What's the Best Way to Determine What is True or Not?

[Sunstone]

Why should we determine the truth of a proposition or claim by the degree to which it is supported by logical reasoning and empirical evidence? Why not decide whether something is true or not according to whether some authority states it is true, or according to whether it is traditionally believed to be true? Or why not decide according to whether we feel good thinking it is true? Or by some other means?

Is there any reason or reasons for preferring logical reasoning and empirical evidence when deciding matters of truth and falsity?

For the sake of discussion, let's take the proposition, "There are six buffalo on the other side of that hill." How should we determine whether that statement is true? By logical reasoning and/or empirical evidence? By some authority? Because it makes us feel good to believe it? Or by some other means?

Would you subject a proposition about deity -- such as "Deity X exists" -- to the same means of determining its truth value as you would the proposition about buffalo? Why or why not?

Your thoughts, please.

Bonus Question: In a large, diverse, representative democracy, is there any reason to prefer determining the truth or falsity of propositions via logical reasoning and empirical evidence, rather than by any other means? Why or why not?

 

[Laika]

Voted "Wake up Sunstone!"

I'm sort of in "transition" and can't say what I think is true or not, so it will probably just be a bit messy as I'm not 100% sure myself. But generally, I tend to support the scientific method to the extent of engaging in "scientism" or scientific materialism (treating science as an ideology) even though that is now a discredited 19th century idea. In brief, because human beings are animals, they are subject to natural laws which are discoverable by science; therefore science can be applied to pretty much everything as consciousness is itself subject to natural laws. crudely, it produced both Marxism and Social Darwinism, which is not a nice "welcoming committee" to a belief system.

Bonus Question: In a large, diverse, representative democracy, is there any reason to prefer determining the truth or falsity of propositions via logical reasoning and empirical evidence, rather than by any other means? Why or why not?

I tend to think of Post-Modernism (and the denial of objective truth) as symtopmatic of the extreme lengths to which we have gone to accept any belief systems within our society. we've come from thinking people are equal, to the idea the people's ideas are equally valid. It is only by calling "science" and "truth" a social construct and therefore reducing them to the level of opinions that we are able to "tolerate" things like intelligent design/creationism, climate change denial, possibly even holocaust denial as well as a host of conspiracy theories that are based on speculation rather than evidence. The West is going through a bit of an internal crisis at the moment as it has abadoned scientific reasoning as the primary or sole method to obaining truth.

There are various reasons for this, but the big one was how much of a shock the twin evils of total war and totalitarianism were to our collective psyche. we've stopped believing in linear progress based on increasing knowledge of the world and have started to draw on ideas which- whilst even preferable- are not necessarily nor can demonstrated to be true. we are seeing ideas making a resurgence that our predecessors thought would have "dissapeared" by now. this has given alot of strength to religious fundamentalism both Christian Fundamentalism in the US and to Islamic fundamentalism of the kind ISIS originates from. The sort of populist anti-politics of the right and anti-capitaism of the left is also symptomatic of the fact we don't have a compass to reliably decide what is possible and were we can go.

the enlightenment has been de-railed and is having a crisis or has very much come to an end. it would take a very powerful insistence on enlightenment values of truth, progress, scientific reasoning to get us back on course, but that poses the danger of new forms of totalitarian rule. Personally, this sort of backs me into a corner as to whether I'd have to support something like communism because it re-establishes those kinds of traditions, but at the expense of the kind of "free thought" that is leading to the intellectual choas and introspection of the current era. I'm hoping there is a better answer though.

 

[Sunstone]

Voted "Wake up Sunstone!"

Figures.

I tend to think of Post-Modernism (and the denial of objective truth) as symtopmatic of the extreme lengths to which we have gone to accept any belief systems within our society. we've come from thinking people are equal, to the idea the people's ideas are equally valid. It is only by calling "science" and "truth" a social construct and therefore reducing them to the level of opinions that we are able to "tolerate" things like intelligent design/creationism, climate change denial, possibly even holocaust denial as well as a host of conspiracy theories that are based on speculation rather than evidence.

Call me old-fashioned, but I'm not much of a Constructivist when it comes to Truth Theories. In fact, I look upon them with even less enthusiasm than that of a young Gospel Hell fire and Brimstone Preacher for spending the holidays with his drunken atheist Uncle. While I recognize they have a tiny kernel of explanatory power rattling around deep inside a hard nutcase, I think they are best cracked open to get at that morsel, and then their husks discarded.

But I think once you eliminate Constructivist Truth Theories, you basically kick a leg or two out from beneath Post-Modernism. So, there are things I like about Post-Modernism, but overall I find it a little too wobbly for my taste, so to speak.

That was a great post of yours by the way!

 

[Laika]

Figures.



Call me old-fashioned, but I'm not much of a Constructivist when it comes to Truth Theories. In fact, I look upon them with even less enthusiasm than that of a young Gospel Hell fire and Brimstone Preacher for spending the holidays with his drunken atheist Uncle. While I recognize they have a tiny kernel of explanatory power rattling around deep inside a hard nutcase, I think they are best cracked open to get at that morsel, and then their husks discarded.

But I think once you eliminate Constructivist Truth Theories, you basically kick a leg or two out from beneath Post-Modernism. So, there are things I like about Post-Modernism, but overall I find it a little too wobbly for my taste, so to speak.

That was a great post of yours by the way!

thanks. The problem is where you draw the line. I think Post-Modernism is a "good thing" in so far as it is attributing ideas to being man-made or 'social constructs' BUT this has gone so far as to rejection the very notion that those ideas can have an objectively true content (because it reflects the 'real' world). So I more than understand why hellfire and brimestone would be appropriate. the problem is whether objective truth itself is a social construct without objective validity. that's when it all goes horribly wrong and everyone start going crazy....

 

[Sunstone]

thanks. The problem is where you draw the line. I think Post-Modernism is a "good thing" in so far as it is attributing ideas to being man-made or 'social constructs' BUT this has gone so far as to rejection the very notion that those ideas can have an objectively true content (because it reflects the 'real' world). So I more than understand why hellfire and brimestone would be appropriate. the problem is whether objective truth itself is a social construct without objective validity. that's when it all goes horribly wrong and everyone start going crazy....

I think the issue of whether or not there is an objective reality can be cleverly bypassed via the concept of intersubjective verification. That is, given intersubjective verification, objective reality needs to be posited just about as much as ether needs to be posited as the medium through which light waves travel. Put differently, intersubjective verification, properly understood, renders the notion of objective reality an unnecessary hypothesis.

 

[sandandfoam]

I'm firmly in the postmodern camp. I don't believe that the truth is knowable. I'm interested in what's useful.

 

[Banjankri]

What's the Best Way to Determine What is True or Not?

Check.

 

[Sunstone]

I'm firmly in the postmodern camp. I don't believe that the truth is knowable. I'm interested in what's useful.

I'm curious why truth is not knowable?

 

[Sunstone]

BUT this has gone so far as to rejection the very notion that those ideas can have an objectively true content (because it reflects the 'real' world).

I agree with this in the sense that I think there are intersubjectively verifiable facts that to some significant extent (at the least!) transcend social constructs, etc. "When I apply a certain amount of force against a thin pane of glass, the glass shatters." That seems to be both intersubjectively verifiable and relatively immune to any significant distortion through some kind of social construction, etc.

I'm kind of reminded here of the point that a physicist in Bejing and and physicist in London might agree on a set of facts about particle physics even though they do not share much else in common.

 

[crossfire]

Great Truths or Trivialities?

"Two sorts of truth: profound truths recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd."
--Niels Bohr

 

[sandandfoam]

I'm curious why truth is not knowable?

Because I can never have a view from nowhere - I will always have a particular point from which I view. I can never see things as they are in themselves. I will always see them from my perspective.

 

[Sunstone]

Because I can never have a view from nowhere - I will always have a particular point from which I view. I can never see things as they are in themselves. I will always see them from my perspective.

Well said. That beautifully expresses the subjective nature of all experience.

I think that would be an objection to "truth" if truth were taken to mean something more or less equivalent to the phrase "objective reality". People often use the word truth in that sense. So, for instance, I might say that x is true because x exists, is real, or is objectively real.

Of course, that's not the only way of defining truth. I myself don't usually use the word truth to mean something exists. Instead, I use the word to describe a value (i.e. "The truth value") of a proposition. That is, a statement that makes a claim about reality. Such as, "It's snowing outside as I write this." So, when I say the statement, "It's snowing outside as I write this", is true, I don't mean the snow is true. I mean instead the statement about the snow is true.

That, in a nutshell, is why I use the word "truth" despite that I agree with you about the ultimate subjectivity of all experience.

 

[sandandfoam]

I'm good with 'truth' with a small 't'

 

[Sunstone]

I'm good with 'truth' with a small 't'

Me too. I'm not big on Truth with a capital "T".