IAI_Admin OP t1_jbf3d42 wrote on March 8, 2023 at 4:25 PM

After a career spent in the pursuit of truth, Simon Blackburn explains how the deflationist approach, one which demonstrates why there's nothing to say about truth, changed his mind. While truth may be found to correspond to facts, many philosophers agree that correspondence in itself cannot account for a theory of truth. We can try instead to assess truth in light of other things we believe to be true, meaning that fundamentally truth is coherence across all beliefs. But coherence does not exclude the possibility of falsity – we can easily conceive of coherent stories that are nonetheless fictional. An alternative approach is pragmatism, which supposes that truth is that which is useful, but this view also fails to capture the essence of truth as it cannot be guaranteed that what one finds useful has any valid relation to reality. Therefore, the question “what is truth?” ends up dissolving into another: “what are you interested in finding out?” Such an account renders the word ‘truth’ redundant, since saying something is true does not bring any new information to what had already been stated.

XiphosAletheria t1_jbf9mus wrote on March 8, 2023 at 5:05 PM

I agree with the premises but not the conclusion. It is true that we tend to define "true" as those beliefs we hold that are both useful and cohesive with our other beliefs. It is further true that those criteria aren't definitive - we can never be certain about truth, and spend roughly a third of our lives in dreams that are pure illusion. Nevertheless, the inability to be certain of the truth doesn't mean that separating truth from fiction has no benefit or isn't meaningful. There is a reason a society based on the scientific method ends up much more advanced than one based purely in myth.

[deleted] t1_jbfip0f wrote on March 8, 2023 at 6:02 PM

Do you mean, the inability to separate (uncertain, you admit) truth from (likewise uncertain) myth is meaningful, as borne out through a society's technological advancement? This seems like a nod to choosing a truth-position mostly based on its utility...

Well and to provoke a little, I would ask you to show me "a society that is based on the scientific method". I have not seen one lately.

If you admit that the truth is uncertain, but something like "rigorous justification" should be adopted within certain human modes (like tech or science), then it seems like you agree with the OP.

XiphosAletheria t1_jbflb1p wrote on March 8, 2023 at 6:18 PM

>Do you mean, the inability to separate (uncertain, you admit) truth from (likewise uncertain) myth is meaningful, as borne out through a society's technological advancement? This seems like a nod to choosing a truth-position mostly based on its utility...

Sure, yes. That's largely why we care about the truth, after all. We believe operating on truth will result in better outcomes than operating on lies (in general, I'm sure you could come up with specific tortured examples in which that isn't the case). But generally, we care whether X is true because what we should do to get the outcomes we want changes depending on if it is or not. If "easy access to guns leads to more homicides" is true, then banning guns will lower the homicide rate (useful). If it is false, then doing so won't impact the homicide rate while driving up resentment among those affected (the opposite of useful). So knowing whether the statement is true lets us pick the better policy.

And your comment, like OPs, seems to imply a false dichotomy between "certain" and "uncertain". But we have degrees of certainty, and saying something is "true" has only ever meant that we have a high degree of certainty about something, and that is still a meaningful statement.

Basically, just because you can be wrong about what is true doesn't mean that truth should be dismissed as unimportant.

[deleted] t1_jbfoy4h wrote on March 8, 2023 at 6:41 PM

I can understand all of that, but it seems like you would agree with the OP. There is no BIG T Truth, but there are many little truths and should be sought out on the bases of utility.

I don't think that professor Blackburn thinks the truths are unimportant at all, but he might say that Truth big T is ineffable.

XiphosAletheria t1_jbg8ifr wrote on March 8, 2023 at 8:45 PM

I am not sure that Truth with a big T even makes sense. Unless you are religious maybe, but even then the truth about the existence of God, although very important, would still be a truth about a specific thing, and so a "little" truth in that sense.