Truth isn't dead. Truthfulness has been coughing up blood for some time now, though.

we agree on that.

Needed a new thread....


https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7335/on-bullshit

As I said, my article is about formal logic. Frankfurt does not address formal logic. This gets boring after a while. Will you please pester someone else.

my article is about formal logic — ernestm

No, it isn't. If it were, it would contain lots of formulae and stuff. I know that, 'cause I've whole books on formal logic, all of them with weird symbols. Yours doesn't, so it's not.

my article is about formal logic
— ernestm

No, it isn't. If it were, it would contain lots of formulae and stuff. I know that, 'cause I've whole books on formal logic, all of them with weird symbols. Yours doesn't, so it's not. — Banno

Who are you talking to? Because its not me.

Then why did you reply to me?

A performative contradiction.

because you clearly do not realize you are not talking to me. Had you read what I wrote, then you could talk to me, but now you are involved in further ridicule, I won't have anything further to say. Go ahead and insult me as much as you want then, if thats how you need to make yourself feel better about yourself. Good bye.

So... despite all appearances to the contrary, we are not talking to each other?

Odd.

Due to ongoing criticisms of your type, what I did was write a Hegelian dialectic towards a resolution of the issue from the perspective of formal logic, and you can find it, with edits to the intro as per criticisms, here:

Can Formal Logic Win the War on Truth?

Of course to make a more thorough answer, as it is not trivial, it is 5000 words. Thank you for your comments.

:up:
:cool:

And it says: pay attention to the justification of any stray assertion.

Good advice.

Philosophers have tackled the relationship of society to truth before. Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies is an old example, and more recent is Frankfurt's On Bullshit, which is particularly relevant to Trump and the general "post-truth" thing. — Pfhorrest

Due to similar criticisms of your type, please see answer below.

The news media has become very selective in what it states and prints and is politically biased - on both ends of the political spectrum. How are philosophers to solve this problem? — John Gill

What I did was write a Hegelian dialectic towards a resolution of the issue from the perspective of formal logic, and you can find it, with edits to the intro as per criticisms, here:

Can Formal Logic Win the War on Truth?

Of course to make a more thorough answer, as it is not trivial, it is 5000 words. Thank you for your comments.

I wasn't meaning to offer criticism, just pointing at some people who have written on the topic you're asking about.

I'm afraid your thesis lost me at the outset.

Simply put, Trump's 'war on truth' is simply that he lies, or tells half-truths, untruths, and distortions, nearly every time he speaks (or tweets). But because his words purportedly are those of the highest elected official in the commonwealth, and because he is an expert at manipulating public opinion, then of course this creates confusion around what the truth is. But there's only confusion because sufficient people want to believe Trump, and because there is a section of the media that parrots and amplifies his bullshit for political and financial power.

People often say 'Trump is just a symptom' but he's also a cause of this state of affairs. Personally, I think a lot of it has to be attributed to the failure of the public education system, the mendacity of the so-called 'right wing media', and the complete corruption, not to say debasement, of the Republican party. It's scary, it's supremely stoopid, but it's not really very complicated.

At the end of the day, the source of the corruption is probably that 'the 1%', through their super-pacs and influence peddling, really own the Republican Party, which is now no longer dedicated to upholding the Constitution, but in protecting the interests of the super-rich patrons who really pull the strings, through media conglomerates like Fox/Murdoch.

Trump talked of 'draining the swamp'. Instead he's populated it with new and rapacious predators in a way that would put Jurrasic Park to shame. And pushed the US to the brink of civil war in so doing,

we've definitely agreed on the education problem before, and we are both frustrated the same way.

What I try to do here is explain why false beliefs can still be meaningful, because during what I call 'the epistemological gap,' there are times when we do reasonably believe something is true without direct evidence, such as the sun rising tomorrow.

well thank you there is a section at the end which briefly discusses other work now. If you think of anything else Id be glad to hear it.

Yes but you're drawing a long bow. And you're appearing to rationalise Trump's egregious bullshitting, which is a red rag to a bull for me and a lot of others. In this situation, the fate of the nation is literally at stake, and sitting around debating philosophical subtleties about 'justified true belief' seems to me to miss the point.

I have commented many times in the Trump thread, that the rule of law is based on respect for fact. Sure that leaves a lot of room for debate - the whole vast area of 'interpretation of facts' - but when you get a national leader who basically says 'damn the facts', then you're dealing with basic venality and corruption, not some abstruse philosophical question.

I suppose I could add that every formal system is based on some assumptions which themselves cannot be proven - they must be assumed. But even that assumes a good faith approach to questions of fact - that we can all agree that left is not, in fact, right, and up is really not down. Trump can't even do that. So there is really no way to reason with such abberant thinking, it's irrational.

And you're appearing to rationalise Trump's egregious bullshitting, which is a red rag to a bull for me and a lot of others — Wayfarer

Can we take a step back a bit and think how people believe Trump's bullshit in the first place. He couldnt get to be President of the United States if he is obviously wrong to them, and he's not obviously wrong, so there must be some way he is finding to make the bullshit meaningful. That's all Im trying to accomplish here is to understand how that's possible. Im not trying to justify it.

there must be some way he is finding to make the bullshit meaningful. — ernestm

It's called 'Fox News'.

Trump's like a guy in a chess tournament who makes illegal moves. The referee steps in - and Trump has him fired. Then he declares that the rules of the game can be changed by executive order to suit his position. The opponent protests, so Trump calls him a cheat and a sore loser, and gets Bill Barr to investigate him.

Perhaps we need a formal logic 'on insults'

I ceetainly would appreciate hearing what you think would be the next thing to address on this. Some people already want me to continue the dialectic. I was thinking of taking a break from the depths to address the climate change controversy, now that the ARGO results are coming in on heat trapped in the deep sea things are looking really bad there. Most of the other stuff I drafted on my site could do eith more work. And I broke my wrist so I have to type with one finger.

‘Insults to truth’. Trump awarded honorary doctorate.

I was thinking of taking a break from the depths to address the climate change controversy, — ernestm

Excellent idea, and timely.

ok ) I dont think it would be interesting here, but I do plan to sit some philosophy courses again in the next academic year, and they wanr me to write things to get course waivers, so I guess I will back at it later.

↪ernestm ‘Insults to truth’. Trump awarded honorary doctorate. — Wayfarer

it took me a little while to realize how funny that is.

Traditionally, the short answer has been, no. And that is because formal logic concerns itself with purely the meaning of words (themselves) a priori. (Not to mention sentient Being... .)
One can move words around to manipulate meaning based upon context and get interesting results (contradictions & paradox). Hence, deductive reasoning v. indictive reasoning.

In a pragmatic way, as an alternative, I would recommend the approach of parsing the differences between subjective truth and objective truth.

well Im not sure if everyone agrees that meaning is defined a priori in formal logic, but thank you for the thought )

Unless I'm missing something, there's really no debate or question as to, formal logic= a priori.

But in the context of your OP, accordingly, some crafty politician's and/or otherwise common-folk can perform the usual linguistic/semantic manipulation of words in such a way that its truth/meaning is deceptive. Remember, you asked the question as to whether 'formal logic' can win the war... .

That is one reason why running for public office is not easy, on many levels... . Public speaking; character, integrity, honesty, et al. are important leadership traits.

Cognitive science would say previous behavior is a good indicator of future behavior.

Otherwise, I'm not sure how Philosophy can avert or eradicate the nature of human's viz Propaganda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda