Those who believe, receive
07 Aug '07 18:261 editI have been pondering the question of “truth” lately from the angle of its etymological roots in different languages, and how that might affect our understanding of the word. It seems to me that a number of posters thus far have used the word in different ways, none of them necessarily invalid.
For example, Yuga said: “I believe if somebody wants to find truth in life, you find it by living it.” Now, this has both an empirical and pragmatic flavor. But it also seems to make truth more of an existential, than a propositional, affair. This is quite in line with, for example, languages where the word for truth has its root in the word for being or reality—as in Sanskrit. Hindus and Buddhists are likely to speak of truth in this manner.
In Western philosophy, truth tends to refer to propositional content: a propositional statement is either true or false, and its truth content is subject to reason and/or experience (empiricism). Of course, such propositions are generally about what we think is real or actual in the world. This seems to be how darthmix is approaching it, from a more or less empirical viewpoint.
Interestingly, with regard to the English word, “The underlying etymological meaning of true [and truth] is ‘faithful, steadfast, firm’; ‘in accordance with the facts’ is a secondary development.” (John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins.) Ayto suggests that “it may ultimately have links with the Indo-European base *dru- ‘wood, tree, (source of English tree), the semantic link being the firmness or steadfastness of oaks and suchlike trees.” Truth, trust, troth, betroth and tryst are all related. [The Hebrew emet may also have the notion of firmness, steadfastness, durability.]
The Greek word commonly translated as “truth” is aletheia. Its root is lethe, forgetfulness or obliviousness (the English word lethargy also seems to be related); the prefix a- is a negation. The opposite of truth as aletheia in Greek writings would seem to be forgotten or unrealized (as opposed to false), concealed, in oblivion, etc. My lexicons also link aletheia with real, as opposed to mere appearance (e.g., a mirage). So, there appears to be a range of connotations—but the notion of being aware seems to underlie them.
The Greek word used for conceptual or propositional knowledge is episteme; the word for direct experiential knowing (unmediated by conceptualization) is gnosis.
The Greek word translated as faith or belief is pistis, which means trust or confidence. The verb pisteo is active, and does not mean to “have” faith, but—to faith, or trust. The English word “believe” originally meant to hold dear or to love; believe, lief, leave and love are all etymologically related. (Ayto)
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Thus, my explorations so far...
The question is, what sense of “truth” is one talking about? What sense of “believe”? After all, the Biblical texts were not written in English, but Hebrew and Greek (with some Aramaic). People who speak multiple languages have said that, at a certain level of fluency, one’s perspective or mindset actually changes as one begins to actually think in another language. Simple translations seldom capture the fullness of meaning of the original.
I tend to line up with Yuga here—based on knowing a state of consciousness that is prior to the concept-representation-image making activity of the mind. Concepts, words, representations, mental images all have the character of being “about”. They fall under the category of episteme, not gnosis. Our arguments on here about what we can “know” as “true” are generally epistemological (e.g., what constitutes a “justified true belief” ). From an epistemological point of view, I think darthmix is quite correct.
Aletheia, to me, seems to have an existential flavor similar to gnosis. One cannot know if one is not aware, if one is in mental oblivion—even if the unawareness, forgetfulness, obliviousness is due to an inability to escape from the distracting “noise” of the concept-making mind, or of one’s own religious/philosophical conceptual paradigm.
Example: Driving down the street, thinking about this and about that, wondering if what so-and-so said was “true”, and suddenly realizing that, in your oblivion/forgetfulness vis-à-vis the activity at hand—you have just run a red-light! Perhaps such a case could be described as a kind of “lethargy of awareness”? (Lost in lethe, rather than aletheia?)
____________________________________
I take almost all religious language as being—properly—aesthetic and elicitive. As such, its purpose is to elicit an existential response from the reader/listener, to aid one in reaching (re-collecting) that pre-conceptual awareness of ______________, that the literature often calls the “mystical” experience—what Alan Watts simply called “grooving with reality.” The descriptive aspect of such language is aesthetic, rather than propositional: closer to Beethoven (or Ravi Shankar, or ... ) than to, say, physics. The concept/image content of such language can be taken as either icon or idol. What one attempts to say about _______________, is either iconic or idolatrous. It either points to aletheia, or leads one into a labyrinth of lethe and image-bound belief: religion, narrowly construed.
Any propositional (or putatively historical) content is properly testable according to reason and empirical analysis. Just because the proposition is framed in a religious context does not exempt it.
For example, Yuga said: “I believe if somebody wants to find truth in life, you find it by living it.” Now, this has both an empirical and pragmatic flavor. But it also seems to make truth more of an existential, than a propositional, affair. This is quite in line with, for example, languages where the word for truth has its root in the word for being or reality—as in Sanskrit. Hindus and Buddhists are likely to speak of truth in this manner.
In Western philosophy, truth tends to refer to propositional content: a propositional statement is either true or false, and its truth content is subject to reason and/or experience (empiricism). Of course, such propositions are generally about what we think is real or actual in the world. This seems to be how darthmix is approaching it, from a more or less empirical viewpoint.
Interestingly, with regard to the English word, “The underlying etymological meaning of true [and truth] is ‘faithful, steadfast, firm’; ‘in accordance with the facts’ is a secondary development.” (John Ayto, Dictionary of Word Origins.) Ayto suggests that “it may ultimately have links with the Indo-European base *dru- ‘wood, tree, (source of English tree), the semantic link being the firmness or steadfastness of oaks and suchlike trees.” Truth, trust, troth, betroth and tryst are all related. [The Hebrew emet may also have the notion of firmness, steadfastness, durability.]
The Greek word commonly translated as “truth” is aletheia. Its root is lethe, forgetfulness or obliviousness (the English word lethargy also seems to be related); the prefix a- is a negation. The opposite of truth as aletheia in Greek writings would seem to be forgotten or unrealized (as opposed to false), concealed, in oblivion, etc. My lexicons also link aletheia with real, as opposed to mere appearance (e.g., a mirage). So, there appears to be a range of connotations—but the notion of being aware seems to underlie them.
The Greek word used for conceptual or propositional knowledge is episteme; the word for direct experiential knowing (unmediated by conceptualization) is gnosis.
The Greek word translated as faith or belief is pistis, which means trust or confidence. The verb pisteo is active, and does not mean to “have” faith, but—to faith, or trust. The English word “believe” originally meant to hold dear or to love; believe, lief, leave and love are all etymologically related. (Ayto)
___________________________________
Thus, my explorations so far...
The question is, what sense of “truth” is one talking about? What sense of “believe”? After all, the Biblical texts were not written in English, but Hebrew and Greek (with some Aramaic). People who speak multiple languages have said that, at a certain level of fluency, one’s perspective or mindset actually changes as one begins to actually think in another language. Simple translations seldom capture the fullness of meaning of the original.
I tend to line up with Yuga here—based on knowing a state of consciousness that is prior to the concept-representation-image making activity of the mind. Concepts, words, representations, mental images all have the character of being “about”. They fall under the category of episteme, not gnosis. Our arguments on here about what we can “know” as “true” are generally epistemological (e.g., what constitutes a “justified true belief” ). From an epistemological point of view, I think darthmix is quite correct.
Aletheia, to me, seems to have an existential flavor similar to gnosis. One cannot know if one is not aware, if one is in mental oblivion—even if the unawareness, forgetfulness, obliviousness is due to an inability to escape from the distracting “noise” of the concept-making mind, or of one’s own religious/philosophical conceptual paradigm.
Example: Driving down the street, thinking about this and about that, wondering if what so-and-so said was “true”, and suddenly realizing that, in your oblivion/forgetfulness vis-à-vis the activity at hand—you have just run a red-light! Perhaps such a case could be described as a kind of “lethargy of awareness”? (Lost in lethe, rather than aletheia?)
____________________________________
I take almost all religious language as being—properly—aesthetic and elicitive. As such, its purpose is to elicit an existential response from the reader/listener, to aid one in reaching (re-collecting) that pre-conceptual awareness of ______________, that the literature often calls the “mystical” experience—what Alan Watts simply called “grooving with reality.” The descriptive aspect of such language is aesthetic, rather than propositional: closer to Beethoven (or Ravi Shankar, or ... ) than to, say, physics. The concept/image content of such language can be taken as either icon or idol. What one attempts to say about _______________, is either iconic or idolatrous. It either points to aletheia, or leads one into a labyrinth of lethe and image-bound belief: religion, narrowly construed.
Any propositional (or putatively historical) content is properly testable according to reason and empirical analysis. Just because the proposition is framed in a religious context does not exempt it.
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