Imagine that truth as actuality is closer to the heart of the matter. The truth of statements is the oddity of language use and the conundrums that arise there are the result of missing the use of metaphor.
What's wrong with "Truth is actuality?" Why doesn't this work?
What's wrong with "Truth is actuality?" Why doesn't this work? — Mongrel
I'm saying that understanding the cultural mileau of the issue of truth requires understanding stuff like the legacy of Descartes, how indirect realism is assumed by scientists, and catching sight of the high-wire act of Fools trying to avoid Nihilism that characterizes contemporary life.
In other words, the stakes are a lot higher than they might seem to be on casual observation. It's all Philosophy of Mind. Is the universe alive? Or is it dead and our intuitions about ourselves.. just illusions? — Mongrel
That's a restatement of the correspondence theory of truth. It's discussed here in detail, with all the various arguments for and against: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/#5
In your formulation, you will need to define "actuality," which you've equated to truth. Is it something as it is, unmediated by the perceiver, and what would that look like? — Hanover
I'm curious; what difference does it make? Is there something special about the word "truth"? If you want to talk about what happens then talk about what happens. If you want to talk about a statement that describes what happens then talk about a statement that describes what happens. You don't even need to bring up "truth" at all. — Michael
I do agree. The next bit of my journey is to see whether there's anything in the suggestion that this is rather like what Heidegger was worrying about. With 'being' for 'actuality'. Wouldn't you say? — mcdoodle
If some blah are mah
and all mah are grah.
Is it true that some blah are grah?
Is it actuality? — shmik
If you want to talk about what happens then talk about what happens. — Michael
"What happens" is synonymous with "what the truth is." If you tell me what happened and tell you that something else actually happened, then our dispute is over what happened, which is a dispute over the truth. — Hanover
Sure I do. Snake oil salesmen, politicians, and my own tendency to believe my own bullshit require me to focus on it.
Philosophically, it shows up when we ponder the workings of the mind. — Mongrel
No, it's not correspondence. I'm saying truth is the object of knowledge (or potentially the object of it) as opposed to a property of statements. — Mongrel
Actuality is the world I inhabit (as opposed to some other possible world). Apriori, all the parts of this world have to relate to one another in some way, so actuality is, in a sense, all there is from beginning to end. — Mongrel
Gettier problem. Theories of knowledge are in flux at present. The problem is central to philosophy of mind.If your argument is epistemological, setting out what knowledge is, it's generally (although certainly not universally) accepted that knowledge is a justified true belief. That being the case, it's generally accepted that truth is an element of knowledge. — Hanover
In an external sense, yea, all the parts of the world have to interrelate.I don't know if it's a priori that all parts of the world must interrelate unless you are referring to the world in an external sense. Dreams need not interrelate with one another, and I don't see why it's necessary that actuality not simply be a dream. I'll acknowledge that we intuitively believe the rock we perceive is "out there," but that's not necessarily true nor is it universally accepted as true. — Hanover
You could say that, yea. Truth is the object of knowledge. It's actuality... what is, as opposed to what could be.What do you mean by this? That we use the word "truth" to talk about knowledge? — Michael
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