What is truth?

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
Your example does not refute the idea that truth is eternal and unchanging.

It is a fact that AT A SPECIFIC POINT IN TIME, that I was 20 years old.

Bill Clinton was the President, and now George W. Bush is the President. The fact that Mr. Bush is now the President doesn't negate the unchanging fact that Mr. Clinton was the President at a specific point in time.

I agree with you that it is eternally true that someone was once 20, is 21 today, and will be 22 in future (probably).

However, it is not eternally true that this person is any particular age forever. The particular truth about this person therefore changes.

So. is all truth eternal and unchanging, or just some of it?

Originally posted by vistesd
I was using the term “fact” to refer to pre-conceptual, pre-propositional reality, which may be an error. That is, I would have said there are facts, and then there are propositions that may or may not be true in terms of the facts. Can you define for me what constitutes a fact as “an entity”? Do you mean, ala Wittgenstein perhaps, an entity in logical, a same thing as saying “a proposition is true if it corresponds to (is isomorphic to) reality.”

What I was trying to convey in my previous remark--no doubt too concisely, and perhaps not very clearly--was that, if we hold to the correspondence theory of truth, then we have, on one side, propositions, and on the other side, reality, with the correspondence between the two, or the lack thereof, determining whether they propositions bear the property of being either true or false.

The problem, as I see it, is with characterizing what it is about reality that makes it correspond, or not correspond, with the content of propositions. But, once we try to say what that is, we start making assertions or assumptions about the nature of reality. And then the question arises: in virtue of what are these assertions or assumptions about reality either true or false? And then we seem to be back where we started.

So, if I say >, am I not asserting or assuming that [snow is white]? But what makes this assertion or assumption true? Perhaps the meta-fact that [[snow is white]]. But then, we could get stuck in infinitely recursive loop, without the correspondence theory of truth helping to extricate us.

Does this strike anyone else as a problem?

Originally posted by checkbaiter
The Word of God is Truth.

The only absolute truth is a fact.

Which is very far from the word of god.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
What I was trying to convey in my previous remark--no doubt too concisely, and perhaps not very clearly--was that, if we hold to the correspondence theory of truth, then we have, on one side, propositions, and on the other side, reality, with the correspondence between the two, or the lack thereof, determining whether they propositions bear the property ...[text shortened]... spondence theory of truth helping to extricate us.

Does this strike anyone else as a problem?

I've never read such a load of rubbish in my life.

Fact = Undisputable proof that the the statement is correct.

Just about everything relating to religion = Lack of facts = ambiguity = supposition and very often leads to war and death.

On the seventh day, evolution continued in a prediactble pattern, just lilke the sixth day, wake up and smell the roses.

Originally posted by Rooney Once a Blue
I've never read such a load of rubbish in my life.
I for one consider your post to be a far larger degree of rubbish.

Fact = Undisputable proof that the the statement is correct.
Not only does 'fact' not actually mean that, it is not possible to deduce undisputed proof for a statement's truth, except perhaps for the case of logical or analytic statements.

Just about everything relating to religion = Lack of facts = ambiguity = supposition and very often leads to war and death.
We're not talking about religion leading to war and death, we're assessing what truth consists of.

On the seventh day, evolution continued in a prediactble pattern, just lilke the sixth day, wake up and smell the roses.
Firstly, if evolution could occur after just 6 days, which is unlikely, it certainly wouldn't do so predictably, given that it is governed by random chance and environmental pressures which in 6 days would have no inductive pattern whatsoever. Secondly, what has evolution got to do with this topic? If you can't take part in the discussion and just want to throw out your views on religion in general (including the misapprehension that evolution and religion are opposite sides of the argument), start another thread.

Originally posted by gaychessplayer
I agree with you. "Reality" isn't true or false, but it is rather our beliefs, that are true or false.

Delete
I was going to disagree until I read your post a 2nd time. 😳
Kelly

Originally posted by Starrman
Originally posted by Rooney Once a Blue
[b]I've never read such a load of rubbish in my life.
I for one consider your post to be a far larger degree of rubbish.

Fact = Undisputable proof that the the statement is correct.
Not only does 'fact' not actually mean that, it is not possible to deduce undisputed proof for a statement's trut n that evolution and religion are opposite sides of the argument), start another thread.[/b]

Not only does 'fact' not actually mean that, it is not possible to deduce undisputed proof for a statement's truth, except perhaps for the case of logical or analytic statements.
You claim it is not possible for a statement to have undisputable proof or truth.
If you truely believe this then you are saying nothing can be proved.
If nothing can be proved it is not possible to quote a fact.
So, clearly you are wrong.
Here's a fact for you. Gary Kasparov can play chess, there is undisputable proof of this fact!


We're not talking about religion leading to war and death, we're assessing what truth consists of.
If truth and a fact are not the same thing, can yuo explain why?
I also find it comical that a thread on truth is posted on a religous forum, probably the most inappropriate forum to post it on.

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
What I was trying to convey in my previous remark--no doubt too concisely, and perhaps not very clearly--was that, if we hold to the correspondence theory of truth, then we have, on one side, propositions, and on the other side, reality, with the correspondence between the two, or the lack thereof, determining whether they propositions bear the property ...[text shortened]... spondence theory of truth helping to extricate us.

Does this strike anyone else as a problem?

Personally, I don't really see this as a problem for the correspondence theorist. I think this because, minimally, I would say the correspondence theorist is just committed to the idea that for any true proposition, there is some characteristic relation between that proposition and some portion of reality [fact(s), or state(s) of affairs, or what have you]. This, in my opinion, does not necessarily lead to the infinitude of higher-order "meta-facts" that you describe (though it could be compatible with it).

For example, we can consider the set of assertions {snow is white; it's true that snow is white; it's true that it's true that snow is white; it's true that it's true that it's true that snow is white; etc.}. Again, the correspondence theorist will generally just be committed to the stance that each member of this set bears some correspondence relation to some portion of reality. I think it's perfectly reasonable if he were to say that each member of this set bears correspondence to the same (singular) fact about the world: that snow is white. I do not think he is committed to a metaphysics that undergoes the explosion of higher-order facts -- like it's a fact that snow is white; it's a fact that it's a fact that snow is white; it's a fact that it's a fact that it's a fact that snow is white, etc. If you were to say (which I think, if I recall correctly, is something like your own view) that truth is justified assertability; and if were to then ask you under what conditions is it a justified assertion that it's a justified assertion that it's a justified assertion that it's a justified assertion ... that it's a justified assertion that snow is white, I would think it entirely reasonable if you say that it just collapses down to the same conditions under which it is a justified assertion that snow is white. I would not think that you were committed to some explosion of higher-order justification conditions or something like that. I'm not sure that's an entirely congruent example, but I think it is along the same lines.

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To vistesd: By the way, this is one reason why I don't really agree strictly with the terminology "isomorphic". As far as I understand the term, isomorphic implies bijective, which implies injective (one-to-one). But, as discussed above, I think it's possible that multiple propositions could correspond to the same fact (provided we view those as distinguishable propositions). This is one reasons why I don't use "isomorphic".

Originally posted by Rooney Once a Blue
You claim it is not possible for a statement to have undisputable proof or truth. If you truely believe this then you are saying nothing can be proved. If nothing can be proved it is not possible to quote a fact.
So, clearly you are wrong. Here's a fact for you. Gary Kasparov can play chess, there is undisputable proof of this fact!

Lets put it like this: We're looking at truth as a philosophical subject, not jut an everyday one. In analysing the truth conditions for the statement 'Gary Kasparov can play chess' you need to first be sure that what is understood as the intention of that sentence is shared between those whom you wish it to impart meaning upon. If some of those people have never heard of Gary Kasparov, or chess, your statement is meaningless, what is the truth value for a meaningless sentence?

If we look at how we arrive at a notion of truth in regards to something the remains an important metaphysical objection to truth outside of analytic or logical truths, in that observing one instance of something cannot meet any form of verification procedure. You need to repeat an observation to be able to say what the cause and effects were and even then you're only increasing the probability of such a thing by continued instances of observation. Have you ever seen Kasparov actually play? I haven't, how do I have a claim for truth? Do I take the words of others as true? On what basis?


We're not talking about religion leading to war and death, we're assessing what truth consists of.

You're missing the point, this is a spirituality forum, not a religious one. I'd say that truth as a topic fits this forum best of all, since 'Debates' is just full of racist claptrap these days.