Contemporary western culture has been strongly influenced (to a greater or lesser degree) by ancient Near East, Greek, and Roman cultures, and to a lesser extent, pre-Roman native European pagan cultures. — Bitter Crank

I think you are totally right. It is the historical influence of the most powerful empires that has the most influence in the distinction.

Again, religion has three main components: belief, theology, and ritual. The theology depends whether an individual's belief system can accept enough of the premises for it to be meaningful. Ritual has been found Important in society, and even the most vitriolic skeptics find themselves wanting wedding and death rituals, because the ritual provides an important normalizing factor in situations of extreme emotion.

I don't buy into an "ID" as being the "base-level" of our self, as if there's some sort of primordial urge (ID) that implicitly supervenes over our conscience (Super-Ego), and then the conscience supervenes explicitly through sheer act of will-power. The triadic theory seems to put ethics as something over and above the passions, and seems to put practical engagement (Ego) over and above the passions/"bodily needs" (ID). They just seem to me to be equiprimordial. — Marty

It's not really about 'buying into' anything. As with all scientific models, it is only a model, and its value is in how well it helps explain states and events.

how can a blind person dream in images — Andrew4Handel

It transpires only someth9ing like 3% of the blind were never able to see at all, so most do definitely dream in images, and it remains possible that the others do have other parts of the visual system. But it is an interesting question, philosophically not really possible to resolve entirely.

Not now, but at the time of the ancient Greeks, there was less specialization, so a great deal more fell into the domain of philosophy to explain. Most commonly it is observed there was not the separation between 'science' and 'philosophy,' but many other skills fell in the same camp including rhetoric, politics, law, and to some extent medicine, all of which were taught by one and the same person, and the idea 'friend of knowledge' derives from that. 'philos' more accurately is described as friendship than love.

Well that's a much more detailed answer than I have seen anyone else write here. I look forward to seeing more of your posts :)

] The first sentence is the SUBJECT of the analysis which directs the investigation to the thesis.

The Kantian method and Hegelian dialectic are considered methods of investigation, so they doesn't really need a justification. Here is the wikipedia reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic#Hegelian_dialectic

The difference was, Kant kept exploring the same subject until he was sure he had the right assertions, whereas Hegel's method was iterative.

As far as I can tell, the bull was originally about strength (and capitalism?). Whoopdedoo! — VagabondSpectre

When stocks are going up, it's called a 'bull market',

When it's going down, it's called a 'bear market.'

That is why many bulls and bears have been placed around NYSE over the years.

They are considered to be in continual conflict, one winning then the other.

And, I learned, it is why the bull artist put the bull there in the first place. To encourage stock dealers during the depression of the time.

Little girls don't figure in it at all.

Peevish? lol. What I did was write a summary, as requested, in 1,500 words. Now comments are helping refine it, rather than challenge me on ideas that were totally outside its actual scope. The next complaint was that it no longer expresses my opinion, but describes the facts alone, so there is no way to make personal attacks on me. That is what I was actually going for, but apparently I am told that is no fun, and therefore unwanted. That I only regard as ironic, Plato's cave and all that.

Analytic thought produces a thesis. The existence of the thesis means that there is an antithesis. If the antithesis is also meaningful, then one can use synthesis to combine the thesis and antithesis and generate a more complete system of explanation."
I'm not sure what this means, could you give an example? — Hallucinogen

Sure, here is a simple example
analytic: what noise do animals make?
analytic thesis: dogs bark
analytic antithesis: but cats meow
synthesis: different species make different noises.

They are built on something that is sometimes called axioms (ie self evident truths), — dclements

I suggest you start by looking up the definition of axiom on the Wikipedia.

I actually didn't bother to learn the specific history of the girl, but it seems to me mostly to be advertising for the artist at this time, and of little other real point, as it has nothing at all to do with the metaphor for the stock market at all.

However, the impetus for art may be anything including the political. — Baden

I think the distinction is whether the art was created first, or whether in the case you discuss, the commission was first. If the commission was first, then it is craft, not art, which means that it is decorative for a purpose, in this instance political propaganda.

that might be true, but the model for it was Helios, which as I say, is why the crown looks like sun rays. What happened is that America WANTED it to be Liberty, so the Wikipedia correctly says it is a 'homage to Libertas, but it isn't actually Libertas, its Helios, lol. That is also why the statue is holding up a torch, which is the sun. They did get it facing it in the right direction, but some people have objected, saying Libertas should be facing the other way.

Yes, that does open a bit of an epistemological problem doesn't it? From Locke's perspective, the reason we have freedom of choice is because we have different desires, but it is not incumbent on us to act on the desires. We can choose to 'suspend' desire, he says. So the choice of acting on desire is what 'liberty' actually means. It's a bit similar to Buddhism. but not as thoroughly stated.

Perhaps what I should say is that we are free to 'acquire' property, rather than to own it, as a result of our choices as to what we desire.

Thank you for raising the point, it was loose wording on my part.

Perhaps the Hegelian perspective is useful to you. Analytic thought produces a thesis. The existence of the thesis means that there is an antithesis. If the antithesis is also meaningful, then one can use synthesis to combine the thesis and antithesis and generate a more complete system of explanation. I should mention, some feel that Kant does not use the thesis/antithesis/synthesis method in this manner, although he used those words, and they state that was something Frege first did instead. However I believe they are wrong in tat. The difference, if there is one, was that Frege was the first to indicate that a synthesis is itself another thesis, leading to a dialectic; whereas Kant simply was interested in stating triads of ideas with that relationship, rather than pursuing dialectical investigation.

The very first was by an Italian Leibniz scholar who are argued that the 'justified true belief' account of knowledge is pretty much a 20th century invention. She proposed that a profounder tradition going back to Plato has knowledge and belief as separate sorts of beast. — mcdoodle

I think a lot of modern epistemology holds the same. Wittgenstein also liked Leibniz, but I haven't read him and I don't know what he says about knowledge in detail.

I would agree that a lot of presumed knowledge is imagined. It goes into the problems with causality. Many people believe they know something because of causes that are not possible to prove in absolute terms. But to the person believing they know something, there is no distinction in their minds as to what they know which is true, and what they know which is questionable.

, I am hungry and as a consequence I desire to eat. Once I desire to eat, I intend to do things. That's why desires and beliefs are normative. — Marty

I think its a little more complicated than that. For example, as I am almost 60, I have no desire to marry again or reproduce. However, I still occasionally find myself attracted to a girl and desiring to court her, than feeling conflicted about it. For this the Freudian model makes sense, as in my superego I have no desire, but in my id, I do. Or maybe it is habit. I don't know, all I know is that the desire makes no rational sense but I still experience it.

Perhaps someone could ALSO replace the bull with a Picasso alternative



) good night

Philosophy is not exactly a collective correction and accumulation of a body of knowledge and belief like science; it consists more in an individual inquiry into how to live well or what to believe. — John

lol, I think it is exactly the other way around. But the classical thought section is not as popular as the Dr. Oz self help aisle. So if it were a matter of vote, I would lose.

I guess what happened was that the bull and bear I saw were on loan from somewhere, and removed a long time before the Internet started. If so, the new bull is very similar, but I haven't seen it, so I really don't have an opinion on the little girl, except what Noble Dust said generally, its exactly how I felt about the 'god idolatry' of Lincoln in DC, the mislabeling of the Helios sungod as a liberty icon of the opposite sex in NYC, and the 'workers building Rockefeller Center' ceiling painting also in NYC; and it's exactly what Hitler did to art too.

Very nicely said.

It's gone!!

The bowling green bear which used to stand where the girl is has been totally eradicated from public memory.

I can't even find a picture or mention of it on the Internet.

I wonder what happened. I can remember when I actually saw it now, it was 1985.

I'm in shock. There used to be a bear there. and it was one of three pairs. The pair on one had the bull winning, on the other side had the bear winning, and this one in front, which had them in standoff.

In this pair, there used to be a bear raised on hind legs. But I cant even find a picture of it like that on the web, maybe it was removed a long time ago. This picture is similar, I don't think its the same statue, but it shows how it used to be.

When NY first woke up to the sudden appearance of a bronze bull abandoned in the middle of an intersection, they owned it. — VagabondSpectre

oh. So is the bear gone? If the bear isn't there it really wouldn't make sense.

There was another example in NYC, which is a ceiling portrait in the Rockefeller center designed to present a trompe de l'oeil of American workers in the same kind of Nazi idealism that Reichskulturkammer sponsored. It was painted so the gigantic workers appear to shift their weight to a different pillar as you walk around. But I don't know if it's still there, the last time I was there was 20 years ago, and at the time the lobby was closed for redecorating, so they might have decided the resemblance to Nazi art was just too much to tolerate and destroyed it, I don't know. A lot of people didn't like that one either, it was very graphic.

Well, what I can do is extend their thinking to current situations. For example, I recently illustrated how Trump's idea of 'truth' can be meaningful in the school of formal logic, and I sent it to the board as an article submission. Initially they said they wanted it, but now I don't know if it will get published because people have objected to me thinking on the thoughts of others besides themselves. So I applied to go back to college and hope to publish in academic journals eventually, but its going to be a long time.

For me, although it was a little reminiscent of the Reichskulturkammer, I was really impressed by this sculpture after I saw it in person. Pictures don't capture it that well. I have to agree with the artist, I am sad to say, that the girl statue is nothing at all to do with his expression, so I can understand why he wants it removed.

But like most public statues in the USA, it still makes me think of the Reichskulturkammer. Of course it doesn't compare to the horrifying turning of Lincoln into an idol god (the government insisted the artist change it so the soles of Lincoln's shoes are above any onlooker's head)

Then there is the statue of liberty, which is mistakenly called 'she' because the word for statue in French is feminine. It's actually Helios, the god of the sun, and modeled on a version of Helios which is said to have been modeled itself on the Colossus of Rhodes. That's why his crown looks like sun rays. The fact Americans think of the statue as a she rather says it for me. Reichskulturkammer.

The problem with that, sir, is that I don't actually regard my own opinion on philosophical matters is that important. And while other people may feel their own opinions important to themselves, it seems to me, over the course of 2,500 years and trillions of people, most ideas have already been thought before. Therefore, for the benefit of furthering understanding reality, it is better to consider what philosophers have already written, rather than believing one's own ideas are somehow original, which by evidence is usually naïve.

I don't really think it constitutes philosophy. I just cite the two main examples why the USA doesn't deserve the rights it so arrogantly considers irrevocable. That's all

Well, that was my actual opinion, I am somewhat ashamed to say.

In talking with others, it appears I need to make a real clarification

while it may be your opinion that my description of the theory of natural law is wrong, that's nothing to do with whether my opinion is correct. In fact, nowhere did I even state my opinion. I just observed, from the perspective of Jeffersonian natural law, that certain conclusions about the practical applications follow, and if they are not followed, it creates social decay and reduces the power of the social contract. That was my observation, for which purpose, I summarized the thought, hoping that it would be understandable. Certainly a summary cannot capture all the finer details of the views, and I welcome any suggestions how to change what it says to make it more understandable and more accurate.

But its not actually anything to do with my opinion. I don't actually believe my opinion is of any real significance. I was just describing what other people think and made a new observation. That's all. The same was true for what I wrote about formal truth. For that I was called things like 'pompous' and a 'fraud' for which I really do not have anything further to say. I do have feelings, and being made to repeat multiple times why people should not be killed by people seeking a justification to kill those who are or might be innocent, even after saying I find the topic disagreeable, does eventually wear down my tolerance for evil. As I say, the point of positive law is to enable good, and especially was not conceived to justify rights to kill.

But as everyone seems so concerned with their own opinions, while looking to argue with mine, I will state my opinion. My opinion is that the USA is failing to demonstrate it deserves the rights which positive law defines, and the nation should be dissolved into smaller parts which do not wield so much power.

• After Trump's $48 billion transfer from the civilian sector to defense, the USA military industrial complex will consume two thirds of the discretionary budget, after including veteran's benefits, which is some enormous factor larger than any other nation, and totally unnecessary--while now cutting meals on wheels and arts programs costing a miniscule fraction of that, because they are considered a waste of money. it cost more for Trump to play golf than the annual cost of those programs quite a while ago.
• Also, firearms rights are enforced due to massive lobbying by the same industrial complex, and the justifications are flagrant denial of all independent scientific research on the topic. So now more than half a million have been killed with guns in the USA since 9/11, far more American citizens than terrorists could ever claim to have killed, by close to two orders of magnitude.
• Japan, on the other hand, has no standing army of its own, and only reluctantly maintains a small joint force in accordance with international treaties via the UN, which the USA of course wants to turn into another major military customer. Trump even tried to sell them nuclear bombs, illustrating exactly how much people here are so infatuated with their own superiority that they cannot even appreciate the attitude of people on whom the USA already dropped nuclear bombs. And Japan has no terrorism at all. Additionally, Japan banned guns, a long time ago, and more than a dozen shooting deaths/year is now considered a major national disaster there.

But that is nothing important, because I am not so arrogant to consider my opinion that important.

I do have some real respect for greater thinkers than me who can conceive far more noble ideas than my own, and that is why I write about their thought. Thank you for reading.

In talking with others, it appears I need to make a real clarification

While it may be your opinion that the assumptions of the formal school of logic are invalid, that's nothing to do with whether my opinion is correct. In fact, nowhere did I even state my opinion. I just observed, from the perspective of formal logic schools, the 'post-truth' method of defining truth as used by Trump is meaningful, but of little merit. That was my observation, for which purpose, I summarized the thought of the school, hoping that it would be understandable. Certainly a summary cannot capture all the finer details of the views, and I welcome any suggestions how to change what it says to make it more understandable and more accurate.

But its not actually anything to do with my opinion. I don't actually believe my opinion is of any real significance. I was just describing what other people think and made a new observation. That's all. The same was truth for what I wrote about natural rights. For this I was called things like 'pompous' and a 'fraud' for which I really do not have anything further to say. Thank you for reading.

Well, to me the discussion on the encyclopedia is limited to considering only mind/body dualism versus monism as being either mind or body, and excludes other possibilities--ignoring that Davidson did discuss other possibilities, and ignoring alternate postulations of the anomalous monist position. So I don't find its rendition a particular improvement.

Besides that, I recognize my description is a simplification, but in the context of presenting the difference between realism, idealism, dualism, and monism in 6 lines, anything I write has to be a simplification, or people who don't know it beforehand won't be able to understand it at all. I've already doubled its length due to various miscomprehensions here, and now the article is too long, so I am thinking of just ditching the additions and going back to how it was in the first place. This is because, what most philosophers seem to like to do is to stop at the first thing they think is wrong and then tell me I am wrong, without actually trying to understand what I am saying. So it doesn't really make sense to change things as they believe I should anyway.

Well I understand you saying that, as I am given to understand you believe truth is only justification. But other people believe differently, so I have to present their views too, because neither they nor you can prove each other wrong. So that's the end result, however much it does not coincide with your opinion.

So for example if we want to know who smashed the vase, and we're interrogating someone who we think knows, we might say 'tell me the truth,' — The Great Whatever

The answer is not what the truth is, but what the subject of the question believes the truth to be. As it is a question about belief, the only truth the person can state is about their belief, and not whether they actually smashed the vase. That seems rather obvious to me.

the person could have smashed the vase without knowing so. Or the person could have knocked the vase off a stand without breaking it, then it broke due to a dog or something without them knowing, before they found out it was broken. Then you get into questions if they were ordered to break the vase, whether they really did break it themselves of their own volition or not, which again is contingent on one's belief of causality.

Also I added the final conclusion:

When an assertion can be found true in more than one metaphysics, and whose interpretation is more unambiguously framed, then it may be considered to possess greater merit. Hence, in modern metaphysics, the merit of an assertion is considered more fruitful to consider than the truth of a proposition.

That is to say, reductionist theories can produce meaningful results, but they are only meaningful within reductionist disciplines, and thus they are considered less fruitful, which is why modern philosophers continue to seek better paradigms.

Here is the revised text, with new introduction and conclusion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Meaningfulness of Truth in the Post-Truth Era
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s been much discussion about ‘fake news’ recently, leading to renewed arguments on the nature of truth, In fact. most people are totally disinterested in understanding the nature of truth, but instead only wish to prove their own views right, which is actually impossible. This topic explains why, via examination of the formal definition of the meaningfulness of 'post truth,' within the context of ideas of truth in modern philosophy.

The Postulation of 'Post Truth' as Truth

One advanced thinker on the semantics of truth is Donald Davidson, who is an absolute anomalous monist (there are only ideas, or mind, or matter, or language, but it cannot be known which). Therefore, he states truth is ultimately undefinable, yet through our ability to reason meaningfully, truth can be known, even if people do not know that they know the truth. For example, people can know that the sun will rise tomorrow; but they do not know that they knew that until after the sun has risen.

Rhetorical misconceptions have arisen from this, whereby people state what they wish to be true as being true, then strive to find facts to prove that truth afterwards, giving rise to the ‘post-truth era.’ One famous example is President Trump’s recent assertion that President Obama was ‘wiretapping’ his phone. President Trump held that he was telling the truth because he believed it certain that evidence will be found, regardless that he had no evidence at the time.

That then is the complete explanation of how ‘post truth’ has become meaningful. However much one might attempt to dismiss such efforts as obviously absurd, it is not so easy, because of the complexities of formal definitions of what truth actually is.

THE FORMAL DEFINITION OF TRUTH

In modern philosophy, truth is discovered by evaluating propositions (the formal representation of equivalent statements). Before considering semantics in more detail, a description follows which is commensurate with the thinking of the modern philosophers Russell, Whitehead, Moore, Wittgenstein, Ramsay, Tarski, Carnap, Ayer, Strawson, Quine, Putnam, Searle, Mendelson, Kripke, Popper, Kuhn, and Davidson.

- Basic Forms of Truth

Across modern thinkers overall, there are three basic kinds of truth, depending on the proposition's type:

• Tautological truths within formal systems, such as mathematical equations. These are established by syntactic consistency with core axioms. The core axioms themselves describe the formal systems, and so truths of this kind are necessarily true, in accordance with syntactic rules which are themselves formally defined as logical propositions. These propositional systems can also define rules of deduction and inference without introducing meaningfulness and causality. While the truth evaluation of statements itself requires some semantic definition of ‘truth,’ in order for the statement to be assessed, the process of evaluating the proposition’s truth value always requires syntactic analysis alone.
• Empirical truths, which are determined via ratification by observation of material objects, states and events, as long as the propositions describing material states and events are logically coherent. If the observation verifies the proposition, then the result of the observation is the proposition's truth value. The specific and exact nature of truth itself depends not only on facts or data, but also on the epistemological factors relating the proposition to the material world in different metaphysical systems, most predominantly in the theories that define the relation of subject and predicate to objects, states, and events in the physical world. These theories add semantics (the meanings of words) to the syntactic relationships. 'Internal' states, resulting from consciousness, are also evaluated empirically. The nature of consciousness itself is part of the epistemology.
• Causal truths, which again first must be generally consistent within the rules of propositional calculus, so they must not contain any syntactic fallacies of deduction or inference. These are the most complicated forms of truth, because they involve both syntax, semantics, and additional rules. In particular, causal relationships cannot ever be proven necessarily true. They can only be proven not to be false. That is important because, in propositional logic, Aristotle’s law of excluded middle holds that any proposition is either true or false. But in the statements of real-world language, there need be no excluded middle, hence, proving that a statement of cause is not false does not imply that it is necessarily true. Metaphysical factors also influence the relation of the subject and predicate's in the cause, to the subject and predicate of the result.

- Compound, Scientific, and Contractual Truth

While these are the *basic* forms of truth, the truth of many statements rely on combining two or more these forms together. For example, most commonly believe they know that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is based on empirical observations of many prior days where the sun did rise, leading to the simple second-order deduction that it will rise again tomorrow. Logically, one cannot know whether the belief is true that the sun will rise tomorrow until after the event has occurred. But in most cases, when sufficient empirical validation of many prior similar events has occurred, it is loosely assumed true that the same future event will occur again in the same circumstance. This axiom of probabilistic certainty is the foundation of prediction in much scientific theory. The extrapolation of this axiom is the creation of the scientific method, which is designed to define the minimum number of observations necessary to corroborate a theory. As per the rules for causal truth, theories can only be corroborated and not be proven true; but modern science theory might still call a theory true based on the axiom of probabilistic certainty.

Beyond that, there are some other very specific forms of truth in philosophy. For example, there are self-generating' truths in linguistics, such as promises, statements of intent, contracts, and some statements of belief, which all become existent by their own statement. One should be aware these kinds of truth have limitations. For example, after making promises, it becomes true that promises were made, but the truth of the promise itself remains an indirect propositoin, and still must be determined within the rules for the three basic forms of truth described above.

- Truth in Theology, Morality, Ethics, Law, and Metaphysics

Much confusion about truth has arisen in these fields, but by the above schema, the nature of truth itself is relatively simple. Briefly:

• Theology strives to define that which cannot ultimately be proven.
• Morality strives to define that which is good or bad for an individual.
• Ethics defines that which is good or bad for a society
• Law strives to define that which is right or wrong
• Metaphysics strives to define that which is real.

In all these fields, the absolute truth of the assertions they make is undefinable. However within each of these fields, it is possible to evaluate the propositional consistency of statements within the formal systems on which they are based; and from that, to evaluate the truth of their statements empirically, within the formal systems themselves. But when different propositions across different disciplines in each of these fields contradict each other, it is not possible to evaluate which are true or false in absolute terms. It is only possible to demonstrate when the claims by each discipline are coherent, and therefore can be evaluated as truthful within context.

THE SEMANTICS OF TRUTH

While truth is the result of evaluating a proposition, the relation between 'truth' and the proposition itself varies depending on epistemological premises. So while one might initially believe the nature of truth to be intuitively obvious, the semantics of truth are complex. This starts with the issue as to whether one believes that tautological propositions are true before any person evaluates them; in which case, the truths must exist independently in some abstract space independent of material reality. That introduces the metaphysical considerations.

• Classical realists hold that Platonic ‘ideas’ do exist independent of perception, and truth is discovered by cognitive correlation. Modern realists state only external material reality exists, and abstractions are simply known by common sense (as a result, many modern philosophers refer to classical realism as idealism). Dualists hold that there separate domains of physical materiality and conceptual ideas, both of which exist, and some hold tautologies are a priori true (are still truth regardless whether they are considered). Monists hold the known reality is only physical, or only exists in the mind, or something else (such as Wittgenstein's idea of logical positivism, which holds that language is the only thing which can be absolutely known). Such different perspectives change what is actually known when a truth is ‘discovered.’ For example, deflationary theorists extrapolate from theories of logical positivism to hold that truth by correlation is all that exists, leading skeptics to the popular modern idea of truth nihilism.
• Regardless how and whether propositional truth does exist independently of physical reality, a priori or not, empirical and causal truths might be properties attached to the proposition which are not ‘discovered,’ but rather ‘assessed.’ These latter cases introduce the meaningfulness of incorrect assessments, and how exactly something can be meaningful if its truth is beyond simple binary evaluation, such as for example, statements which refer to non-existent objects or which contain metaphors.
• There are also three main separate positions on causality. Some hold that there is no causality without intent, and that it is otherwise simply a logical inference or deduction, because there is no intent in material world, but rather it simply happens automatically. The second main position is that intent does not really exist either, but is only an apparent phenomena created by the physical workings of the world. The third main group say one or both of those ideas are reductionist, and so do not give any meaning to the word 'because.' The different positions on intent may also influence truth evaluation of empirical observations on internal states, such as feelings.

TRUTH AS OPINION
AND THE MERITS OF STATEMENTS

From the above summary, it is clear that a great deal of dispute exists on the nature of truth. That is greatly to the advantage of rhetoricians wishing to persuade others that their opinions are true. In reality, most of those asserting that they 'know 'the truth' are not attempting to state the truth at all. Instead, they are only making assertions about truth to persuade others to their point of view. If pressed, they justify this simply by claiming their belief is true, which, as it is ultimately unprovable, actually does not define knowledge at all, but rather a religious belief (whether they themselves acknowledge the existence of religion or not).

With sufficient qualification as to one's preferred metaphysical and semantic foundation, it is possible to make statements that are true within context of that belief. There always exist alternate possibilities. Indeed, according to truth nihilism, there is actually no such thing as 'truth' at all. So according to formal logic in modern philosophy, assertions of a person that some fact is undeniable truth remains an opinion, in all cases without exception.

When a statement can be found true in more than one metaphysics (and whose interpretation is more unambiguously framed within the presumed premises and resulting rules), then it may be considered to possess greater merit. Hence, in modern metaphysics, the merit of a statement is considered more fruitful to consider than the truth of a proposition.

In every single case of post-truth assertion, it is especially clear that opinions on truth are merely opinions, and no more. However, that is far beyond that which most people who ‘just want to know the truth’ are ready to learn. So as things are, we are likely to be stuck in the post-truth era for a very long time.

Well, I am adding one sentence to my above summary:

Most people are totally disinterested in understanding alternate views, but instead only wish to prove their own views right, which is actually impossible.

Which is not my own statement either, it is Schopenhauer's. And that, I believe, completes the discussion to cover all cases. Thank you for your input.

Here is the revised text. Thank you for indicating the format definition of truth nihilism.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Meaningfulness of Truth in the Post-Truth Era
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There’s been much discussion about ‘fake news’ recently, resulting rise to a new interest in the definition of truth. This topic explains why the controversy is likely to last a long time, via examination of the formal definition of the meaningfulness of 'post truth,' within the context of ideas of truth in modern philosophy.

The Postulation of 'Post Truth' as Truth

One advanced thinker on the semantics of truth is Donald Davidson, who is an absolute anomalous monist (there are only ideas, or mind, or matter, or language, but it cannot be known which). Therefore, he states truth is ultimately undefinable, yet through our ability to reason meaningfully, truth can be known, even if people do not know that they know the truth. For example, people can know that the sun will rise tomorrow; but they do not know that they knew that until after the sun has risen.

Rhetorical misconceptions have arisen from this, whereby people state what they wish to be true as being true, then strive to find facts to prove that truth afterwards, giving rise to the ‘post-truth era.’ One famous example is President Trump’s recent assertion that President Obama was ‘wiretapping’ his phone. President Trump held that he was telling the truth because he believed it certain that evidence will be found, regardless that he had no evidence at the time.

That then is the complete explanation of how ‘post truth’ has become meaningful. However much one might attempt to dismiss such efforts as obviously absurd, it is not so easy, because of the complexities of formal definitions of what truth actually is.

The Formal Definition of Truth

In modern philosophy, truth is defined by formal logic upon propositions (statements). There are three basic kinds of truth evaluation, which I here attempt to express in way compatible with the thinking of the modern philosophers Russell, Whitehead, Moore, Wittgenstein, Tarski, Carnap, Ayer, Strawson, Quine, Putnam, Searle, Mendelson, Kripke, Popper, Kuhn, and Davidson.

• Tautological truths within formal systems, such as mathematical equations. These are established by syntactic consistency with core axioms. The core axioms themselves describe the formal systems, and so truths at this level are necessarily true, in accordance with syntactic rules which are themselves defined in formally as logical propositions. These propositional systems can also define rules of deduction and inference without introducing meaningfulness and causality. While the truth evaluation itself requires some semantic definition of ‘truth,’ in order for the proposition to be assessed, the process of evaluating the proposition’s truth value always requires syntactic analysis alone.
• Empirical truths, which are determined via ratification by observation of material objects, states and events, as long as the propositions describing material states and events are logically coherent. If the observation verifies the proposition, then the RESULT of the observation is factually true, but the proposition itself without empirical ratification remains a proposition that is neither true nor false, and is simply an assertion. The specific and exact nature of truth itself depends not only on facts or data, but also on the epistemological factors relating the proposition to the material world in different metaphysical systems, most predominantly in the theories that define the relation of subject and predicate to objects, states, and events in the physical world. These theories add semantics (the meanings of words) to the syntactic relationships described in first-order logic. 'Internal' states, resulting from consciousness, are also evaluated empirically. The nature of consciousness itself is part of the epistemology.
• Causal truths, which again first must be generally consistent within the rules of propositional calculus, and additionally, they must not contain any syntactic fallacies of deduction or inference. These are the most complicated forms of truth, and the basis of science. They are the most complicated because they involve both syntax, semantics, and additional rules. In particular, causal relationships cannot ever be proven necessarily true. They can only be proven not to be false. That is important because, in proposition logic, Aristotle’s law of excluded middle holds that any statement is either true or false; but in real-world language, there need be no excluded middle, hence, proving that a statement is not false does not imply that it is necessarily true. Metaphysical factors also influence the relation of the subject and predicate's in the cause, to the subject and predicate of the result.

Compound, Contractual, and Scientific Truth

While these are the *basic* forms of truth, the truth of many statements rely on combining two or more these forms together. For example, most commonly believe they know that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is based on empirical observations of many prior days where the sun did rise, leading to the simple second-order deduction that it will rise again tomorrow. Logically, one cannot know whether the belief is true that the sun will rise tomorrow until after the event has occurred. But in most cases, when sufficient empirical validation of many prior similar events has occurred, it is loosely assumed true that the same future event will occur again in the same circumstance. This axiom of probabilistic certainty is the foundation of prediction in much scientific theory. The extrapolation of this axiom is the creation of the scientific method, which is designed to define the minimum number of observations necessary to corroborate a theory. As per the rules for causal truth, theories can only be corroborated and not be proven true; but modern science theory might still call a theory true based on the axiom of probabilistic certainty.

Beyond that, there are some other very specific forms of truth in philosophy. For example, there are self-generating' truths in linguistics, such as promises, statements of intent, contracts, and some statements of belief, which all become existent by their own statement. One should be aware these kinds of truth have limitations. For example, after making promises, it becomes true that promises were made, but the truth of the promise itself remains an indirect proposition, and still must be determined within the rules for the three basic forms of truth described above.

Truth in Theology, Morality, Ethics, Law, and Metaphysics

Much confusion about truth has arisen in these fields, but by the above schema, the nature of truth itself is relatively simple. Briefly:

• Theology makes assertions about that which cannot ultimately be proven.
• Morality strives to define that which is good or bad for an individual.
• Ethics defines that which is good or bad for a society
• Law strives to define that which is right or wrong
• Metaphysics strives to define that which is real.

In all these cases the absolute truth of the assertions they make is undefinable. However within each of these disciplines, it is possible to evaluate the propositional consistency of statements within formal systems that they define; and from that, to evaluate the truth of their propositions empirically, within the formal systems themselves. so again, when different propositions across, these disciplines contradict each other, it is not possible to evaluate which are true or false in absolute terms. It is only possible to demonstrate whether the claims by each system are coherent, and therefore can be evaluated as truthful within the context of their own systems.

The Semantics of Truth

According to all modern logicians, truth is the result of evaluating a proposition, but the relation between truth and the proposition itself can be different depending on epistemological considerations. While one might initially believe the nature of truth to be intuitively obvious, the semantics of truth are complex. This starts with the issue as to whether one believes that tautological propositions are true before any person evaluates them; in which case, the truths must exist independently in some abstract space independent of material reality. That introduces the metaphysical considerations.

• Classical realists hold that Platonic ‘ideas’ do exist independent of perception, and truth is simply known by correlation. Modern realists state only external material reality exists, and abstractions are simply known by common sense (as a result, many modern philosophers refer to classical realism as idealism). Dualists hold that there separate domains of physical materiality and conceptual ideas, both of which exist, and some hold tautologies are a priori true (are still truth regardless whether they are considered). Monists hold the known reality is only physical, or only exists in the mind, or something else (such as Wittgenstein's idea of logical positivism, which holds that language is the only thing which can be absolutely known). Such different perspectives change what is actually known when a truth is ‘discovered.’ For example, deflationary theorists extrapolate from theories of logical positivism to hold that truth by correlation is all that exists, leading skeptics to the popular modern idea oftruth nihilism.
• Regardless how and whether propositional truth does exist independently of physical reality, a priori or not, empirical and causal truths may be properties attached to the proposition which are not ‘discovered,’ but rather ‘assessed.’ These latter cases introduce the meaningfulness of incorrect assessments, and how exactly something can be meaningful if its truth is beyond simple binary evaluation, such as for example, propositions which refer to non-existent objects or which contain metaphors. Thus the semantics of truth are not so simple, and become involved with metaphysical decisions defining the nature of reality, meaningfulness, and the definition of knowledge itself.
• There are also three separate positions on causality. Some hold that there is no causality without intent, and that it is otherwise simply a logical inference or deduction. The second main position is that intent does not really exist either, but is only an apparent phenomena created by the physical workings of the world. The third main group say one or both of those ideas are reductionist, and so do not give any meaning to the word 'because.' The different positions on intent may also influence truth evaluation of empirical observations on internal states, such as feelings.

Assessing Post Truth

From the above summary, it is clear that a great deal of dispute is possible on the nature of truth, which is greatly to the advantage of rhetoricians wishing to persuade others that their opinions are true. Also, however, it is clear that such opinions are, in all cases of post-truth statement, merely opinions, even if one accepts the meaningfulness of post-truth statements. However, that is far beyond that which most people who ‘just want to know the truth’ are ready to learn. So as things are, we are likely to be stuck in the post-truth era for a very long time.