is about what is true - I may be mistaken. I would welcome a Buddhist perspective on what is truth. I hope this is a bit clearer. Also, I will refrain from further editing of your posts for a while, so that others can express their opinions. Banno11:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Banno, Thanks for replying. Sorry I misunderstood your original statement. When you said “this article” I thought you meant //my post// was about the nature of truth and should be about what is true. I’ll read the whole article more carefully and do some more research about Buddhist perspective on what is truth. Dhammapal11:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)Dhammapal
No way, I'm not touching this one
I know how these sorts of pages go: 99% of the people involved have taken about three courses in undergrad philosophy and/or have read a couple of articles in the SEP. For some idea of the complex terrain involved only in the deflationary theories, however, I recommend my the one I wrote deflationary theory of truth, which at least clarifies some of the billions of distinctions. Some deflationists do indeed hold that truth is a property, BTW (minimalists). Others holds that it is a useful predicate but not a property (disquotationalism). Redundnay theoriest hold that it is a redundant prediate and not a property. Prosententialists hold that truth is not redundant but neither is it a predicate!!--Lacatosias12:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Veritas is not the same as truth, is it. The Romans had more sense. Perhaps we should better spend our time by attempting to rid the word Truth from the English language, rather than trying to produce an NPOV article on the subject. Banno18:21, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, in Italian it's verità (direct derivation from the Latin) and it is taken as synonymous with truth, both in philosophy and in everyday language so far as I can tell. Howvere, the concept of "verisimilute" (verosomiglianza) makes much more sense in Italian. As far as declaring it a pseudo-problem and getting on with other matter, it seems that I find the logical positivists positions much more appealing than I used to these days. --Lacatosias15:50, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Ken Wilber...
Why is the person important enough to merit about 60% of the article on truth? I think it's obvious that it is this sort of nonsense which makes a laughingstock of Wikipedia among the vast majority of acedemics. I know: if you can shit on a philosophy article and get away with it, why not just go ahead and do it? I'm cool, once read a book by Ken Wilber, man!! He knows the truth, baby!! Having fun kids,cranks, mathematicians with no other way to spend heir free time and demented vandals? --Lacatosias15:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
So why do you delete what the OED says about truth, reinstate elipsis that are clearly out of place, and keep the Ken Wilber section. The mathematician with no other way to spend heir free time didn't write it, so it must have been a kid, crank, or demented vandal. Rick Norwood19:31, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
1) I did NOT add the ellipses. If you look back in the history, you will find that they were already there before my edit. I didn't reinstate them either: I simply left them alone, though I agree they are out of place. I didn't feel like going through and editing the whole article. 2) I was in a hurry and left in the Ken Wilbur section for the same reason. You will notice that I left a rather strongly disapproving comment on the matter above, however. I was about to cut it this morning, if no one had yet gotten around to it. 3) The OED definition, if I remember it correctly, was the one that said something like "truth is the discovery of facts". Two problems: it's fundamentally POV.I'm a deflationist and I obviously do not subscribe to the idea that the truth-predicate necessarily has anything to do with facts in the world. Second problem: what is a fact?etc...--Lacatosias08:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Apart from a comment that lacks serious inspection, you might like to consider that according to more than one credible review source, Wilber has been called "the foremost thinker in the field of the evolution of consciousness." According to another credible source he is "the most translated academic author in the United States." Academically, he is competent to comment on "truth". FT2 (Talk) 22:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
But why do his views merit special attention? Much of the presentation prematurely anticipates sections in Types of truth--JimWae22:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
They form cogent, and coherent, summary of several known forms of "standards of truth". It has the space needed to explain how he analyses "truth" and how these relate. If it anticipates other types, then the question is, how does one include in the article, a model that collates different types which for much of history were seen as separate? Thats a layout issue though. I think the actual viewpoint and description of truth in his observations is notable. Perhaps move it to the end, though, as a sort of recap on the previous sections and tie them together? FT2 (Talk) 22:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Edit: perhaps what this is saying is that the article discusses the wrong things first. Maybe it should look at types of truth, before theories about them? What do you reckon? FT2 (Talk) 22:39, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Is he referenced by other scholars in the field? Surely he is not the only scholar who thinks that more than one theory is used in judging truth (or more accurately, non-truth)? Introducing the jargon of holons is problematic, as is the first sentence which seem to be about "existence". The table also is of little apparent relevance. There are also relationships to other theories already presented which are ignored, making him appear as an indepepndent. He reiterates the other theories - except not very clearly the coherent theory. If anything, his main contribution is using all the theories - but that is unlikely to be original with him --JimWae22:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Much as I dislike his fluffy thinking, we may need to accommodate him, along with Buddha and Marx - but I suspect such a section would be a flame fest and trolls paradise. The present contribution will no do; it badly mixes truth, knowledge, validity and other epistemic concepts, and adds little to the discussion of the meaning of "truth". Banno01:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, he's referenced by others in the field, I can look that up I imagine. His main contribution as I understand it, is to find a structure within which apparently different "truths" show a clear structural relationship to each other. Truth, or "what is true", is (in his view) more than just what is objectively representative, and this (in Wilber's view) is why there has been such trouble studying truth, precisely because it has different related dimensions, identified since antiquity but never really clear if and how they related to each other as measures of "truth". FT2 (Talk) 03:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
The question here, I think, is not so much about Wilber's "importance" (that question is really just begging POV arguments). The question is really twofold: 1) does Wilber present a unique theory of truth or a unique notion of truth? and 2) is this theory widely accepted enough among scholars or others involved in the pursuit of truth to warrant the space used (in keeping with Wikipedia's policy not to overemphasize minority viewpoints)? Thus far, the answer to #1 seems to be basically "no". What is presented here is pretty much a table for classifying various dictionary definitions of truth in some categorical list (that is, it tells us nothing new about truth). What is perhaps relevant is the notion that truths can occupy different levels, and that depending on the "level" one adopts different things might be true — however, saying that does not require nearly the space now used. This sort of thing is endemic to Wilber's writing since he aims mainly to integrate, not innovate (or rather any innovation he might make is in the integration). As for #2, Wilber is certainly not regarded as a philosopher of truth, certainly not on the scale of Frege, Kripke or even Habermas — in comparison, "truth" is a very peripheral concept for Wilber's thought; what is more important is "epistemic tolerance" (freely adapted from John Koller on anekantavada — unsurprisingly, this and Nagarjuna's "two truth" theory could be seen as very early attempts at just this integration of various notions of truth). Moreover, citations of Wilber tend to drawn from his circle of "integrative theorist" friends whom he also cites, but not from the academic community at large. Aside from that one kernel that can possibly be drawn from Wilber's thought (which certainly belongs somewhere else in the article (perhaps even under "Types of Truth", or better yet, at the end), there is, I think, no reason to keep this section in the article. Ig077406:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I certainly can't imagine any other source listing Quine, Pierce, Strawson, Ramsey, Davidson, Tarski, Kripke and then Wilber! His work is not in the same league; and it certainly is not about the same subject. I'm removing the material to Ken Wilber. Banno07:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Cite sources.
If the OED is an "abomination" and "simply wrong", you should be able to site a published source that confirms this. If not, then your opinion is original research, and not cause to revert.
You keep repeating the fact that I am a mathematician, not a philosopher. Philosophy is not the only discipline that studies "truth", and, in any case, Wikipedia is notoriously egalitarian.
Since Lacatosias promises to come up with a better definition, I will wait until tomorrow before putting a dictionary definition back in the article. However, in the future, please do not revert something that is sourced until you find a better source.
I notice you also keep reverting my correction of the misuses of ellipsis. Is it because you disagree about the way in which the ellipsis is used? I'm going to fix just that, and see what happens. One reference on the use of the ellipsis is "Eats, Shoots & Leaves." I can provide others if necessary. Rick Norwood19:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I haven't touched your sacred ellipses. What the --?? I have made about two edit to this page (all of them yesterday). I say "your sacred ellipses" since I certainly did not introduce them and it seems that you have done the vast majority of the editing on this article.--Lacatosias08:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
As I noted above, the problem with dictionary defintions of truth is that they take a position on the question of what truth is. The deflationist view is that truth is simply a linguistic phenomenomen of one or another sort. To state at the outset that truth is correspondence with the facts is to bias the discussion in favor of inflationary theories, in particular correspondence theories. --Lacatosias08:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Philosphy IS the only disciple that studies the nature of truth. Which branches of mathematics or sceince studies truth in and of itself? Can you specifically identify them for me? --Lacatosias08:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Here is a brief list of published sources who all deny the affimration that truth is what distinguishes facts from other statements (or what have you)
Field, H 1986: ‘The Deflationary Conception of Truth. MacDonald, G and Wright, C. (eds.) Fact, Science and Morality, Oxford, Blackwell.
Field, H. 1994: ‘Deflationist Views of Meaning and Content’, Mind, Vol. 103, No.411.
Grover, D 1992: A Prosentential Theory of Truth, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press
Grover, D., Camp, J., and Belnap, N. 1975: ‘A Prosentential Theory of Truth’ Philosophical Studies, 27.
Holton, R. 1996: ‘Minimalism and Truth-Value Gaps’. Forthcoming
Horwich, P. 1990: Truth, Oxford, Blackwell.
Horwich, P. 1994: (ed.) Theories of Truth. New York, Dartmouth.
Horwich, P. 1995: ‘Meaning, Use, and Truth’, Min
An excellent reply. Hey, it lasted nearly two hours, that's not bad. My aim was as much to demonstrate the problem than to provide a solution, so thanks. Banno09:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
To me it seems compellingly clear and simple (the answer to how to deal with this problem of defintintions, I mean) not the problem of truth itself, of course. First of all, everyone has to recognize that, as you pointed out in an earlier post, this article is about the nature of truth in itself. Not what sorts of stamements, beliefs and theories or even arguments are true, but it is abut the problematic nature of the property or non-property or predicate or prosentence "... is truth". What is this phenomenon? Why do we attach this locution to certain assertions and expressions?
Is it really used to state a correspondence between sentences/proposition and facts or states of affairs in the external world? Or it is used, as in Ramsey's extreme deflationism, totally superflous? Or something else? The status of truth is problematic. Dictionaries must necessarily eliminate the problemaicity of the notion an provide what they take to be a standard common-sense defintion. Hence they will have to take a position with repect to the nature of truth. This purports to be an encylopedia entry. We do not have to eliminate the problemanticity of the notion. Indeed we should emphasize it. Al that should be stated at the beginning is (the obvious fact) that there is no commonly accpetd definition or theory of this conceptr and that this it is precisely the problem
that philosophers attempt to confront by formuakting theories of truth. The common theoris are correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, redunancy, identity, etc.. The article will provide a summary of each of the major positions, but cannot purport to define or determine what truth is without violating NPOV. The idea of multiple dictionary defintions is even less satisfactory, since it would undermined the poit of the article: to provide the various positions which have been taken on the issue by experts who spend their lives studying the question of what truh is by substitung the lazy simlifications of lexigrophers who do not study the nature of truth but the nature of definctions. Why is the this so difficult to get across?--Lacatosias10:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Dictionary definitions, question about previous discussions on the talk page
Whoever put my question here and titled this section "On the very idea of a dictionary definition" implicitly misrepresents the tone of my question. Kindly refrain a bit from adding such characterizations to others' questions. My original question was as follows...Kenosis13:49, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
As I haven't followed the talk page for long, may I ask why is it has been determined necssary to avoid using several examples of typical dictionary definitions or resonable composites thereof, either in the intro, or in a brief section immediately following the intro? I see several seemingly generic ones just above, for instance...Kenosis02:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
Two people, Banno and JimWay, are totally opposed to offering any explanation of the common meaning of truth. They seem to think the word is too subtle, or maybe too meaningless, to have a common definition. A number of people have tried to argue with them, and given up. I do not intend to give up. My view is that 1) the word "truth" has a common, everyday meaning which people understand perfectly well and 2) the problems that philosophers have with that common meaning is secondary to the way the word is commonly used. In fact, I would say that philosophers know perfectly well the common meaning, and use that common meaning as a starting point to their objections. Therefore, logically, the common meaning should be given before the objections. Just as, in an article on physics, the general idea of a technical term in physics is given above the ToC, while the precise definition (usually involving some mathematics) is given below the ToC, so it should be in philosophical articles.
I've tried to offer a compromise, and put both ideas in the introduction, but that always gets reverted. The introduction must only give the view of philosophers, and no other view, however well documented. And the view of the philosophers is offered with no references at all, and therefore constitutes original research.
If you look, you will see I have several times removed all but the dictionary definitions you've added - and have asked in comment if that was the entire entry - and it seems it was not. Who are any one of us to decide which one of the whole page of dictionary entries to include? --JimWae06:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
That is unfair, Rick. Your supposed quote from the OED was just too great an oversimplification, as I explained above; if you think my criticism wrong, then explain why. My other objections have been to obviously POV material. Banno07:20, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Kenosis, from Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles: If the subject is amenable to definition, the first sentence should give a concise, conceptually sound definition that puts the article in context. Finding such a definition here is the question; because this is a philosophical article about the meaning of "truth", none of the theories that are listed in the article can be given as the meaning of truth without being POV. So we have a few alternatives:
Find a definition that is compatible with all, or even most, of the theories; I've suggested previously Wittgenstein's "the truth is what is the case". Perhaps we could use something like "Truth is what distinguishes facts from other statements".
Discuss the problem of definition in the first paragraph. This is what the present introduction attempts. Incidentally, this is the approach taken in Encarta.
Focus on use instead of meaning. I liked "When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, he or she is claiming that it is the truth" for this reason.
Thanks Banno. One thing though. I think we will nonetheless find that in the end, some brief offering of several definitions, with appropriate qualifications about how difficult and controversial are the questions involved, will help achieve better informativeness and better stability here. I also do not think that it is, of necessity, solely a philosophical article-- evidence for this position includes the fact that too many people have an implicit warrant to intrude on such a presumption. Examples of who has a warrant to intrude are the hundreds of millions who have been subjected to popular ideas such as "scientific truth", popular ideas of "legal definitions of truth", where in both cases these fields have chosen to largely abdicate the question. To the extent both fields have chosen to abdicate the issue, a brief explanation of that fact is, I think, owed the reader. These issues are all explainable in the article, but depend on the editors' grasp of what those issues are, and on finding a way of stating them that makes enough sense to find a stable place in the article. I trust all this can be done in the end...Kenosis17:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
On the proper use of dictionary definitions
JA: Because this seems to be a persistent symptom of WikiParalysis, I am copying a series of remarks that I made about it on the talk pages of several other articles:
JA: I have suggested in these sorts of cases that the minimal information is such as we find in an average dictionary, which gives a descriptive account of how the word is actually used in practice. There will normally be a variety of folk theories of the concept that are implied in some of the sundry uses, but that is simply the way things are. After that, the competing theories among non-folk theorists can be presented in any convenient order, no doubt biased by the current fashions, but intelligent readers do feel free to skip around and pick their own paths to follow. Complex things must be related to simple things — there is no requirement to reduce them thereto. Jon Awbrey 14:45, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
What's a Dictionary, and What'sn't a Dictionary
JA: Lemme splain about dictionaries. Dictionaries are written by lexicographers, the "true" or "genuine" among which are authorities and experts on the usage of words, which authority they garner and which expertise they acquire through disciplined procedures for collecting and collating data about word usage from designated populations of word users. What they document are the empirical facts that the words of their entries are actually used in the contexts and in the connections with other words that are prevalent in that population of users. Contemporary lexicographers no longer see their role as one of prescribing usage, though they do pass on information about usage that sensible folk know is morally equivalent to a prescription by the community. Far less then do they prescribe particular points of view or particular theories about the corresponding concepts, but they simply record the various and sundry connections of words, in which some may of course find "folk", "implicit", or "tacit" theories of those concepts. But the true lexicographer, per se, has no truck with all that. Jon Awbrey 20:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: By way of summary: (1) The fact that an encyclopedia article should do more than a dictionary entry does not mean that it shouldn't do at least that much, at least for starters, and this is simply to provide an inclusive synopsis of the variant usages of the word in question. (2) This is not POV — it is sourced research that provides the empirical facts about variant usage as determined by experts who are acknowledged as competent to do just that. (3) Some will read "folk theories" or "implicit theories" into some of the documented dictionary uses, but these interpretations are themselves argumentative and rarely clear cut. For instance, the mere fact that the word "correspondence" arises in the reports of the lexicographer's informants when asked about "truth" does not in itself lend support to a "correspondence theory of truth" in the technical sense, because the informant is using the word "correspondence" in a pre-theoretical sense that is not the same as the technical sense. For another example, the fact that people speak of the "sunrise" does not bear on technical theories of astronomy. Jon Awbrey12:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate that fascinating lecture about lexicography. Now please take your apparent expertise in this field and go write a dictionary or help out with the entries on lexicography. For the last time, however, the word truth (just like the word existence) does not have a non-controversial definition. It is very similar to the case of "existence". Here is an excerpt from the article on existence in the outstanding peer-reviewed Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I have copied only the first three paras for illustration of how to go about dealing with a topic as similary vague and controversial as the one we are trying to deal with here and because anything more than three would constitute copyvio:
Like many philosophically interesting notions, existence is at once familiar and rather elusive. Although we have no more trouble with using the verb ‘exists’ than with the two-times table, there is more than a little difficulty in saying just what existence is. Existing seems to be at least as mundane as walking or being hungry. Yet, when we say ‘Tom is hungry’ or ‘Tom is walking’, it may be news to those not in Tom's vicinity, whereas ‘Tom exists’ would be news to no one who knew Tom, and merely puzzling to anyone who did not. Again, we know what it is like to be hungry or to walk, but what is it like to exist, what kind of experience is that? Is it perhaps the experience of being oneself, of being identical with oneself? Yet again, we can readily indicate what is meant by Tom's walking, but surely Tom's existing is not something we can indicate to anyone. On the face of it, there would seem to be no way at all in which we can explain what existing is. It may be tempting to think that ‘Tom exists’ means merely ‘Tom is real’. In fact, this could be distinctly appealing, for ‘real’ is what has been called an ‘excluder’ predicate, meaning thereby that it attributes nothing positive to Tom, but operates in a purely negative fashion simply to exclude Tom from being imaginary, mythical, fictional, and the like. To say that ‘exists’ meant ‘is real’ would be to say inter alia that it attributed nothing positive to Tom; and that would do much to relieve our frustration at being so fluent in our use of ‘exists’ despite having no idea of its attributing anything positive to Tom. It would be a relief to discover that ‘exists’ attributes nothing positive to him at all.
Unfortunately, this won't do; for among all the negatives that ‘is real’ might be applying to Tom would be not only ‘not imaginary’, ‘not mythical’, etc., but also ‘not nonexistent’. Now, suppose a seer predicted that in two years that a son would be born to Bill and Mary, and that he would be called ‘Tom’. When the prediction was finally fulfilled, we might imagine the seer announcing triumphantly ‘At last Tom exists, exactly as I predicted he would’. If ‘exists’ were an excluder like ‘is real’, then the seer could only be understood as excluding something from Tom; and in this case it would be non-existence. As said by the seer, therefore, ‘At last Tom exists’ could only mean ‘At last Tom is not-nonexistent’. And if he really were to mean that, we should be entitled to ask him just when Tom could ever have been said to be nonexistent, i.e. never to have existed. In fact, before he existed Tom could never even have been referred to, and hence at that time nothing at all could have been attributed to him, not even the property of being nonexistent. Promising as it may have seemed, therefore, ‘Tom exists’ is not to be understood simply as ‘Tom is real’.
Of course, the failure of attempts to understand ‘exists’ as ‘is real’....
Nowhere is there a single attempt at a definition, much less a compilation of useless definitions from every source imaginable. I realize this is an extremely high standard to compare to the generalized and anarcho-democratic Wikipedia, but it is a good way to measure how far off the current philosophy articles are from what would be needed to attract serious-minded academics and professionals into taking this bizarre project with even a modicum of seriousness. Or do you perhaps believe that the SEP, and similar professional encyclopedias are not taken as seriously as the work we are doing here (interesting and occasionally insightful as it is on spectacularly singular occasions). What is wrong with this entry on existence, which contains NO definitions, in your opinion? --Lacatosias14:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: I used to think that the SEOP was moderately competent, despite the endless recycling of the Vienna Circle that goes on in some circles, and of course we've all learned to sleep through that dronedary humphing in the century past, but the article on flatulent theories of truth took it down a peg, and now you've gone and took it down another. Oh well, so it goes. Jon Awbrey14:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Dimensions of classification
JA: The dimension of classification according to the arity of the truth predicate stands on generic logical grounds, since we may ask about the arity of any predicate, and it is not really due to Peirce. In fact, the Stoics and Aristotle both used primitive versions of triadic truth predicates. I suggest that we treat the arity factor and the robust/flatulent dimension as independent at first, rather than making periodic tables just yet. Jon Awbrey14:18, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Peirce
Let me guess who it is that is now trying to transform the article on truth into another of the infinite articles on C.S Peirce....hmmm.....it seems that Peirce just pops up even in articles on plumbing lately. Lacatosias. P.S. the edit boxes are not working and Italian keyboards do not have tildes. Therefore I literally cannot sign my posts unless someone types some tildes which I can cut and paste.--Lacatosias 14:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC) Ah ha, 'tis working again. --Lacatosias14:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: Your entildement: ~~~~
JA: There will be a place for discussing variations on the pragmatic theory of truth, but this is not about that yet. On perfectly general logical grounds, if we are going to talk about a predicate, then we can ask about the arity of that predicate. We don't always get clear answers, but it does not hurt to ask, and Gaul may get its first break thereby. Jon Awbrey14:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
This section is fine with me. Please provide sources
There is now a place for discussing all these. I believe if we take it one sensible step at a time, each camp will get its due, in due course. Hopefully without getting excessively lengthy, since each slant has (or should have) its own article to fill in the details. Incidentally, Lacatosias, you are correct about the "deflationary" v. "robust" distincion--no need to shout. Although, I still think "robust" needs a brief explanation for the previously unfamiliar-- I trust this will happen in due course as well. Also, frankly, I can't find sourcing for the use of "robust" to describe the wide range of theories included under its auspices in the current Wikipedia article on Truth.....Kenosis15:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
In the midst of a jungle, one has to SHOUT AS LOUD AS ONE CAN to get any attention at all. Here there are people making edits and couteredits to an article on a very controversial and complex topic as if it were a blog!! I've seen the word "robust" used and I've seen "inflationary " theories used. But these are used mostly by so-called deflationary theorists (of whatever specific coloring) to distinguish themslves from correspondendists, coherentists and so on. That's what it boils down to. The issue can hardly be ignored since the basic idea behind delfationary theories (although the name may be relatively recent) goes back to Gottlob Frege, for heaven's sake. He cleraly rejected both corresponce and coherence theories as self-contradictory (I can find the quotes if necessary), he was anything but a pragmatist and he was probably not a primitivist (like Russell and Moore, both of whom claimed that truth was an a primitibe and indefinable notion). The latter might or might not be a form of deflationism as well. The point is, it had been around for quite some time
I respecttully disagree; because as far as I can tell all current participants in this article are reasonable and more-than-reasonably intelligent persons. We're actually in a position to make some progress here, and I trust this is what will happen. You appear to be somewhat familiar with Strawson et al. I can only imagine this will result in a better article so long as we keep the details relegated to the proper spinoff articles. I have some research to do. Talk with you later...Kenosis15:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
If the consensus is to ignore the "flatulent" theories, as one of are more ancient collacorators has termed it, then go right ahead though. If not, I'll try to find a refercne for the term "robust" and so on.--Lacatosias15:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
On some really silly neologisms
JA: I've seen enough pop phil fads come and go to know one when I see one. I'm probably more tolerant of neologisms than most folks — I try to make up 6 or 7 before breakfast myself everyday — but not when they start to warp the substance all out of shape. I don't care what's faddish in California this week, a theory of truth does not become "inflationary" just because somebody thought it would be cute a few year back to rename Quine's "disquotational" theory "deflationary". The Laffer curve folks at Stanfrod no doubt think in terms of Boom and Bust, but the true wit is with the middle term, to wit, "stable". Jon Awbrey15:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, this is much like the Mahayana folks imposing the term "Hinayana" (little raft) upon the self-titled Theravada groups. Further clarifications of these terms will, I think, still be necessary to achieve stabiliity. My admittedly quick research had the following result: the prime proponent of the term "robust" as an overarching term here appears to be none other than, you guessed it, Wikipedia. Please direct me to who has defined this group of theories under the auspices of "robust"...Kenosis15:20, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
What's faddish in California this week is some shit called Integral theory. I have deleted it. But, since you are not very fond of analytic philosophy (derived in part from Russel, Moore and other logical positivists), I take it you might appreciate some of the horseshit that passes for philosophy over here on the Continenent since the tragic failure to eliminate metaphysical bullshit from philosophy:
If you review the history, you will see that I am not the editor who re-inserted and placed this section. On the other hand, if Wilber has developed a strong audience, no doubt there is some proper placement for a brief summary of what he's trying to say. If it indeed has the smell of a pile of the physical substance to which you refer, then I imagine that would be for the article's audience to decide based on a reasonable summary of what Wilber is presenting...Kenosis16:37, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
"Indeed dialectical critical realism may be seen under the aspect of Foucauldian strategic reversal--of the unholy trinity of Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristotelean provenance; of the Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-Kantian paradigm, of foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic foundationalisms) and irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or psycho-somatically buried source) new and old alike; of the primordial failing of western philosophy, ontological monovalence, and its close ally, the epistemic fallacy with its ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in his actualist monovalent analytic reinstatement in transfigurative reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic claims for absolute idealism he inaugurated the Comtean, Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean eclipses of reason, replicating the fundaments of positivism through its transmutation route to the superidealism of a Baudrillard.
Much better than all that shit about causal theories of reference,isn't it??--Lacatosias 16:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm not a patient person. You have it all to yourself I'll check back in to see how badly it has deteriorated in a few weeks.--Lacatosias16:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Problematic paragraph
JA: I'm having some trouble following the putative logic of the following paragraph:
Some theories hold in common that truth is a robust concept. These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences that seem to predicate truth or falsity, such as "Snow is white is true", can provide meaningful insights into the nature of truth itself. Truth is a substantive property, just as red is a substantive property predicated of a barn in the sentence "The barn is red". The task for such theories is to explain the nature of this property. Hence, according to these theories, truth needs explanation and is something about which significant things can be said:
JA: I take this to say that truth is a property of sentences like "Snow is white", and that a sentence like "'Snow is white' is true" predicates truth of the sentence "Snow is white". So far so good. Further along it points to the analogy with a sentence like "The barn is red" that predicates redness of what I assume to be a "specified in context" (SIC) barn. Okay I think.
JA: Now consider the main clause of the first statement:
These theories all hold that the surface grammar of sentences … can provide meaningful insights into the nature of truth itself.
JA: Now, the analogy says:
Sentence : Truth :: Barn : Redness
JA: Truth is a substantive property of the sentence, and redness is substantive property of the barn. Does the structure of the barn provide insight into the nature of redness itself? Something seems to be out of kilter there.
JA: I will not quibble over the classical meaning of "substantive", but "truth being a substantive property of the sentence", like "redness being a substantive property of the barn", seems intended to say that truth is an important property of the sentence, in other words, that it tells us something about the nature of the sentence itself.
JA: Therefore, it seems like the proper statement is:
These theories all hold that the truth of the sentence provides meaningful insights into the nature of the sentence itself".
Important observation. Thank you. It was indeed compeletly meangingless in fact and also failed to capture the essential distiction between the two sides because it retinaed the problematic notion of properties. --Lacatosias18:48, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: So what is the conclusion here? Is the fix I suggested more in line with how you see it, or some third thing? The same problem of course affects the third and fourth sentences of the current introduction. Jon Awbrey12:11, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Robust theories of truth share the claim that assertions that predicate truth of an expression provide substantive information or insight into the nature of truth. Deflationary theories propose that the use of the words "truth" or "true" does not provide any such insight.
Definitional Introduction
JA: Here is one of the definitional introductions that we had back before April Fools' Day. The first paragraph summarized the etymology and the major senses given by M-W. A period of snobbery, arising no doubt from inflammed OEDipus complexes, seems to have had no lasting effect. But I think that this has the advantage of not instituting that X-flationary POV from the get-go. Jon Awbrey17:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Truth (oppositefalsity) refers to the property of a proposition or its symbolic expression as having a strong fidelity with reality. A statement that is judged to have the property of truth is said to be true, and may be referred to in substantive terms as "a truth". The abstract object to which all true statements may be taken to refer is also referred to in general terms as "the truth". In rhetorical contexts where obfuscation is a factor, honesty and sincerity may also be considered as aspects of the "truth".
In philosophy, the definition of truth has greater variance, and particular definitions or theories typically require or assert a scope within the human condition upon which to base a wider philosophical framework. For example robust theories of truth treat truth as a property —ie. a human quality. Others, such as the deflationary theories, suggest that "truth" is simply a tool of language with no further meaning. Developments in formal logic have thrown light on the way in which truth is used both in formal systems and in natural languages.
In aesthetics, it is usual to consider a much broader range of symbolic expressions than the ones that are contemplated in logic. Whether such symbols are properly said to be propositional in even the most generalized sense of the word is likely to depend on the theory of aesthetics adopted in a given discussion.
Standing beside these problems are the issues of how know something to be true. The way in which one knows that one has a toothache seems different from the way in which one knows that the Earth is the third planet from the sun; perhaps one is subjective, and determined by introspection, while the other objective, and determined by a combination of shared observation, reason, and calculation. Similarly, some truths seem to be relative to one's position or background, while others appear absolute. Philosophers have diverse opinions on each of these issues.
I don't know how many times I have to repaet this, but I am NOT GOING TO LET IT DROP. 1) Deflationary theories (no matter what you happen to think about them) do not ALL alim that truth is NOT a property. Paul Hotrwich's minimalist theory explicitly states that it is a property (but not a substantive one). Therefore, to state otherwise in the face of this fact, is to perpetuate falshood and misrepsrentation of the views of people you happen to disagree with. If you want to do that, GO ELSEWHERE, This is an encylopedia (purportedly). All of those definctions obviously favor certian theories of truth over others. That is blatant POV-pushing. Period.--Lacatosias17:56, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: I can't figure out what you think I think, so I'll just keep saying what I think until we both know. This particular way of setting up a volleyball net between all the worlds' theories just isn't a universal coordinate system, but arises from a particular "frame of reference" (FOR) and thus a particular POV on what matters and what doesn't in a theory of truth. But many people have long found many other dimensions to be of greater significance than the particular line in the sand that you appear to favor here. There is always a problem about discovering real properties of real things, properties that are not just the artefacts of one FOR or one POV. But that only comes from keeping light on one's feet and trying out several different scenic outlooks on the scene under view. Jon Awbrey18:10, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
The idea of a deflationary theories, by my understanding, arose out of commentary on the ideas of performative and redundancy theory, which are based on an analysis of the use of the word "truth" as a procedural rather than substative application of the word. Somehow I think not contrasting this relatively new classification of truth theories (deflationary theories) against the various "substantive" or "descriptive" theories of truth would be walking on very thin ice. But there's still much work to be done on the "substance" of the article; if it's that much in doubt, one of the editors can remove it for now and address this classification issue again after more of the editors have a chance to become more familiar with the overall discussion...Kenosis18:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: The way I remember it, there was a slippery slope descent from Tarksi's mathematically rigorous approach, to Quine's amusing exposition in terms of "disquotation", to this rather uncomprehending generation of "deflationary" talk, but then it's possible I was paying more attention to something else, so correct me if I missed something important. Jon Awbrey18:54, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: P.S. In case it wasn't clear, I made no move to remove the topic, I just don't think that it rates as the first substantive topic to bring up -- and I mean substantive in the nicest possible way. Jon Awbrey18:58, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Modulo fixing obvious typos, the pre-April 1 intro seems fine. It is infinitely better than the current introduction, which says essentially nothing about truth.
Lacatosias will, I assume, be satisfied if you replace "deflationary theories, suggest that "truth" is simply a tool of language with no further meaning." With "deflationary theories suggest that truth is not a substantive property." or something to that effect. I have no dog in that race, so he and the other deflationists can fight it out among themselves.
If we are agreed, please replace the current introduction with the pre-April 1 intro, and allow Lacatosias to fill in what he likes about the deflationary case. Rick Norwood20:31, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I want to presume that each of the editors will continue to gain a yet firmer grasp of the issues here with further discussion, further thought, and some further research. When enough editors have a firm enough handle on the range of the difficulties, combined with the expected due respect for the "customers" (the readers), it will, I should think, be possible to summarize the issues with more than a question (and it is an extremely good question for now, I think). To illustrate, just days ago, we were arguing about how to present what a legal and scientific "definition" of truth is, when in fact with a bit of research it turns out both of those disciplines have essentially chosen to abdicate the question-- that's something that needs to be said, not replaced with a made-up definition for "science" and "law". (What my brief research found thus far was that, although "science" and "law" use the word truth differently-- in science the issue is how close can we get to truth, and in law, truth is much more attached to presumptions of intent while someone is on the "hot-seat", but both have avoided dealing in definitions of truth. Both disciplines seem to prefer the use of the word "fact" to the use of the word "truth.") With due diligence, this article can end up more informative, so long as we don't feel the compulsion to make things up here just to fulfill the perceived need to fill in the gaps. And I agree with Rick Norwood that some examples of generic definitions may be appropriate (see Talk:Truth#Dictionary definitions, question about previous discussions on the talk page), even as I begin to better understand the reasons these definitions have been avoided. But any such summaries of the definitions must, at least in my estimation, be accompanied by an understanding among the participating editors of what the range of proposed dictionary definitions are, else it is almost certainly doomed from the start. Perhaps we could begin by making a list of various such definitions, and see what, if anything, we actually have to offer readers that might be meaningful...Kenosis21:46, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Excepting the archaic meaning of "loyalty" as in "I plight my troth." "troth" being an older form of "truth", all of the definitions of truth support the correspondence theory. That doesn't mean that the correspondence theory is right, only that correspondence is the starting point for everything else in the article. The other theories of truth either agree with the correspondence theory, deny the correspondence theory, deny that any correspondence is possible, or whatever. But if the correspondence theory were not the common understanding of the word, then everything else in the article would become meaningless, and "truth" would have no more meaning that the barking of a dog.
Without a common understanding of words, communication is impossible. The dictionary definition is not the end of that understanding, but it is the beginning. Some words, "triangle" for example, can be defined so that there is a very close agreement in what people understand the word to mean. Other words, "love" for example, have no defintion about which there can be said to be close agreement, but there is some common ground. Except for a word like "stroumpf", which was created so it could take on any meaning whatsoever, all words have some common, central idea about which understanding clusters. If a string of symbols has two fundamentally different meanings, then it represents two different words, such as "buck" the action of a horse and "buck" a male deer. The article needs to say something about this common understanding, or the article is meaningless and should be abandoned.
In the words of the first dictionary to hand, that common, central idea about truth is "truthfullness, honesty, the real state of things, the body of real events or facts, actuality, a true or accepted statement or position (the truths of science), agreement with reality, correctness". Rick Norwood23:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
I am not so sure the imiplications of the archaic meaning of "loyalty" are as obsolete as we may like to think. Fact is, this issue is one of a number of issues the more recent theorists have come to address more directly, by way of constructivist theories (loyalty to the king or other social structure to which one is aligned or dependent upon) and consensus theories (same thing basically but absent the king). Still I agree some basic definition should ultimately be offered in some form(s), even if it is presented as a series of typicals or a composite, followed by a qualification of where it fits into the theories, if at all. But, the other editors have already learned that this is not a simple proposition of just throwing one or two in there. For instance, I agree that definitions fitting the correspondence theory will be found the most agreeable by most readers, and of course explains the least.. It will be largely agreeable (and a definite POV magnet) because it presents an automatic intuitive graduated scale by which most of us assess degrees of truth as differentiated from degrees of falsehood, possible honest mistake, human error that no one could possibly avoid, etc. etc. And it also does not explain loyalty to the person(s) to whom one makes a statement under the usual presumption that the person speaking is offering some "truth" or other. And such a definition does nothing to explain how, when two persons disagree about a particular matter (such as the truth of the word truth for instance) we end up referring to an authority-based definition, which may be decided by either a "knowledgeable" authority with a hard-fisted boss, or by a consensus of editors in turn accountable to the hierarchy of the publisher and its most likely customers. Or, when in doubt about what the "truth" is in a particular instance, we can resort to learning what is the current "consensus" and ask all our high-school or college friends--of course thirty years hence the same "truth" may not be recognizable as "truth" by either ourselves or the vast majority of our friends. And I'm just very lightly scratching the surface here...Kenosis01:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Nietzchian, Rortyian, etc.. view of truth
The problem is not just that any simpklicitiv dictionary defition will inevitably take sides in favor of correspondence versus e.g. deflationat theoried of truth. The fact is it will take sides that truth exists and can be defined. At the turn of the centurty, Russell and Moore both adopted the non-delatonry view that truth is a primitive, indefinable, predicate. Beyond this, since we must necessarily bring in continental and non-analtic view in order to be balanced, it should be remebered that one of the most famous philosphers of modern times Richard Rorty has essentially adopted Nieitche's idea that "there are no truths, only interpreations". Rorty calls them desciptions and redescriptions of the socially contructed world (or something along these lines). I don't think many Rortians or Nietzheanas would be content with saying, at the beginnign of an article on truth, "truth is...." Period. But this is complete nonsense. Why do I even bother? After all, "deflatiomay theories are just another form of robust theories (whatever that is)". Incidnenty, the term "robust" was used by Sir Michael Dummett (damned idiot!!) to refer to his own and similar positions in a paper discussion the deflationary theory of Gottlob Frege (one of his great philosphical inspirations). He took the problem quite seriously, as a deep challenge to his own belif in correspondence.
Dummett, M 1959: ‘Truth’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, n.s. 59. Reprinted in Dummett, M 1978 Truth and Other Enigmas, Oxford, Clarendon Press.
JA: Coming down with a cold after all that bouncing around the country, so may be a few days before back in the saddle, but be on guard against jumping to the conclusion that Peirce's use of words like "concordance" or "correspondence" can be modeled by 2-adic relations, as he will also speak of 3-adicsign relations as "triple correspondences". And see the Pragmatic theory of truth article, still a work in progress, for a caution on the distinction between real (good) and nominal (not so good) definitions. Jon Awbrey21:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Understood. I would like to see further improvements of that article too, (Pragmatic theory of truth ), so the customer can be referred over as needed. That's about all we had room to say anyway, insufficient as it always seems to be. Hope you feel better quickly...Kenosis21:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Newly inserted Peircian schema for Theories of truth section
I must protest at the imposition of Charles Peirce's schema in such a dominant position in the analysis of Theories of truth for this article. Peirce has a definite place in the article, which is under Pragmatic theory. This monadic, dyadic, triadic schema might well be determined by a consensus to be a useful schema, along with appropriate references to who developed the schema (which is Peirce, and about possible consensus I have no idea because I can't yet relate this to the article-- what on earth would a "monadic" truth relation be). But I believe it is a definite stretch of OR and possibly POV guidelines to impose his schema on the entire article in this fashion, which now attempts to overarch the work of all the other major philosophers. Again, I believe this should be discussed, explained to the editors, and if determined to be a useful schema for the article, should at minimum be consensused as such. The section currently reads as follows...Kenosis22:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
==Theories of truth==
Theories of truth may be described according to several dimensions of description that affect the character of the predicate "true". The truth predicates that are used in different theories may be classified first by their arity and then by any number of more specific characters that various theorists recognize as important.
A monadic truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject — typically a concrete representation or its abstract content — independently of reference to anything else. In this case one can say that a truth bearer is true in and of itself.
A dyadic truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject only in reference to something else, a second subject. Most commonly, the auxiliary subject is either an object, an interpreter, or a language to which the representation bears some relation.
A triadic truth predicate is one that applies to its main subject only in reference to a second and a third subject. For example, in a pragmatic theory of truth, one has to specify both the object of the sign, and either its interpreter or another sign called the interpretant before one can say that the sign is true of its object to its interpreting agent or sign.
You are a bit late to the party. I criticized the introduction of this section almost immediately after it was introduced. Why didn't you speak up then? Things might go along more smoothly if editors actually bothered to read other editors comments.--Lacatosias08:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Several qualifications must be kept in mind with respect to any such radically simple scheme of clssification, as real practice seldom presents any pure types, and there are settings in which it is useful to speak of a theory of truth that is "almost" k-adic, or that "would be" k-adic if certain details can be abstracted away and neglected in a particular context of discussion. That said, given the generic division of truth predicates according to their arity, further species can be differentiated within each genus according to a number of more refined features. [citation needed] 22:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
JA: I thought I explained this already. This is a generic logical classification. It does not cover all theorists of truth, only those who begin with some kind of "truth predicate" or what is the same thing, who speak of relations between whatever kinds of "truth bearers" they choose to consider and some other kinds of things that they are perfectly free to mention. There is no need to impose any constraints or language here, but it is a matter of fact that most theorists pick words that are near synonyms of each other. I have mentioned most of the major variations that I know, many of them essentially quite different from Peirce's particular schemes. But as soon as you are using the language of logic to speak of predicates and relations, it's the logical next question to ask about the arity of the predicate or the relation. Theorists are perfectly free to reject formal logic if they want at this point, and so I am not talking about them, but a very large number are on record as finding a use for logical categories. One does not have to take arity as the first dimension of description, but it is a rather fundamental one. If someone can argue that some other factor is more fundamental, or even just more convenient, then that would be fine. But this is just plain logic, and all the terms and concepts can be sourced from basic textbook material. Jon Awbrey23:36, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Speaking only for myself, this should, if anywhere, be integrated into Formal definitions, followed by appropriate symbolic examples. The overwhelming majority of readers will get lost in that section anyway, and the symbolic logic afficionados will hopefully find that it explains everything once they parse it. Jon, you will find few more avid fans of Peirce's triad than I am, especially when applied to such events such as accidental and intentional misapplication of (should we call it a "sign" , a "symbol", "refere" "signal" here?) to the object or referent intended to be conveyed to a listener, who must also, even in the most diligent application of good faith, discern what is intended to be conveyed or misrepresented. And it would be extremely nice to somehow be able convey to the reader the various implications of these (at minimum) dual-triadic relations as they relate to the concept of truth. But I do not believe it belongs in such a dominant place in the article, because the very fact of putting forth these relations means we now have, at a minimum, two overarching schemas to deal with, one a logical format which is a derivative of the more basic I/symbol/intended-referent and thou/received-symbol/perceived-referent for even the most basic truth relations...Kenosis00:14, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Another thing, how are we supposed to explain to the reader how to make the jump from the idealized dyadic "truth relation" of the correspondence theory to the others without getting into the distinctions involved in multiple triadic relations, especially for the constructivist and consensus theories and such?. (They are not reducible to a single triad to complete their analyses. Nor is the pragmatic, which depends on multiple persons to complete Peirce's schema, nor even the coherence, which depends on multiple triads to establish coherence, but which can theoretically be done by a solipsist protagonist... This is already a conceptual mess to explain to readers after you get past correspondence theory. For the "substantive theories" section a simple reference to dyadic ought be adequate when explaining the "truth relation" sought by the proponents of "correspondence theory" I should think.)...Kenosis03:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
References
I was bold (well, boldish - fixing references isn't usually such a bold thing to do) and went in and made the references consistent. What I found though, is that these references:
Blackburn, Simon; and Keith Simmons (eds.) (1999). Truth, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198752504. A good anthology of classic articles, including papers by James, Russell, Ramsey, Tarski and more recent work.
Grover, Dorothy (1992). A Prosentential Theory of Truth, Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691073996.
Haack, Susan (1993), Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, UK.
Habermas, Jürgen (2003). Truth and Justification, trans. Barbara Fultner, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 0262083183.
Kirkham, Richard L. (1992). Theories of Truth, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 0262111675. A very good reference book.
Kripke, Saul (1975). "An Outline of a Theory of Truth". Journal of Philosophy 72: 690-716. ISSN 0022-362X.
Nietzsche, Friedrich [1873] (1968). “Uber Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinn”, ("On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense") in Jürgen Habermas (ed.), Erkenntnistheoretische Schriften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Rescher, Nicholas (1973). The Coherence Theory of Truth, Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198244010.
Tarski, Alfred (March 1944). "The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (3): 341-376. ISSN 0031-8205.
Williams, Bernard (2002). Truth & Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Princeton University Press: Princeton. ISBN 0691102767.
weren't actually in the text (this section was maybe being used as a bibliography?), so I cut and pasted them here. -Smahoney00:10, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Note on formatting: I used the REF tag to do the references, and since its always a gamble who knows it and who doesn't, here's how to do that in the future: just surround the reference in <ref></ref>, so you get something like:
<ref>Author. ''Title''. Publisher, Year.</ref>
where you want the footnote to appear, and it will automatically appear in the end. One advantage of this is that if the text is removed or moved around, noone has to go figure out after the fact if any references pointed to text that had been deleted, since they will be deleted with the deleted text.
You used the ref style and Jon Awbrey hasn't piped up about it yet!! Well, GOOOOOOOLLLYYY!! I had to rewrite the entire empiricism article because he and several other editors found this method of footnoted refercnes terribly "robotic" and "anal-recitative". I will say no more about those god awful "non-robustible, non-maintainable in-line citations of the whole source" in the hopes that someone will get us back to the good sense of simple, academically-approved Harvard style human-readable cites. You know who you are...--Lacatosias08:46, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
The new Theories of Truth section is way too technical, has little relationship to what follows, and introduces truth-bearers before it is explained what they are. The arity jargon is off-putting even to someone like myself who knows a few things about philosophy. I see no reason to keep anything in that section, especially NOT at the beginning of the body of the article --JimWae04:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
