A Question of Truth?

[Burning ghost]

What doe sit mean if I were to say something is a "Generalized truth"?

Given that I would be trying to use this term philosophically it would not simply be put to mean "A truth that is most often true, but occasionally untrue." For the purposes of philosophical discourse the "truth" here is taken to be absolute/apodictic.

It appears to me then that if I was to say "general truth" then it should mean something like a truth that has been applied beyond its immediate area of interest.

As an example of these cases it is not true to say that all birds can fly (yet in colloquial terms it is a general truth; but certainly not a philosophical "general truth".) Yet if I state that "If it rains I will use an umbrella," it is a true statement yet need not be true to reality ... so is this a case of "truth" being applied beyond its immediate area of interest? If so then are all statements nothing more than extensions of truths into future reality?

[Albert Tatlock]

Yet if I state that "If it rains I will use an umbrella," it is a true statement yet need not be true to reality ...

It is neither a true or a false statement at the time you say it, it's just a statement of your intention. The accuracy of the statement can't be known unless it rains.

[Spectrum]

Truth = accorded with reality aka knowledge = justified true belief = objective.

I think we need to qualify the term 'generalized'.

Generalized truths could be truths that has a low degrees of justification and objectivity.
Such truths would be like common sense truths. e.g. the setting-Sun is larger than the noon-Sun.

But note;

Scientific and mathematical truths are more objective than common sense truth.
But we can have generalized Scientific and mathematical truths within these specialized truths, e.g. 1 + 1 = 2 can be considered to be a generalized mathematical truth.

[Albert Tatlock]

What doe sit mean if I were to say something is a "Generalized truth"?

If you don't know what it means you shouldn't really be saying it. Any number of people could use the term "generalised truth" and all mean something different by it. Presumably, each would know what he meant.

For the purposes of philosophical discourse the "truth" here is taken to be absolute/apodictic.

You seem to be implying that "generalised truth" is open to interpretation but you say "absolute truth" as if it isn't. Not to mention the fact that you confuse the issue even more by putting the word truth in quotes.

It appears to me then that if I was to say "general truth" then it should mean something like a truth that has been applied beyond its immediate area of interest.

It appears to me that if you were to say "a truth that has been applied beyond its immediate area of interest", you would be uttering something completely meaningless. I wonder if you know what you mean by it.

As an example of these cases it is not true to say that all birds can fly (yet in colloquial terms it is a general truth; but certainly not a philosophical "general truth".)

It is not a truth to say all birds can fly, not even a general truth. The closest thing to a general truth I can think of would be to say "birds tend to be able to fly", but, to be honest, I would probably try to avoid using the term "general truth", there are much better alternatives.

[Burning ghost]

Albert -

I agree with everything you say above. I was just curious to see what people made of this kind of free formed thinking.

I keep seeing topics thrown up asking about the differences between philosophy and science. One obvious difference I have mentioned is that one is founded more in terms of factual meaning and the other is founded more in terms of truthful meaning.

Note: I never said I knew what it meant to say "general truth" and I was asking if I had any right, beyond a colloquial use of language, to use this term.

I have been very interested in the interplay between syntax and semantics, structures defined to better navigate through experiences and share information.

I now realise that when I talked about "truth applied beyond its immediate area of interest," I have closed up several different parts into one bulging sentence - by this I mean I've lacked precision, and that maybe it is necessary to lack precision, or that greater precision decreases meaning, and/or that truth destroys meaning, and therefore dissolves the idea of facts.

What is more these are words of expression, words passed down over eons that can be viewed (to some extent) as complete narratives captured in and of themselves yet utterly redundant when they are isolated from all other words. Mere grunts of emotion or cries of fear, rage or pleasure have become the bedrock of human understanding prior to any worded or parsed structure.

Just read something from Levi-Strauss that does a far better job than I can of surmising my musing:

"It is generally recognized that words are signs; but poets are practically the only ones who know that words were also once values."

- Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, (Language and the Analysis of Social Laws, p.61)

I am mainly just riffing here. I have a lot more to read yet regarding "art" and "aesthetics."

[Albert Tatlock]

I have been very interested in the interplay between syntax and semantics, structures defined to better navigate through experiences and share information.

Well yes, in the end, that's what it comes down to. I don't know enough about science to be able to comment on what we can expect of the word "truth" when applied to its principles and deductions. As far as truth in philosophy is concerned, I suppose it's a matter of what exactly we demand of the word. I think that, in most of our interactions, all we can do is to attempt to be clear about what we are trying to say and find the most effective way of conveying the meaning of it to the listener. If we can achieve the level of truth appropriate to the situation then that is adequate. If we always demanded that our truth conform to all its possible definitions we would end up never saying anything.

[Hereandnow]

Burning Ghost:
What doe sit mean if I were to say something is a "Generalized truth"?

But of course, "pass the salt" has generalized truths abound. Your favorite philosopher, Foucault, once said that we are being ventriloquized by history. One way of putting this is to say general truths pass through us in every utterance. Language and all its practical eccentricities were there before we born and after we have internalized them, well, it's just endless recapitulation.

[Burning ghost]

Hereandnow -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvwhEIhv3N0

[Hereandnow]

Burning Ghost:
Hereandnow -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvwhEIhv3N0

As a reminder, Foucault is not directly to the point here. I bring him up because he made that interesting little statement that possesses indirectly something to the point, namely, that repetition of culture and language is what we do. What I am doing now as I write. And as it is understood by all, meaningfully constructed, grammatically proper, it belongs to a body of generalizations, given that what is shared is generalized by df.

But to Foucault, Searle, of whom I've read some, his Chinese Box, his argument with Rorty; I had to go back to make sure who he was. It is as I remembered, that he is a philosophical conservative, at least that is what I would call him. He doesn't like questions about foundational matters, which he believes have no basis. No wonder someone like him would disapprove of Foucault, who is not simply a language and logic wonk. He is no friend of a LOT of philosophy, including all of the postmoderns, including Wittgenstein and Rorty; as well as the German idealists, including Kant and Heidegger (though there is something he has in common with Husserl. That would be Husserl's position that what lies before the perceiving mind is Real as an absolute. But beyond this, I can't see anything that bonds them. Searle is not a phenomenologist.)

I've read Madness and Civilization, Archaeology of Knowledge, History of Sexuality (bk 1) and a bit here and there of others. You know, you simply have to follow him and not hold accountable for not framing everything in logical rigidity. He peruses history, finds unity where others don't look,as with sexual prohibition: It never used to be an abomination, this taboo or that. Sexual deviance is a clinical concept born out of powerful people's thinking that came to dominate over their lessors to subjugate and control. (This, you will not is the opposite of Nietzsche , whose complaint was against the many organizing against the few, the ubermenches (sp?) Slave mentality won out over the Odysseuses of the world, forcing these latter to become, ugh!, priests and moral do-gooders).

Foucault is truly important. But Searle is just a pedantic nay sayer.

[Burning ghost]

He states the obvious and then cloaks it in rhetoric; most of the time.

As a reminder, you don't need to remind me what the OP was because I wrote it.

I know Searle is not a phenomenologist (he is actually against it, so what?)

I don't like Foucault's work, but in parts it's useful. I've not read a lot of his stuff and I don't have much inclination to anytime soon. I am more interested in Heidegger and Derrida regarding post-modernism.

I don't think he is "truly important," far from it. For radical left propaganda he is important because its easy for them to warp anything to suit their needs. I doubt that was Foucault's intention, and he was likely simply voices certain idealistic views about how he was treated in his early years. Regarding psychiatry and societal views of "madness" it is interesting, but over all it is very much pushing a certain personal agenda rather than making objective observations - which is precisely what most of his positions rile against (I find that dangerous.)

The next book I get of his will likely be "The Order of Things," or "Archeology of Knowledge." Maybe I'll get round to them next year.

For what it's worth I tend to agree with you about Searle. That is why he is useful. He tends to be very matter of fact about his philosophical outlook rather than edging into more nuanced/obscure areas.

[Hereandnow]

"He states the obvious and then cloaks it in rhetoric; most of the time."
For example?

[Burning ghost]

Madness and Civilization says what exactly? It makes the assumption that insane people were never feared (utter nonsense.) The "conclusion" is a barely legible, and the "profoundity" of Foucault can be boiled down to him saying that social attitudes toward madness have changed over time ... hardly an earth shaking statement.

And there is what Searle says he said. That being he openly admitted the need to write rhetoric in order to be taken seriously in France. Given the pretention within the halls of the humanities it is not difficult to see a work that is neither one purely of history, genuine scholarship (being rife with opinions and cherry picking) or philosophy as being an amorphous seduction. It has no form, but looks like it does. Underneath there is a creative narrative and that is interesting, but it is not objectively valuable.

Maybe I am missing something. If so tell me what Madness and Civilization says.

[Hereandnow]

What Searle and you seem to miss is the thesis that is embedded in the writing. You have to be able to put it together as he does, not as you wish he would. It is your rhetoric, not Foucault's, that reduces the body of Madness to "hardly an earth shaking matter."

Anyone can create straw out of such talk. And genuine scholarship? By what standard? Searle would have Heidegger dismissed as well. He is a pedant with no interpretative skills that can access Foucault. He also mocks Quine and his behavioristic description of meaning. Rorty, and the pragmatists as well. One has to understand, Searle is very smart, and very unenlightened about foundational issues. He advocates common sense without ever asking basic questions, or, without taking basic questions seriously.

If you don't take Foucault seriously, and you don't, then you have to go back and read him again, keeping in mind he never said no one feared sex or madness. He did say that these were handled far more innocently and directly, without a body of prejudice brought to bear, that rose up as these became institutions, religious, academic and political institutions, then started to systematically valorize a mentality of judgment and thought. Foucault looks at history AS, not just rising efficiency and technical understanding, but oppression. You have to care about this sort of thing to follow along;you have to want to know. He was gay (and died of AIDS), so he was compelled to ask question about how it came about that society so reviled homosexuality. See the conservative propaganda, how effective it has been in its leanings on tradition and religion. These latter, where did they come from? How much has there been int he "scientific" literature that "objectively" censures homosexuality? If you believe as Foucault did, that these climates of condemnation were made and not discovered, then the question is, how,and by whom? And what motivated them? Foucault has A LOT to say about this, even if his style of presenting his ideas lacks the formalism Searle insists on.

IF you ask questions like this, Foucault provides insight. There is no question here. Of course, if you have a conservative bent to all your thinking, then you simply dismiss him,likely because you you don't like people like him in the first place.

[Burning ghost]

What is the message in Madness and Civilization? What does the conclusion say?

[Hereandnow]

You can find a summary online as easily as anyone.

The real problem you will have with Foucault is whether you are willing to put aside assumptions about science, normative social thinking, psychology, religion and so on, and accept that the ideas that rule these institutions are not what they say they are. They all are normative and coercively so. You can reject religion, be an atheist, but there is no bravery in this if you can escape to yet some other community of acceptance. But what is the glue that binds? Are we disinterested rational beings? Does the human condition fit neatly into scientific theory? If your answer is yes, or close to it, then Foucault would say you simply are not paying attention to Real history.

See Kuhn on Scientific Revolutions and normal science; R D Laing and his Divided Self; John Dewey's Art as Experience and Experience and Nature; see Wittgenstein and Heidegger and Rorty, et al. See Freud's Civilization and its Discontents to get a picture of the fragility the norms that govern our world. Heidegger thinks it's possessed by regional bodies of ready to hand language and culture that hold the world in place. There are no absolutes here. Then what is there? Reason? Of course, but this would be Real reason, reason embedded in the struggles between people.

When truth is undone as a fixed notion, and it is acknowledged that what is true is "in play" then Foucault can take on greater meaning. He is not just about madness or sexuality. He acknowledges that knowledge is never established without social power, and this is hard to accept by anyone who has some quasi Hegelian view that we are instantiations of an absolute Reason that grasps and steers the world toward some great consummation. One of the features of postmodern thought has to do with the failings of progress and reason, as in clogged highways created to reduce travel time, or an industry of dentistry that was provoked by another industry of candy and cakes. We just look at the the "good" it all does and never imagine the dark side of progress.

Don't think of Foucault as defending a thesis proper. He is presenting the power aspect of historical progress and saying look at the problems, the injustice, the invented taboos, the clinical extravagance: all of these were never asked for. We have internalized them as good and now we are the purveyors in our consumerism, our politics, our media obsessions, our work ethic, and so on. Seems fine if you are IN it. But try being outside it.