I don't need a method to know I have a headache. — Banno

How do I know it is true you have a headache? how do you make your truth, my truth?

I don't need a method to know I have a headache. — Banno

Interesting response. As noted in my listing of the scientific method steps above, all of the data gathered in step 2 ("Gather information and resources (observe)") would be accepted without formal method. You'd just have the phenomenal state and accept it as true, making phenomenal states foundational.

Possibly the scientific method provides a basis for why we have these phenomenal states, but does not provide a basis to determine whether phenomenal states accurately reflect reality. That issue is within the purview of metaphysics, and just like that of morality, is not addressable through the scientific method.

As if defining a question can be done without knowledge, as if information and resources are not knowledge...

If I was being hardline about it, I would say that all knowledge comes exclusively from observation, and science as method is not in the business of accumulating knowledge but of organising it.

Sure, if the scientific method begins with a question, you can step back and ask where that curiosity came from, which is obviously from some prior observation and I suppose some hard wired rationality, intuition, and maybe emotion. But the question isn't where the method came from, but it's what it is. Otherwise, you're left with saying that every primitive culture engages in the firsr step of the scientific method every time they observe something. I would think it's a major step forward to pose a question for testing, and that's when you've engaged in a real method.

Otherwise, you're left with saying that every primitive culture engages in the first step of the scientific method every time they observe something. — Hanover

No. I'm left with saying that every primitive culture knows that shit smells and doesn't need the scientific method to do so. Even Sap's cat knows it.

That's all fine and dandy in theory, but then in practice how do you know when an hypothesis is untrue? You may say, if an observation doesn't match the hypothesis then the hypothesis is untrue or falsified, but how do you know if the observation doesn't match the hypothesis? You may say it's obvious whether it does or not, but how do you know whether the instruments of measurement you use work the way you believe them to work? How do you know there isn't some effect you haven't taken into account that is acting on what you are observing or on your instruments of measurement? In fact, you're never really sure whether your hypothesis in itself is untrue or not, that depends on a whole bunch of other hypotheses you make unconsciously when making an observation.

Scientists use the theory of general relativity. Some observations about galaxies do not match the theory. Is it because the theory is untrue, or because of something they haven't taken into account? They went with the second option, they believe there is something they don't see, which they call dark matter, that is acting on the galaxies they see. They tried to detect it in other ways, they devised some huge experiments, and they still haven't found it. Is it because this dark matter doesn't exist, or because it has properties that makes it undetectable to the experiments carried out up to now? In fact if we never detect it, we can never really be sure whether it's because it doesn't exist or because we haven't yet conducted an experiment that can detect it. The range of possibilities is infinite, we can never rule them all out. So we end up realizing that science doesn't deal with truth or even probabilities, if we're being honest we're never really sure about anything, we can't prove a theory is true and we can't prove it is false. The prize at the end of the scientific inquiry is not truth, it's just the ability to predict the future to some extent.

What's truth even? It's absolute certainty, something you can hold onto no matter what, but what fits that description? Scientific laws have a limited applicability, they're only laws as long as we blind ourselves to a whole bunch of observations and experiences that don't fit them. Maybe there is no such thing as absolute certainty. Maybe you're not just a passive being subjected to absolute laws, but a being that has the power to bring about change in the way you desire. The quest for truth seems like the quest of the individual who feels powerless and desperately needs to hang onto something to feel a bit safe.

Underpinning the article, as I read it, is the idea that science is historically conditioned. Within an era, you get the certainty that "fits" with the epistemology of that era.Trans-era, not so much, and the common understanding, common practice, is for us to simply call them wrong. Which presupposes that there is a right. Which is in fact a deep presupposition of this era and most of the people in it, except perhaps for the Bannos among us who have lived, read, and thought long and sometimes hard enough to know it just isn't that simple.

Today folks like the "scientific method" even without considering that what that is is arguable. But with respect to the questions it asks and the answers it gets that it finds acceptable, you get a kind of certainty. But a scientific method of all the "methods" of history - never mind all the possible methods of history? The best that can be done with that is to research so one may say that, at such-and-such time in history, this person or these people held these beliefs that constituted the science of their time.

Nor is this a matter of great long periods of time, or civilizations isolated from each other. At the appropriate scale, the same "condition" can be found in this family on this street, as different from that family on that street, or two different businesses.

People who do not understand this kind of understanding may well research different sciences, document them, and then pronounce one right - very likely their own - and the others wrong, the regrettable efforts of an ignorant or otherwise misguided group. A deeper understanding simply says that the right is in accordance with the criteria of the right that are held by the people establishing for themselves what that right is.

This would seem to lead to a deep and absolute relativism. It doesn't. Within the systems, there is right. If it seems wrong even within the system, then that's a system problem.

agree in total, the history of the scientific method is a long line error assumed correct until superseded, This also may be its highest praise that when shown false it easily lets go of the false belief. As a fact finding process, for those things that can be identified as fact, or so near fact as to be accepted as such, it has proved to be useful.

Absolute truth is most probably unattainable. The scientific method along with logic are the best tools we have to make sense of our environment and utilize the knowledge to make our lives more confortable. Falsehood, on the other hand, can usually be proven (isn’t that what the scientific method is all about?) Ironically, isn’t the search for truth really the search for disproof?

How do I know it is true you have a headache? how do you make your truth, my truth? — Rank Amateur

That's epistemology. The supposition in the OP is that the only way to truth is by the scientific method.

There's lots going on here.

Truth and belief are different things. Something can be true, and believed; true, yet not believed; false yet believed; or false and not believed.

Then we have knowledge. Usually that's taken as true belief with a bit extra, a justification or some such.

It seems to me that nine-tenths of the epistemic errors on this forum come from failing to differentiate these well.

Your point about the difference between my knowing I have a headache, and your knowing I have a headache, is most important. Being true is something that statements do, and since belief and knowledge are about truth, they are also about statements. Statements are things we do with words, and hence essentially communal.

While it is an excellent rhetorical device, the line "how do you make your truth, my truth?" will not do. If something is true for you, but false for me, then either one of us has mis-stated what is going on, or one of us is wrong. There is no "my truth" and "your truth". Relativism cannot be made coherent.

While we might believe that someone is in pain by an application of the rigid scientific method @hanover quoted, there wold be something quite pathological about doing so. Picture a man with a protruding tibia, writhing in agony. What would one think of someone who said "first we must define the question: Is this man in pain?; then we gather information and resources: google 'fractured tibia'; then we form a hypothesis..." and so on. There would be something quite inhumane in the lack of empathy of this reaction.

But observation is not the whole of the myth of scientific method. Science is a social activity.

Interesting response. As noted in my listing of the scientific method steps above, all of the data gathered in step 2 ("Gather information and resources (observe)") would be accepted without formal method. You'd just have the phenomenal state and accept it as true, making phenomenal states foundational. — Hanover

Cheers.

It's more complex than that. One's own phenomenal state ought be checked against the phenomenal states of others; do they see what I see? And doing this is already interpreting that one sees.

The world is always, already interpreted. Its' already theoretical.

And doing metaphysics would be a poor way of checking our agreement here.

I basically agree. The main change I would make is to clearly differentiate truth from belief. it's not what is true that changes over time, but what is believed. The Earth went around the sun before Galileo.

That is, I reject the notion that what is true is relative to the conceptual schema within which one works. And I would do this by pointing out that some explanations are just wrong.

While it is an excellent rhetorical device, the line "how do you make your truth, my truth?" will not do. If something is true for you, but false for me, then either one of us has mis-stated what is going on, or one of us is wrong. There is no "my truth" and "your truth". Relativism cannot be made coherent. — Banno

Point taken, thought it sounded cool.

Here is the issue behind the question. I put forward an idea for a workable definition of truth as, a belief one has, that one tries to act in accordance with. It was quickly defeated by the example that what if I was delusional. And I agreed. The point is, is there any difference between your headache and my delusion? We both have a personal truth, that we are acting in accordance with.

If we are to share our personal truths, are all we are left with is our ability to communicate them effectively and their acceptance by the audience?

What's truth even? It's absolute certainty, — leo

Well, no. Truth doesn't care if you believe it or not. Being certain is a state of mind, not a state of affairs.

Best not to try to define truth. Something has to remain fundamental. I suspect you know how to use "true" correctly - leave it at that. Any further theorising is just going to be confusing.

Is truth personal? I don't see how it could be. Again, what is true or false are statements, and statements are not private.

Absolute truth is most probably unattainable. — Baracca

So let's get long with plain ordinary truth. Like that this is a sentence of English, in a philosophy forum, responding to your post.

Doubting that would be absurd.

That is, I reject the notion that what is true is relative to the conceptual schema within which one works. And I would do this by pointing out that some explanations are just wrong. — Banno

Then you have two trues. And by what criterium is an explanation wrong? If you wish to measure their accomplishments, knowledge, and understandings by your yardstick, you're free to do so, and to pronounce wrong anyone who doesn't agree with you. But by "historically conditioned" I did not mean that I'm right, or we're right, and they're wrong, only that their fundamental beliefs are different than ours. And they don't reconcile unless one rules and the other falls away. But if we do that, we have more-or-less immediately undercut the insight just gained. As example, this from just above:

agree in total, the history of the scientific method is a long line error assumed correct until superseded, — Rank Amateur

Nope. Maybe superseded in your idea of a science, but not theirs, and if theirs is a time long gone, then never superseded at all. Why? Because this is a matter of the history. Your science - or anyone's - does not transcend the history. And the history does not concern itself with right and wrong, only with what is (or is not), at a particular time.

Why bother with history, then? Because a consideration of these as the history of ideas may just disabuse you of the parish-pump idea that your ideas are right and everyone else's wrong, or that yours are better, or of any ultimately questionable judgment.

Does that mean that they are better at your science than you are? To ask this question is simply to have failed to understand the point being made.

Then you have two trues. — tim wood

No.

Asking for a criteria for right and wrong is asking for reasons to believe. Belief is not truth.

Words. Keep 'em clean.

I feel we are now in violent agreement on this. Just passing each other in communication. Pretty sure I agree completely with you.

Then just how do you obtain to any truth - "true" - at all. You have no criteria? Then how do you tell anything at all?

Are you asking about truth or belief? Seems to me you have asked about why we might believe this or that, but using the word "truth". That is, "obtaining truth" is deciding what to believe.

And why would you think that there might be only a limited set of criteria for why one should believe this or that? I don't believe I have a headache because I have set out and met some criteria, but because I have a headache.

And which scientific test would you subject the truth of this claim to? — StreetlightX

The only truths science can be involved in are empirical truths and that too in a way different from what the OP suggests.

We don't find truths with science unless you call measurement a truth. What science does is generate hypotheses to explain observation.and these are considered only provisional.

Also the scientific method is a derivative of the broader concept of rationality.

If I were you @Scribble, I'd try to understand rationality or logic first and then take the step towards the scientific method.

Consider the postulate: The only tool we have available to provide support or not for the truth of anything is application of the scientific method. — Scribble

So the answer to this is that it is using "truth" to ask about belief; and hence it is asking what other reasons we might have for accepting one belief over another.

And the answer is that we believe things for all sorts of reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all. And that's OK.

"Violent agreement"! I like that, and to be sure it happens! The issue here, for me, is that most of us revert, fall back into, our usual ways of thinking supposing them absolute. But how we think is conditioned by what we accept as fundamental, whether as axiom (no quotes) or "truth." The word "axiom" acknowledges its own provisional nature. whether or not the system it supports is understood to be provisional or not. Indeed we can laugh and say at some point in an argument something like, "Well, if the law of non-contradiction holds...." Yet what ultimately underpins the law of non-contradiction? Only that it holds because it had better hold! And truth generally does not acknowledge its own provisional nature. ("I read it on the internet, so it must be true.)

The point is that we set sail on beliefs we hold true, and fundamental beliefs so deep we're almost never aware of them, but operate with as if they were true. But for all the sailing we do, and storms weather, and harbors safely gain, still, it's sailing, and the "ground" we stand on is just no ground at all, but perhaps some 3/8ths-inch cedar planks artfully fitted and locked together. (See Moby Dick, chapter 60, The Line.)

We ought also consider the converse: as well as asking when it is reasonable to believe, we ought ask when it is reasonable to doubt.

Yet what ultimately underpins the law of non-contradiction? Only that it holds because it had better hold! — tim wood

Not at all. If you find yourself inclined to accept a contradiction, you're saying it wrong. Take another look.

And truth generally does not acknowledge its own provisional nature. — tim wood

It's belief that is provisional, not truth.

Sure, truth, and God alone knows it, But how do you know it? By two truths I mean that which functions in your "culture" or society as truth, and the unattainable truth you seem to be referencing. The former stands easily as truth; it passes all the criteriological tests you can apply, no aspect of mere belief to it. But, your tests taken as a whole, what are they but an island universe of truth. Babylonians, Hittites, the people next door, Samis, Eskimos, your great-great-grandchildren: did they, do they, will they, inhabit your world of axioms and fundamental presuppositions? Why should they?

that’s not twosorts of truth. That’s truth and belief.