You wrote:

Fair enough. I'd go further. (I think) we're starting with the hypotheses that there is a reality; reality is real; and we're content for the moment to let a brick informally represent what "reality" means. And that "truth" is a word that we define, for the moment, as naming a quality that reality has. For example, in the same way (not sense) we say a lemon is yellow, we are, for the moment, saying that reality is truth (let's call it T1).


Still same page?

Something seems amiss...

"Truth" is a term that names a quality of reality. Truth is a quality of reality(that reality has).

I was ok to that point, but then you went on to say...

...We are, for the moment, saying that reality is truth (let's call it T1).

This doesn't seem right, tim. It doesn't work with the above..

Reality is a quality of reality?

I was ok to that point, but then you went on to say...

...We are, for the moment, saying that reality is truth (let's call it T1).

This doesn't seem right, tim. It doesn't work with the above..

Reality is a quality of reality? — creativesoul

Consider his example: "the lemon is yellow". He's not saying that the lemon is identical to yellow. And so when he says "reality is truth" he's not saying that reality is identical to truth.

Although I think his grammar is off. He should be saying "reality is true". Otherwise it's akin to saying "the lemon is yellowness".

Well, orange is named after the fruit, and not the other way around. Place, some more ah-hem... hunter gatherer communities still identify colours with the things. "like a tree", "like a tiger, "like a butterfly" etc. Some, maybe an orange is orangeness...

I understood.

If truth is a quality of reality, then reality cannot be truth. Otherwise it results in reality being a quality of itself.

I'm just trying to be as clear and committed to meaningful language use as we can be.

If truth is a quality of reality, then reality cannot be truth. Otherwise it results in reality being a quality of itself. — creativesoul

I think this is just grammatical confusion. He seems to mean it in the sense of saying that being yellow is a property of a lemon. Does it then follow that the lemon cannot be yellow, otherwise it results in the lemon being a quality of itself?

Yeah, I dunno...

Talk about properties and qualities and comparing the two...

Reeks of yet another false and/or utterly inadequate dichotomy.

I'll accept something sensible but calling "truth" a quality of reality in the way that yellow is a quality/property of lemons seems unsustainable.

Truth is intangible. Yellow is not.

Yellow is a color. Colors are kinds of qualities/properties.

What kind/group of qualities does truth belong to with regard to reality?

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I also wrote "reality is truth." The real criticism - question - here is if truth, in Aristotelian terms, is a substance or an accident. In calling it a quality, I'm calling it an accident, and accidents depend on substances and cannot exist on their own. On the other hand if truth is a substance, then it isn't an accident, cannot be a predicate.

Before going there, it's worth a sentence or two on where we've been and where we're going. The critique of truth given by MU (as I understand it) is that it is always subject to, "how do you know?" MU's answer is judgment; our judgment tells us so. The problem is that judgment is ever-fallible; that is, it's judgment all the way down and at every level subject to the same, "how do you know?" — tim wood

I think there's an historical factor that ought to be introduced here. I'm referring to the notion of the hierarchy of truth, which is implicit in Platonic epistemology. In The Republic, there is a very important section called the Analogy of the Divided Line - there's quite good summary on Wikipedia here.

A general point is that in the Platonic view, knowledge of sensory objects or of the 'domain of the senses', generally, can't be reliable because the senses are inherently treacherous. But knowledge of mathematical truths are relatively more stable, because they are not subject to the change and mutability that characterises worldly things. The highest knowledge, noesis, pertains to the knowledge of the forms themselves, the ideal archetypes of things, which exist on another level of reality altogether. Because they are the origin or source of the things we see 'here', then knowledge of them is knowledge of the actual origin of things.

Please forgive my pidgin Platonism, I'm no classics scholar and only have a very rudimentary grasp of these ideas. But the reason I mention it, is because in the classical Western tradition, 'certain knowledge' relied on there being an hierarchy of knowing or being, extending down from the One, through angels, then humans, animals, plants, mineral, etc, as depicted in this medieval woodcut:



Of course, in the transition to modernity, that whole schema has been undermined or effectively forgotten. Hence the sense of there not being any terminus of explanation, or foundation of certainty for knowledge, as that, among other things, is one of the things that has become 'lost in transition'.

This isn't for you to understand or see; it is a definition, or hypothesis - a starting point.

The point - my point - is to attempt to ground the meaning of the word "truth" in something secure and unequivocal. If truth just is reality, per definition, then, it seems to me, the only attack possible on truth is to attack reality. — tim wood

You can define a word however you please, but if it's not a good representation of how the word is used, then what good is that definition? In other words, if you want to talk about what truth is then we should refer to the way that the word is used, the thing which is referred to by "truth", not some made up thing. If you just make up a definition, then truth will be just that, whatever you've made up. But what kind of truth is that, one you can just make up?

And because I assert it, it needs no justification. — tim wood

See, what kind of truth is this? This is what truth is, and I don't need to justify this, because I assert it, this is truth.

Do you challenge that hypothesis? My hypothesis is that, "there is a reality; reality is real." Are you arguing that it is not the case that there is a reality, or that there is a reality, but that it is not real? It must be one of these, else why mention it? — tim wood

My challenge is this, if it is a hypothesis, "there is a reality", as you claim, then what justifies your claim that it is truth. In order that a hypothesis be recognized as truth, it must be justified. So yes, I challenge your hypothesis, "there is a reality". In order that reality is truth, your hypothesis must be justified or we risk the possibility that there is no such thing as truth. Are you prepared to proceed on an unjustified hypothesis, defining "truth" accordingly, but risking the possibility that there is no such thing as truth, due to the possible failure of your hypothesis?

But maybe we have to start with more primitive notions. Answer yes or no: Is there reality? Is there knowledge? — tim wood

I believe there is reality, and I believe that there is knowledge. But if I claim that reality is truth, as you do, then I must have certainty in my belief that there is reality. If I have certainty in my belief, then I ought to be able to justify this certainty, or else the certainty is just an illusion, false certainty. That's why I asked you for justification, because you have claimed that reality is truth, implying that reality is a certainty for you. So if it's a certainty for you, you ought to be able to justify it, and make it a certainty for me.

I also wrote "reality is truth." — tim wood

Another point, and to draw on another philosophical tradition, namely, Vedanta (Hinduism). There is a lovely word in that tradition, namely, Sat-Chit-Ananda ( सच्चितानन्द ) which denotes 'being-mind-bliss'.

sat (सत्): In Sanskrit sat means "being, existing", "living, lasting, enduring", "real, actual", "true, good, right", "beautiful, wise, venerable, honest", or "that which really is, existence, essence, true being, really existent, good, true".

cit (चित्): means "to perceive, fix mind on", "to understand, comprehend, know", "to form an idea in the mind, be conscious of, think, reflect upon". Often translated as "consciousness" or simply "mind".

ānanda (आनन्द):[means "happiness, joy, enjoyment, sensual pleasure", "pure happiness, one of three attributes of Atman or Brahman in the Vedanta philosophy". Frequently translated as "bliss".


The point is, in this tradition (and its cognates), 'reality', 'truth' and 'being' are in some fundamental way inseparable; to know something is to be at one with it. To know 'what is', is to be at one with it, but this is an existential state or condition, rather than propositional knowledge, as such.

Similarly, in Aristotle, the notion of an 'intelligible object' is that when one knows such an object:

in thinking, the intelligible object or form is present in the intellect, and thinking itself is the identification of the intellect with this intelligible.

Lloyd Gerson, Platonism vs Naturalism.

Whilst Aristotelean and Hindu philosophies are worlds apart, this sense of the 'union of knower and known' can be found in both, primarily because it is an aspect of most pre-modern philosophies.

Whereas, the problem for modern philosophy is that 'thinking' is one thing, 'the object' another; 'the world' is one thing, 'the subject' another. There is nowhere any sense of ground or basis in the relentless march of science, which no longer deals in eternal laws, but only 'falsifiable hypotheses'.

I'm unsure if you've made an error at all tim. I want to say here that I have no problem with granting another's conceptual(linguistic) framework and seeing it through. I mean, there is no other way to understand an unfamiliar position. Yours is unfamiliar to me.

So...

I'm struggling to understand the parallel between "truth" being a quality of reality and yellow being a quality of lemons.

"Truth", if it is the name of a quality that reality has then it would be a sensible parallel to draw. I mean, "yellow" is the name of a quality that lemons have.

Is that rendering acceptable to you?

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Reality is what each of us experience. It is a process, not a thing. Similarly, knowledge is an accumulation of experiences. It is a process, not a thing.

Hence, as processes, reality and knowledge are continuously evolving (changing) and are subject to interactions/processes of each individual. To embrace such a model is to believe in it. It is not a concrete thing. It is subject to evolving experiences.

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Knowledge, different from truth, has its needs (stability one of them), that are not truth's. An example may settle the point: I have on a mountain ridge in fog and mists completely misunderstood what I was looking at. What I thought was the lodge, our goal, a kilometer distant turned out to be a rock about 150 meters away. I knew it was the lodge, until the wind blew some of the mist away. But it was never true.

You might argue that this is exactly the senses being treacherous (true, with respect to knowledge), but I would argue back that the senses gave true report; rather it was my understanding that failed in supposing what I saw provided enough data for me to draw a conclusion. That conclusion was false with respect to the facts - but true with respect to the information I had. — tim wood

There is a stock example in Indian philosophy of 'mistaking a rope for a snake'. The analogy is used to illustrate that we misunderstand what we're looking at, in a similar way to your example. I'm sure proponents of that argument would contend that you did not, in fact, know that the rock was the lodge; that you thought it was, but were mistaken about it. It was, therefore, a mistaken belief, based on sense-impression combined with your expectation of what you were wanting to see.

I suspect it is a major cultural flaw (and personal), no doubt incubated in the expectations of science, to wait to be told what is, when at some point each of us needs to actively participate in that investigation. — tim wood

It's more that scientific method assumes the separation or detachment of observer from object; 'brackets out' the observer, so to speak. Which is all well and good, for a certain class of observations, but which is problematic in other respects, because we're not, actually, separate from, or outside of, life or reality as a whole. That sense of otherness or separateness is something that I think is characteristic of modernism as a mode of being.

You're simply conflating 'this is truly my belief' with 'this is a true belief'.

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Or is it, for a moment, while the error stands? Not as a matter of knowledge: but as truth is prior to knowledge, so as a matter of truth. — tim wood

Well, if you've said that, you've fallen into the pit of relativism, solipsism, and various other isms, none of them healthy. Surely any proposition concerning either truth or knowledge, has to be grounded in what really is the case.

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They're all good questions.

Is experience a kind of proposition? Well, I would have said not, a proposition is by definition a verbal statement. I suppose you could say, if someone comes at you brandishing a weapon, that they're proposing to attack you, but I would have thought that for it to be actually 'a proposition', it would be more along the lines of 'Let's say we go and attack person X' rather than the act itself.

But the nature of 'experience' is again one of those kinds of questions that sounds obvious, but really isn't. The scientific method constrains what constitutes 'experience', in the sense of requiring that empirical observations be replicable in the third person (notwithstanding the so-called 'replication crisis'). That rules out a lot of what we would like to call 'experience', in that unless it's an 'experience' that can be described in third-person terms, then it is deprecated.

But what constitutes 'knowledge', is, again, a subject that receives a lot of attention in Plato's dialogues. Interestingly, the Theaetetus, which is mainly concerned with those questions, is quite inconclusive; many of the dialogues end in aporia, questions without answers.

If, knowing that it's really a rope, I still claim it's a snake, then that's crazy. But before I know? — tim wood

before you know, you have a belief, which turns out to be false. If we both saw the same thing, and you said, 'it's a snake'., and I said a rope, then you would have been right. We can and do have mistaken beliefs about many things.

Customarily, it is said that 'knowledge is justified true belief' - which is true, although trite.

That's why I referred back to traditional philosophy - Greek and Indian. They both have a kind of sub-text or background, wherein 'knowledge' is inherently connected with virtue - Plato's 'knowledge of the Good', being an example.

The problem nowadays - and it's a profound issue - is that scientific knowledge is explicitly not concerned with any kind of value or moral normativity. The Universe is supposed to be value-free - most people here will say that value is subjective, something which humans project onto the supposedly blank canvas of the Universe.

most people here will say that value is subjective, something which humans project onto the supposedly blank canvas of the Universe. — Wayfarer

While my experience on this forum is not exhaustive, I have yet to witness anyone describe value in this way, since most probably consider themselves part of the Universe and not separate and apart from a blank canvas called the Universe.

As for me, value is an interaction between between me and that which I value, making it more of a feeling, the feeling varying in intensity.

Well, the problem is that the word "truth" in ordinary usage is simply not well-understood. — tim wood

I don't see a problem with "truth" according to ordinary usage. It's very clearly "that which is true", or "the state of being true. The issue with ordinary usage, where the problem is, and the thing which is not well understood is what it means to be "true". So the difficulty is not with "truth", which ordinarily refers directly to 'true", the difficulty is with "true".

It appears to me. like you think that you can bypass the difficulty of "true", by defining "truth" in some other way, which does not refer to "true".

My definition is a test, a hypothesis: can it stand; is it useful? Or does it fail, and why? As such it is not the conclusion of an argument, instead it is an early waypoint in a discussion. You object to it. Were it a conclusion there might be merit in the objection. But it's a premise, a for-the-sake-of-argument presupposition: objecting to that simply short-circuits the discussion. — tim wood

I disagree with this. A hypothesis, or proposition, which is a premise "for-the-sake-of-argument", is a proposal, and like any other proposition it needs to be properly supported before we proceed to the argument. This way the true meaning of the proposition, will be fully understood, and any conclusion derived will be fully understood. "Reality is truth" has no straight forward meaning, so it's meaning must be explained in a clear way.

My argument runs this way: given definitions of "truth" all have problems. Is it possible to find for it a substantive and non-trivial definition that is simple and problem free, even if the meaning is constrained as compared with the problematic definitions. I find one in regarding truth as reality (and reality as truth). The constraint is that in-so-far as reality does not speak, so truth does not speak. But like reality, it grounds, evidences, reveals, is; and in these, it is secure, simple, non-problematic. You don't like it because it's not the way you understand truth, but that's the whole point! Incumbent on you if you're engaging is to show where it fails on its own terms. — tim wood

I don't see any such problems with definitions of "truth". They are very straight forward, but they refer directly to "true". So that is where your argument clearly fails. You insist that there is a problem defining "truth", when no such problem exists. Then you use this as an excuse to produce your own definition of "truth". For what purpose, I do not yet know, but I'm sure there's a reason why you want to define "truth" in this way.

And as I said, the problem is in defining "true" not "truth". "True" is often used to mean "in accordance with reality". So the difficulty is in determining what is meant by in accordance with reality. If we proceed with your definition of "truth", in which truth is reality, then "true" simply means "in accordance with truth". You might claim to have solved the problem, but all this does is create a vicious circle, and avoids dealing with the difficult question of what is meant by "in accordance with reality".

You're simply conflating 'this is truly my belief' with 'this is a true belief'. — John

No I'm not conflating the two. The first says "I am certain that this is my belief". The second says "this is a belief which I am certain of". Do you see the difference?

Several questions: can experience (by itself, in itself) be true? Is experience a kind of proposition? — tim wood

Experience is a process not a thing. As far as I can tell, traditional logical syllogisms cannot deal with processes. I was never able to bring myself to read Alfred Whitehead, but brief description on Wikipedia which describes his process metaphysics, that is based upon the concept of extended experiences (I believe he was influenced by Bergson), is less dependent upon logic and more a result of creative intuition.

Alright tim. In the spirit of clarity. I've seen you arguing for an equivalency between truth and reality. That is why the bit about truth being a quality of reality didn't make sense to me. Then there was the comparison between reality and lemons and truth and yellow. I want to move on. In the meantime you've said to another what I took you to be saying from the beginning...

Truth is reality. Reality is truth.

That's a fine starting point. I'll accept that use of both terms. If they're not equivalent then it needs to be made clearer what the relationship is between them. If they are equivalent, then we can move on...

No rhe second just says that the belief is true. Whether I am certain about it is irrelevant. Saying a belief is true, no matter how certain of that I might be, does not make it so.

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