Talk:Truth/Archive 8

I'm starting a new section because the discussions above have become too hard to follow. As of this moment the lead section reads:

The search for the nature of truth is a major topic of philosophy. From one point of view, an understanding of the term, 'truth' can be reached by looking at what role, if any, the predicate "is true" plays in statements such as "'Snow is white' is true." From that point of view, such statements are seen to be evaluating the statement "Snow is white," but from a different point of view statements of the form, "It is true that snow is white" are redundant, it is sufficient to say simply, "Snow is white." (See the section on Deflationary Theories.) This is only one of the issues about truth that philosophers discuss.

It seems to me that everything after the first sentence should be deleted. It is simply a preview of one (of many) issues discussed later in the article. It does not server to introduce the article. Does anyone object if I just delete everything after the first sentence? --Nate Ladd 09:24, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

I can't see any value in the first sentence, either, for reasons stated above. Much of the article has nothing to do with philosophy, so why imply that the article is about truth in regard to philosophy? Banno 10:38, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

• RE:"Snow is white is true"
  1. it is not ALWAYS true that snow is white - sometimes it is gray, sometimes yellow - it is a contingent fact. Snow CAN be any colour at all - even black
  2. it depends on what the meaning of "is" is. Is snow white "in-itself" or is it (usually) perceived to be white?
  3. Does "white" mean "reflects all frequencies in the visible spectrum"?
  4. the earlier "3 is less than 4 is true" was less ambiguous, but perhaps packed the issue too tightly in one use of "truth".
• Is there a difference in the meaning of truth when we say "Snow is white is true" vs when we say "3 is less than 4 is true". I think, actually, this points out that there are different standards of truth for each of those assertions.
• I have considered the proposition "snow is white" and find it generally to be true
• --JimWae 18:43, 2005 July 20 (UTC)

I like your addition to the lead JimWae. I think the lead would benefit from a very short piece decribing the "common language" non-philosophical use of true/truth and false, especially since all these terms redirect to the page. Should a separate section be added to the page itself, or would this be more suitable as a sentence in the lead? byped 19:57, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

Aristotle was the first philosopher to offer a theory of truth, but it was not until the 19th Century that the nature of truth became a major issue in philosophy. In the 20th century, some philosophers have come to deny that there could be such a thing as a theory of truth. (See Deflationary Theories below.)

Does article discuss Aristotle's theory of truth? - or 19th Century theories? Is Deflationary theory couched in terms of theory of truth? In what way was my offering about "the meaning of the term truth" inadequate?--JimWae 07:54, 2005 July 21 (UTC)

Jim, I think your version is fine, except that it implies that the article is exclusively philosophical - which is not the case - and as you noted it gives undue prominence to deflationary theories. Banno 10:05, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Nathan's version

Sorry, Nathan, but I don't think it will do. Plato used a very similar version of the correspondence theory of truth to Aristotle, and pre-dates him. It also give undue prominence to Deflation. Banno 07:55, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Banno's version

Trying to think of an alternative approach, my version has two sections. The first, like Nathan's, avoids giving, or even discussing, the meaning of truth. It does this by using the performance of an illocution to explain the meaning - one cannot sincerely make an assertion of something one thinks is false. The second section discusses the content of the article itself. Any good? Banno 09:58, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I join JimWae in taking exception to the phrase, 'the nature of truth'. It amounts to the fallacy of reification of the abstraction, 'truth', trying to make of it something concrete that can have nature (observable characteristics) http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nature.

Also, as to your first sentence, "When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, they are claiming that it is the truth" you are still ignoring the perfectly respectable point of view that it is redunant to say, "'(insert any statement in accord with the actual state of affairs)' is true" it is perfectly sufficient to simply say, "(insert any statement in accord with the actual state of affairs)." See the section on redundancy, and see http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/redundant

You appear to think that Ramsey was capable of sincere assertions he thought were not true - does any one else agree with this? Banno 21:09, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Favoring one point of view over other perfectly respectable points of view does not comport with Wikipedia policy, writing without bias.

Wrong, for reasons explained above. Banno 21:09, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

An anonymous editor has been making inaccurate claims on this page in in his edit descriptions of the main Truth page that the people he is arguing with are using fallacious reasoning. This is not the case:

1. The Fallacy of Ad Hominem Attack is committed when one argues "Mr. X has such-and-such bad qualities, therefore his ideas about so-and-so are wrong." But it is NOT a fallacy merely to point out Mr. X's bad qualities. It is only a fallacy when the allegation that he has bad qualities is used as a premise. I have reviewed every case where the anonymous editor claims that others used the ad hominem fallacy and he is wrong every time. The others were pointing out his rudeness, name-calling, etc., but in no case did they use those allegations as a premise.
2. The Fallacy of Reification is committed when one assumes as a hidden premise that some abstract object has the properties or abilities of some particular kind of physical object. Example: "The government has always got its hand in our pockets. Pickpockets are law-breakers, therefore taxation is illegal." As in this example, the argument usually starts out with what seems to be a harmless metaphor. The fallacy is commited when the person making the argument starts to take the metaphor literally. It is NOT the fallacy of reification to assert that some abstract object is really a (set of) physical entity(ies). In fact, materialists make precisely that claim about ALL abstract entities. By the way, the anonymous editor seems to believe that only physical things have a nature. This is not true (and it has nothing to do with the fallacy of reification): All things, both abstract and physical, have a nature. So refering to the nature of truth, as I have, does not imply that truth is physical. In fact, I'm not a materialist and I think truth is an abstraction.
3. The Fallacy of Appeal to Popularity is committed when one argues "X is the most popular position on the issue, therefore it is correct." However, it is not a fallacy to say "Our policy will be to treat all points of view fairly, but to give them attention in proportion to how popular they are." Notice that the latter claim doesn't say anything about whether the popular points of view are correct. In fact, the latter claim isn't even an argument at all. It is just a statement of policy. Similarly, it is NOT a fallacy to argue "X is the view of a small minority, therefore less should be said about X if we are to maintain fidelity with Wikipedia policy." Notice, again, that the latter makes no claims about whether X is right or wrong, so it does not commit the fallacy.

--Nate Ladd 07:37, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Quite so. Thank you, Nathan. Banno 09:21, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't NPOV mean, that criticism is also fairly presented? Wasn't this section not just describing what is going on on this article at the moment? Markus Schmaus 18:04, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

I like the idea of having a paragraph such as yours in the article. I think Kirkham said something like that somewhere in his book. See the references section. Something to the effect that disputes about the meaning if "truth" should really be thought of as disputes about what value intellectual activity is aiming at. But the section title you gave ("Criticism") was puzzling. Also, I worry that your idea will be hard to make clear to lay readers without using a lot of words. See if you can come up with a new section title and maybe you can work something out with whoever it was that deleted it. --Nate Ladd 19:16, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. Perhaps a paragraph such as Markus' could form the basis of a new intro - explaining why defining truth is problematic. Banno 20:24, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

There is no "PROBLEM" defining the term, 'truth'. In English, the term, 'truth' simply refers to a statement that is in accord with the actual state of affairs. See any reputable dictionary. --67.182.157.6 09:50, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, yes there is a problem: Dictionary-style definitions such as yours are too imprecise to fill the needs of philosophy. Also, such definitions tend to presuppose the prevailing metaphysical beliefs of the culture at the time the word enters the language. Your definition of "truth", for example, seems to presuppose what philosophers call a Realist metaphysics. Also, your definition is inaccurate. Statements about hypothetical, rather than actual, states of affairs can be true too. -- A Philosopher

• see archive 7 for the points raised by

Robert McClenon 21:40, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

<moved back to the front page, to stop Banno's whingeing about it having been moved to Archive 6>

Most gracious of you, .6 - leave this here, folks, as further evidence of .6's civility. Banno

The "controversial" first para is:

This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in the evaluation of propositions, sentences, and similar items. For example, the sentence "3 is less than 4 is true" is an evaluation of the sentence "3 is less than 4".

Not everyone agrees that paragraph is in accord with NPOV, on grounds that saying, for example, "'Snow is white' is true" is redundant, and it is sufficient to say simply "Snow is white." So, to preserve a neutral point of view, that paragraph should be deleted, or additional material added to show the other points of view, the one in section 2.2 of the article for example.

(this doggerel by .6 - unsigned - Banno)

Nathan suggests that Ramsey and perhaps other deflationary theorists (in particular, I guess, those that call themselves redundancy theorists) do not think that "P is true" is an evaluation of P. This is interesting. I had thought of Ramsey as differentiating two uses of "true": The first that "P is true" is logically equivalent to "P", and therefore redundant in all cases, except for the second, where it is used as a predicate over the content of someone's beliefs, as in "Everything Banno says is true".

Now I should make it clear that I do not have a copy of "Facts and Propositions". I cannot find one on-line. So I;m making use of secondary sources. In particular, http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1746-8361.2004.tb00321.x

It is pretty clear from that article that Ramsey denied the existence of facts, replacing them with "judgements", and making judgements the bearers of truth. This fits with the main body of his work, on probability and belief. So, for him, the equivalence of "P" and "P is true" arises because they express the very same judgement. Now, it seems to me that he is here in precise agreement with the first paragraph - to put my words into his mouth, "the judgement that three is less than four is equivalent to the judgement that it is true that: 3 is less than four, and so the latter is redundant".

I hope that it is clear from this that Ramsey thought "P is true" to be a judgement, and so an evaluation of P; one that he held to be the same as the judgement that "P"; and that he would therefore not have a problem with the introductory paragraph. He would simply have added: "and the is true is unnecessary".

Nathan, is my analysis satisfactory? What do you think? Banno 23:19, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

Some people think the word "truth" has a referent, some think it a collection of true statements, while some think that all true statements have some single property in common (or 2 if you call truth a property) --JimWae 02:16, 2005 July 17 (UTC)

I don't agree with Banno's analysis of Ramsey. It seems to me that Ramsey would say that P is a judgement about some state of affairs, not about itself. So if "P is true" is equivalent to P, then "P is true" is also about that same state of affairs. It, too, is NOT about P. So it isn't an evaluation of P. The essence of all deflationary theories is that "is true" only looks like a predicate; but it really isn't. It isn't really predicating a property of P or attributing a value to P. So it is not evaluating P.

One source of the trouble this article will always have with any introduction is that it is really trying to cover two different kinds of theories: (1) theories of truth and (2) theories about what people are doing when they make what APPEAR TO BE truth-ascribing utterance like "snow is white" is true. Deflationist theories are all really theories of the second kind. Theories of turth, the first kind, simply take for granted that what people are doing when they make those utterances is that they are evaluating the statement in question. (The utterances are doing exactly what they appear to be doing.) This is precisely what Deflationist theories reject. The latter all claim that the surface grammar of such utterances is misleading. --Nate Ladd 04:28, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I disagree; but given that I have considerable respect for your understanding of philosophical issues, I'll concede to the following modification:

This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in discussing propositions, sentences, and similar items. For example, the sentence "3 is less than 4 is true" is about the sentence "3 is less than 4".

This at least points to the nature of the discussion in the article, without, saying anything about truth. I don't think this modification as good as the original, but I do think, and I guess that others here agree with me, that something is needed to point to the basic content of the article. Banno 06:16, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you still don't understand the argument here, .6. There is a very important distinction between the redundancy theory and the correspondence theory - indeed, they are theories about quite different things. The former is about the way is true is used in logic, the latter about how we tell if some statement is true. Your post shows that you still do not follow this distinction. Banno 02:14, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I should just barge in here and edit this, but the section which explains "Christian" truth only explains one particular type of Christian truth, which is particularly controversial, and is Manichaeism. Is it all right if I expand on this? I don't particularly care to sift through the controversy in this large discussion archive and see what has been decided to be left out. Still, I find it a queer bit of misinformation that the "Truth of Life" is propounded as "Christian truth" when the vast majority of Christendom, Protestant and Catholic, considers the view heretical. Amicuspublilius 20:46, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

I've jim has just removed the section. The section is far to detailed to be appropriate for the article on Truth. The author should add it to [[1]] if they think it worthwhile.

I also think that a section on "Christian truth" would be inappropriate; having such a section but no section on truth in other religions would be POV; Perhaps a section on "religious truth" would work. Banno 21:30, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

I'll get to work on (your) Banno's suggestion. I don't think having a section on "Christian conceptions of truth" but not other religions is "POV" rather than incomplete. Be careful you understand what POV and don't use it as a synonym for "bad," which muddles the issue. In any case, my edits will provide a framework to allow other religious conceptions of truth, and I'll probably get to work on Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim conceptions (all historically, since current trends in all are rather chaotic and decentralized, and I'm not equipped to delineate between all modern/subjective views on one religion or another), in that order. Amicuspublilius 22:47, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps we may now do some productive work on the introduction. Although the present version is a valiant attempt at compromise, I think that others will agree that it could be improved.

...

Going back a few hundred edits, the introduction read:

This article is primarily concerned with truth as it is used in the evaluation of propositions, sentences, and similar items. For example, the sentence "3 is less than 4 is true" is an evaluation of the sentence "3 is less than 4". The study of truth itself is part of philosophical logic, and within philosophy it is of special interest to epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language.

It now reads:

Much of this article is about philosophical ideas regarding what sorts of things are called true, and the meaning of the word truth. In addition it discusses some particular and peculiar uses of truth.

I think that Nate makes a good point about possible interpretations of the Redundancy theory of truth (RTT). Nate's point, to summarise, is that:

• P is not about P (so, "snow is white" is about snow, not about the sentence "snow is white"),
• according to RTT, P is equivalent to "P is true",

So it follows that according to RTT

• "P is true" is also not about P;

and that therefore

• "P is true" is not and evaluation of P on the RTT account.

Quite a good argument, although I maintain that it is not a correct interpretation of Ramsey himself (this point is moot).

At one stage I suggested using

When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, they are claiming that it is true.

This is intended as an Ostensive definition, focusing on meaning as use. It seems to me not to be at odds with the RTT account. On the RTT account, to sincerely agree with an assertion is the same as to say it is true, but saying it is true does no more than the assertion itself would have. Nor does this version claim that "P is true" is about P, and so fall fowl of Nate's criticism.

Marcus suggested adding the paragraph:

Very often Truth is stated as a goal and only after that people start arguing what Truth actually stands for. So in many cases when people are arguing about the definition of Truth they are in fact arguing about which goal should be aspired. Truth is often seen as the goal of religion, philosophy, mathematics, law, and science. Yet those fields are using different methods and are seeking different goals, using a single word for all of them is very likely to cause confusion and conflict.

This seems to me to summarise the reasons that truth is so difficult to explicitly define.

I suggest that some combination of an ostensive definition and such an explanation of the difficulty of defining truth might provide us with a much improved definition. Banno 23:01, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

I could live with something like that. --63.231.15.66 23:58, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

What difficulty defining the term, 'truth'? It's simple. A truth is simply a statement that is known to be in accord with the actual state of affairs in any particular case, right? --67.182.157.6 21:49, 31 July 2005 (UTC) Wrong. -- A Philosopher

No.

Way wrong. A truth may or may not be a "statement" -- truths can still be true if they are left unstated. Further, although there is something to be said for identifying truth with the "actual state of affairs," there's nothing to be said for identifying it with a statement "known to be in accord with" same. Indeed, given many understandings of the term Knowledge, that produces a logical circle. Even a wild guess can happen to be true, i.e. 'that coin will come up heads' might turn out to describe the actual state of affairs -- it happens half the time. In that case, 'that coin will come up heads' was a truth, although not known as such when stated (or just thought). Do you see yet how these things can justify the term "difficulty," Mr. six? --Christofurio 23:19, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

...

Not at all. Voting on a philosophical issue would be quite problematic. Nor have any of the other arguments used against your position relied on popularity. The case is simply that your position, the correspondence theory of truth, is one amongst many, and so should not receive undue representation in the introduction; but that the introduction should say something meaningful. As for the next step, I have recommended on the RfC that you seek an advocate to speak on your behalf, since you seem to be incapable of mounting a coherent argument to support your position. I also suggest that you take the issue to mediation. Failing that, I guess that it will just have to go to arbitration so that we can get on with writing an encyclopedia. Banno 20:40, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

What should happen now (and what would happen if anyone better-behaved than you were advocating your position, DotSix) is that you would do one of two things: (1) acknowledge that the counterexamples/rebuttals to your proposed theory of truth provided by me, Nate Ladd, Banno, and Christofurio refute your theory. (2) Offer, for each of those counterexamples/rebuttals, a reasoned argument to the conclusion that it does not refute your proposed theory. Doing the latter would require that you NOT indulge in namecalling, NOT simply repeat the theory that is being refutted, NOT accuse anyone of attacking you, and NOT misapply fallacy-terminology. --63.231.15.66 23:58, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Variation

Banno, I propose altering the last two sentences in the new first paragraph to something like these three sentences:

Truth is sought in religion, philosophy, mathematics, law, and science; these fields use different methods and seek truth in order to serve different goals. Not surprisingly, using a single word in all fields is very likely to cause confusion and conflict. Yet truth, like goodness and beauty, is a perennial subject for humankind.

Ancheta Wis 15:01, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Ancheta, I would be happy for you to make these alterations - your wording is preferable. Thanks. Banno 21:09, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Systemic bias towards so-called 'revealed tuth'

I take exception to any content including religion in a group of "methods of seeking truth" (where 'truth' is a statement known to describe the actual state of affairs because there is proof). Religion is not known to be a method of seeking truth, religion is known to be a method of convincing people that they ought to abandon logical, scientific investigation and instead just go right ahead and accept the tenets of the particular religion anyway, even though those tenets are not known to be statements accurately describing the actual state of affairs. See the section on "Double Truth" in the article.

Our writing here is supposed to be without bias, and that includes any introductory material in the lead section of an article, but the proposed content, above, that in an offhand way lends credence to the idea of religion as a legitimate method of seeking truth exhibits a bias toward so-called 'revealed truth' [2] that is not acceptable, per Wikipedia policy. --67.182.157.6 19:52, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

Possibly this was the result of earlier edit warring, but the structure of the article, specifically the positioning of Deflationary Theories, is a little strange. If I understand the article correctly, the Deflationary Theories section is about the rejection of the idea that "2 + 2 = 4 is true" has any more meaning than "2 + 2 = 4". However, this is rejecting an idea which hasn't even been introduced in the article yet: discussions of the sentence "P is true" start in the next section, Formal Definitions. I'd say that the order of the Theories About Truth section ought to be: Formal Definitions, Robust Theories, Deflationary Theories. Even if this re-structuring isn't suitable, there ought to be at least some mention of sentences of the type "P is true" before we start saying "Some philosophers reject the idea that...". Also, as an aside, should there be any discussion about the truth-preserving nature of a logically valid argument? E.g., logical steps such as modus ponus preserve truth from axioms to conclusions. — Asbestos | Talk 21:24, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

In the same line, there are entire bodies of knowledge which parallel the article, but with a different vocabulary; I have in mind Richard von Mises, Probability, Statistics and Truth ISBN 0486242145 (Wahrscheinlichkeit, Statistik und Wahrheit 1928 Springer) which can be had for less than the cost of a Cafe beverage. Ancheta Wis 00:04, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the formal definitions section be after the robust and deflationary sections? --Nate Ladd 21:07, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

...

There is another point that applies here, about minority views demanding equal validity:

Please be clear on one thing: the Wikipedia neutrality policy certainly does not state, or imply, that we must "give equal validity" to minority views. It does state that we must not take a stand on them qua encyclopedia writers; but that does not stop us from describing the majority views as such; from fairly explaining the strong arguments against the pseudoscientific theory; from describing the strong moral repugnance that many people feel toward some morally repugnant views; and so forth.

While this specifically refers to pseudoscience, it applies to any minority view. The simple fact is that the vast majority of philosophy courses and philosophers do not find it problematic to refer to the various theories of truth, or to truth as a concept about which philosophers have theories. Therefore, there is little case that can be made for changing the title of the article, or for flouting the well established and non-controversial conventions followed, without difficulty, by the philosophical community. Your particular reading of the deflationist/reductionist can and should be fairly stated and included in the article (if there are suitable references). But it should not be allowed to suppress the standard use of terms among the community of philosophers. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has the following entry on The Deflationary Theory of Truth.

--Parker Whittle 14:45, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Protected

I have protected the page and waiting for arbitrator opinions on what to do here. See WP:RFAr for the arbitration request going on and also the RFC that was already been filed. Sasquatch↔讲↔看 20:28, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Sasquatch, thank you for protecting the page; we even have a small change to the Introduction in the queue, awaiting our return to the state of happy editing. Ancheta Wis 22:43, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Who wouldn't be happy being able to get away with going contrary to Wikipedia policy, concensus building through principled wikipedia:negotiation, and control the content of one of his favorite articles through force of numbers tyranny of the majority?

Wow, my "criticism" actually found its way into the lead section.

As the article is curently locked I post a new suggestion for the lead section here.

A person calls a assertion true, if it agrees with their point of view. Which assertions those are, thus depends on the individual and is subjective. A definition of truth tries to objectively define what is true.

Frequently truth is first stated as a goal and only after that an exact definition is sought. So when people are arguing about the definition of truth they may be arguing about the goal to which they should aspire. Truth is often associated with religion, philosophy, mathematics, law, or science, yet those fields use different methods and seek different goals. Not surprisingly, using a single word in all these contexts is very likely to cause confusion and conflict.

Much of this article is about philosophical ideas regarding what sorts of things should be called true, and how truth can be defined. In addition it discusses some particular and peculiar uses of truth.

Markus Schmaus 23:15, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

Markus, a person's own values frequently define what they call true. In that case, a person's "goal" might simply be getting other people to agree with the "truth". Thus it may be important to disambiguate

1. the goal of getting others to agree to uphold some value
2. the goal of marking a subject of discussion (called in linguistics, the topicalizer)
3. the goal of getting others to agree that the proposed topic should be a subject of discussion.
4. the goal of getting others to see something in a certain way
5. the goal of getting others to define their terms
6. the goal of getting others to limit their discussion only to the topic

etc. As I am only a user of the concepts, I cannot speak, but there must be a survey of these issues somewhere. Ancheta Wis 09:08, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Isn't it allways the case, that a person's value determine what they call true? And the goals you enumerate are goals of some people. But I don't see what you want to tell me with your post.

As I stated before I disagree with "Truth is sought in religion, philosophy, mathematics, law, and science". This statements sounds as if all those fields seek the same thing, but that's definitely not the case. At least mathematics and science are seeking distinct goals. A agree, that whatever any of those fields seeks is often called truth. Markus Schmaus 20:47, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Hey there, when peace again reigns over our land of truth, would someone mind adding this to the external links section. I'm systematically going through the SEP and I will probably forget to come back and do this. Thanks in advance! --best, kevin ···Kzollman | Talk··· 05:43, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Begin addition

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Coherence theory of truth
  • Correspondence theory of truth
  • Deflationary theory of truth
  • Identity theory of truth
  • Revision theory of truth
  • Tarski's definition of truth

End addition

...

You are stating the deflationist position, as if it is the absolute truth (if I may permitted to use a meaningless term). Either you have come up with a new and novel argument, which, regardless of its truth (there it is again!), constitutes original research, or you have stated an argument published somewhere by some philosophers, which therefore must be cited as such, as one theory of truth (!!!) among many WP:NPOV. --Parker Whittle 05:17, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The issue is what to do about an article on the subject of truth, and the various views and theories that surround that topic. If you just want to have a discussion about truth, then there are many forums for that. If you're suggesting a change to the article, then please address the points I raised, above. --Parker Whittle 17:58, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Please do not feed the troll

In the end, I think we have to call a spade a spade. It is clear that we have been trolled in this article non-stop.

...

My appoligies. It is very unusual to protect a talk page, but this one has been under constant attack all day long, so I don't know what else to do. To the anon with the many multiple IPs...what are you trying to accomplish here? Whatever it is, you obviously are not going to get it this way. Please stop. Func( t, c, e,  ) 22:23, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

This is the "DotSix" vandal, see Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#DotSix -- Curps 22:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

So, with all of the "DotSix" nonsense, the current archiving situation is a little confusing to me. There is content here that is currently duplicated at Talk:Truth/Archive 6. Someone with a lot of patience and who is familiar with the threads here might want to look at what should be archived and what shouldn't, as this page is a little long at this point. Func( t, c, @, ) 06:10, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

There is no guarantee that the troll will not reappear. But one tactic that might be taken could be to append all trolling to Archive 7. Ancheta Wis 14:03, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Archiving the diff here as insurance

When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, they might claim that it is the truth. While one might have a good intuitive sense of what it is to be true, providing a definition of truth that achieves wide acceptance is quite difficult. One reason is that often truth is first stated as a goal and only after that people start arguing what truth actually is. So when people are arguing about the definition of Truth they may be arguing about the goal to which they should aspire. Truth is sought in religion, philosophy, mathematics, law, and science; these fields use different methods and seek truth in order to serve different goals. Not surprisingly, using a single word in all fields is very likely to cause confusion and conflict. Yet truth, like goodness and beauty, is a perennial subject for humankind.

Much of this article is about philosophical ideas regarding what sorts of things are called true, and the meaning of the word truth. In addition it discusses some particular and peculiar uses of truth.

User JimWae writes, with reference to the recent introductory paragraphs that I inserted, that "this whole example is about evidence for belief something is true - not really about "truth")". I disagree. I put this in because I notice that there has been all kinds of controversy and back and forth here about different philosophical theories of truth, and I believe that there is a lot of useful precedent in philosophy, whether from Plato, Hegel, or Wittgenstein, for trying to clarify things philosophically or get out of philosophical muddles by starting with what concepts mean in everyday use and ordinary language to provide a kind of grounding and anchoring and guard against ungrounded flight in the ethereal realm of the conflicts among different philosophical dogmas. To me this example is in fact about truth as it is used and meant in everyday usage and ordinary language, which is usually something fairly simple-minded, i.e. a statement or idea corresponds to some state of affairs (this notion is reflected in Aquinas's famous "adequatio intellectus et rei", or correspondence between the mind and things), combined with a warrant that others can take this as a sufficient basis for their own understanding and action. I am not putting this forward as a philosophical argument in favor of the correspondence theory of truth, nor as a philosophical presentation of the meaning of "truth". I am simply saying that the correspondence theory and some associated pragmatic warrant is what most people mean most of the time in everyday life by saying something is true, and that the philosophical discussion needs to stay connected at some level with this ordinary meaning. I think that there is good reason to begin the presentation of complex and controversial philosophical concepts with some grounding in everyday usage, and I was hoping that this might also help keep the philosophical controversy from going off the deep end. Jeremy J. Shapiro 20:47, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

It's too long. Banno 21:09, September 4, 2005 (UTC)

Will see if I can shorten later this week Jeremy J. Shapiro 21:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

It's still far too long. Banno 21:22, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

What I did do is put in some things showing how the everyday is the lifeworld basis of the philosophical theories, believing that that grounding relationship would make sense of the length. Would be happy for any editing suggestions from those wanting to shorten it. Jeremy J. Shapiro 14:27, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I will refrain from editing it, because if I were to do so I would delete most of it - certainly everything but the first and second paragraph. I don't really want to do that, because I want to see what others think. To me the attempt to provide a pre-philosophical "everyday life" account is misguided, simply because there is no such thing. Any view will reflect a philosophical position; they are only pre-philosophical in so far as they are lacking in consideration. But on the other hand, I welcome the new perspective that your edits have provided. Banno 09:05, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

As it stands, the article does not have an introduction. Wikipedia:The perfect article"...begins with a definition and clear description of the subject; the lead section introduces and explains the subject and its significance clearly and accurately, without going into excess detail. What is here now amounts to a new sub-section rather than an introduction. "Banno 08:43, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

What about a Socratic question as a start for the article? Ancheta Wis 11:12, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this new beginning ("Truth is a value which we might seek. What is truth?") is a good idea. First, it is inconsistent with the style of other Wikipedia philosophy articles and the Wikipedia style in general. Second, it contains a New Testament quotation which some might object to in this context. Third, the phrase "value which we might seek" is vague and doesn't provide any information, and some theories of truth probably wouldn't agree that truth is a value but rather define it is a property (which of course the deflationary theories would deny strenuously). In any case, I'm for taking it out. Jeremy J. Shapiro 14:48, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. In fact, I agree strongly enough that I'm going to try for a rewrite to wikify and npov. Simple first, complicated later. Rick Norwood 20:53, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Harold Henry Joachim (1868-1938) wrote The Nature of Truth, (1906) sometimes considered the classic exposition of the coherence theory. William James referenced Joachim by name, in Pragmatism, as typical of the views of truth he sought to refute. --Christofurio 20:16, September 7, 2005 (UTC)

«In the course of human evolution, the need to co-ordinate action and to co-operate based on the exchange of information made it valuable to be able to distinguish messages that conveyed accurate information from those that did not.»

I don't think this should stay in an introductory section. First, «in the course of non-human evolution», every species has to be able to distinguish good and bad messages, unless you are presupposing a strictly human concept of message, which would be a bad idea in itself and would make the whole sentence hard to follow: I don't think there can ever have been a strictly human message without the ability to distinguish true from false ones. Second, the problem is not one of accuracy, but one of truth. Third, if we are talking about modern humans, the idea of (biological) evolution doesn't seem to be right. Fourth, but not least, the whole idea of linking truth and evolution seems to me either naïve or, at least, absolutely unable to gather consensus: evolution gave us nice brains; then language and truth started to be a problem. Truth itself can hardly be seen as an evolutionary issue.

I am wanting to understand your meaning but am having a bit of trouble following you. It seems to me that truth primarily is about the propositional form of accuracy, i.e. it is about the assessment of the communication of information in the form of propositions or "constative utterances". Don't you think that this has to do with survival value in an evolutionary context? The stuff that I've read about evolution seems to state or support that. Also, everything I've read about human evolution is that the evolution of the human brain itself is in part the result of the emergence of language, i.e. that the human brain and language evolved in interaction. So it's not as though we first had "nice brains" and then language. Proto-humans that were able to communicate accurate or valid information through protolinguistic means and assess its validity (or truth) had a selection advantage over those who didn't. See, for example, Merlin Donald's A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness (2001) and "Origins of the Modern Mind: Three Stages in the Evolution of Culture and Cognition" (1991), Steven Mithen's "The Prehistory of the Mind: The Cognitive Origins of Art, Religion and Science" (1996), and Jonathan Turner's On the Origins of Human Emotions: A Sociological Inquiry into the Evolution of Human Affect (2000). Could you say a bit more to clarify your meaning? Jeremy J. Shapiro 16:59, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

By the way, in response to your point, I changed "messages" to "linguistic statements" and "accurate" to "valid". This may not solve the problem, but from your next response I will probably understand the point better. Jeremy J. Shapiro 17:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the point here is that a mother bird who pretends to be injured in order to draw a hawk away from her young is, in some sense, acting out a lie. Whereas my cat, when he stands at the door and meows, is, if he then goes out, telling the truth. This, however, is rather stretching the use of "truth", and the main article, at least, should focus on the relationship between language and reality. Since there is only conjecture on the evolutionary origins of language (see Pinker, The Language Instinct) the evolution of truth is even more conjectural, and should not be in the first paragraph. Rick Norwood 22:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

«The stuff that I've read about evolution seems to state or support that. Also, everything I've read about human evolution is that ...... had a selection advantage over those who didn't.» (Jjshapiro) I surely accept that! I didn't make my point as I should. What I meant is that the paragraph I was criticizing seems to implicate previous «messages» and, after that, an evolutionary advantage for those who could distinguish the true ones. And that, I think, is wrong. It is hard to imagine human "messages" (and even less "linguistic statements") -- that is, a language, even a "simple" one, -- without mastering the concept of truth. So, the one thing that matters is the ability to have a language. And so, the idea of an evolutionary advantage of those who can distinguish (linguistic) truths from falsehoods seems redundant. Or, before that, as Rick Norwood was saying, the ability to distinguish a mother bird that pretends to be injured from a really injured one seems to be evolutionarily useful without having a sufficient connection to linguistic truth or, generally, to our subject "truth". So I suppose I maintain that the evolutionary stuff shouldn't be where it is. Velho 00:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I wound up makeing rather more changes that I thought I would when I started out, and so I should explain here. As I read the article, it seemed to me that, on the subject of truth, people tended to use ten words when one word would do. And so I have shortened the article a bit -- I hope with no sacrifice of truth. Rick Norwood 21:58, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I very much like what you have done and believe that it is an important contribution. AND you have so much emphasized the difference between truth and falsity/insincerity/lying that, in my view, you have downplayed the equally significant difference between truth and falsehood, which is what much of the philosophical discussion is about. Sometime soon I am going to try to work that into your new version. Jeremy J. Shapiro 23:18, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I removed that: «Truth is a statement that corresponds to reality, as dictinct from falsehood or a lie (deliberate falsehood). Most people consider truth an important concept, even of transcendent importance. Some, however, deny the existance of truth, or even the existance of reality.

I did it because: (1) Truth isn't a statement; (2) correspondence theory is just one of the theories; (3) truth isn't just distinct from falsehood, it's the opposite of it; (4) that sentence about what most people consider doesn't seem proper in an encyclopedia article; (5) denials about the existence of reality should be at realism or something like that; (6) even if some people «deny the existence of truth», those denials don't seem to be so frequent or so apparently well grounded as to have a line in a three-line intro about truth; (7) we shouldn't start to talk about the "existence of truth" in the intro, since most relevant povs about truth aren't related to its existence. Velho 00:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I support your thinking on all of these points. Jeremy J. Shapiro 02:18, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Banno 20:36, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

A self-evident proposition, sometimes misleadingly called a "self-evident truth" is a proposition which needs no evidence from outside itself to be justified. So it is a concept from theories of justification (specifically, foundationalism) not from theories of truth. If you are a foundationalist, a self-evident proposition can be used as part of the foundation from which other propositions are inferred. No truth, per se, is more "truey" than any other. A truth is a truth is a truth. A "self-evident truth," despite its (misleading) name is not a kind of truth.

Also, your references to Ayn Rand didn't make much sense. At any rate they seem to be about "self-evidence" is which not relevant to this article. See above. --Nate Ladd 16:41, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Consider the statement, "1 = 1" "One equals one" is held to be a self-evident statement because the contrary, "One does not equal one" would be absurd. Isn't that what makes any self-evident statement self-evident, the fact that the contrary would be considered absurd by any reasonable person? For example, see We hold these [statements to be self evident]--Ehrlich 16:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I removed the introductory sentences on the following grounds:

1. That people regularly distinguish between truth and falsehood is debatable (consider advertising and politics, for example).
2. That those who are unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood suffer greatly is debatable (indeed, it has been proposed that the exact opposite is true, that those who are able to make that distinction suffer greatly).
3. Rhetorical questions do not follow encyclopedic style.

-Seth Mahoney 19:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)