How Can 'Truth' Be Established?

[JackDaydream]

This question is explored by Julian Baggini in, 'A Short History of Truth: Consolations For a Post-Truth World', (2017). He points to Aristotle' s emphasis on truth being distinct from falsehood. He suggests that the problem is not that people don't understand what the term truth means 'but how and by whom truth' is established'. The simplicity of truth has been eroded through the changes of thought in science and also, the more the world shrinks through globalisation, the more we have reason to question whether what we take to be true in our cultures really is so or merely a local prejudice.'

What Baggini is arguing is that truth has become more complicated and that some people dispute the existence of truth at all. This is connected to the idea of post-truth. However, many people do think that truth matters. He lists the various kinds of truths, as eternal, authoritative, esoteric, reasoned, empirical, creative, relative, powerful, moral or holistic truths. He states that, 'Establishing the truth requires "epistemic virtues" like modesty, scepticism, openness to other perspectives, a spirit of collective enquiry, a readiness to confront power, a desire to create better truths, a willingness to let our morals be guided by facts.

The reason why I have created this thread is because the quest for truth is what draws me to philosophy in the first instance. However, philosophically truth is complex because there are so many different angles. Some may be more correct than others. There is the problem of relativism in the current pluralist world. Also, there is the question of objectivity in comparison with the subjective viewpoint. So, I am asking about how you see the search for truth, how and to what extent can it be established?

[JackDaydream]

One other aspect relevant for thinking about 'truth' is that of tacit knowledge. This was spoken about by Michael Polanyi in 'The Tacit Dimension'. In this, he looks at the question of whether we know more than we can tell. He says that we tacit knowledge include 'problems, hunches, physiognomies and skills, the use of tools, probes and denotative language' and 'the primitive knowledge of external objects perceived by the senses. ' He states that
'the structure of perception throws light on all the rest. Because our body is involved in the perception of all objects, it participates thereby in our knowing of our knowing of all other things outside'.

The idea of tacit knowledge is about understanding the external world which is part of the process of understanding of truth. It can be asked how important is tacit knowledge in relation to the methods of science, and the two may be complementary. Of course, the issue of truth is more complex because it is not simply about external reality and it may be here that Hume's fork comes in, as the relationship between facts and ideas.

[Angelo Cannata]

The simplicity of truth has been eroded

Nothing is simple. If somebody says that something is simple, this is evidence that what they are saying is wrong. They are trying, maybe unintentionally, to distract you from the awareness of how complex things are.

[The Beast]

Truth is a thesis. It could have physical and metaphysical elements and therefore be considered a non-restrictive thesis. It could incorporate elements of an identity theory. It could also offer facts or paradigms in structured propositions. Yet another element may be one of chemistry. This is explained in how consciousness processes the previous two elements with a feeling of certainty. One other element is the relationship (correlation) with power and its quantity would explain “hiding the truth”. I am familiar with the classical values, and I am most interested in what fulfills/chemical consciousness. The pragmatic view of truth could suffer from the chemical fulfillment. The pragmatic view of truth might not correlate with the view of truth as a vehicle of purpose/direction. Furthermore, as such the truth thesis is what lies ahead in the designs of power defined by concepts of reference and satisfaction. This element defines truth as an adequate thesis by power as truthmaker. Ultimately there is an assertion. The nature of the assertion might be bimodal: What is known and what is true with correlation or not. These are elements of a thesis named Truth in a glyph of a spectrum.

[JackDaydream]

The simplicity of truth has been eroded

Nothing is simple. If somebody says that something is simple, this is evidence that what they are saying is wrong. They are trying, maybe unintentionally, to distract you from the awareness of how complex things are.

It is far from simple. I have wondered if some may consider my thread question ridiculous, as if it is too simplistic to even be worth talking about. However, as far as I can see the history of philosophy is about trying to get to the issue of truth, and this has been approached in such differing ways. There is the question of absolute or relative truth, which is part of the dichotomy of the question. Also, the psychological aspects of truth are extremely important in the way meaning is constructed by human beings and, in accordance with their personal needs and concerns. In some ways, it may be that truth is constructed in this way, because we are creatures, trying to find ourselves and make sense of reality as it appears and confronts us directly in day to day existence.

[JackDaydream]

Truth is a thesis. It could have physical and metaphysical elements and therefore be considered a non-restrictive thesis. It could incorporate elements of an identity theory. It could also offer facts or paradigms in structured propositions. Yet another element may be one of chemistry. This is explained in how consciousness processes the previous two elements with a feeling of certainty. One other element is the relationship (correlation) with power and its quantity would explain “hiding the truth”. I am familiar with the classical values, and I am most interested in what fulfills/chemical consciousness. The pragmatic view of truth could suffer from the chemical fulfillment. The pragmatic view of truth might not correlate with the view of truth as a vehicle of purpose/direction. Furthermore, as such the truth thesis is what lies ahead in the designs of power defined by concepts of reference and satisfaction. This element defines truth as an adequate thesis by power as truthmaker. Ultimately there is an assertion. The nature of the assertion might be bimodal: What is known and what is true with correlation or not. These are elements of a thesis named Truth in a glyph of a spectrum.

The scope of 'truth' to incorporate the physical and metaphysical is important because the two are both aspects of how it is understood. If reality was simply a matter of the physical it would be so much more simple. As it is, there is the understanding of the physical world but this may be extremely difficult without any attention to the non physical, which may incorporate both the abstractions of metaphysics, as well as the psychological aspects of existence, including motivation and the interplay of the conscious and subconscious in daily life.

You speak of power and pragmatism. With regard to pragmatism, what works is an essential part of thinking about truth. However, with the power aspects, it may go beyond the physical sciences and be about the political construction of truth. Ideas and worldviews may be constructed to serve the needs of the power elite, or those in lower ranks. Perception of reality and truth may vary according to one's position in the social order and be a framework for viewing the nature of how life and its justice or injustices are seen. Of course, politics is not a deterministic picture of reality but it is part of the larger picture alongside other references of how reality may be understood.

[EricPH]

Perception of reality and truth may vary according to one's position in the social order and be a framework for viewing the nature of how life and its justice or injustices are seen.

True justice rarely happens. I listened to Glen Fielder tell his story, he was stabbed in the back and beaten up. He has been paralysed from the waist down for the last twenty five years, as a result of these injuries. They caught the man, and he served four years in prison, he was then able to walk out of prison on his own two feet. Justice had been served. Glen stalked his assailant with the intention of running him down, but he could not go through with it. If he ran the man down, he would then become a violent man, just like his attacker.

He said that true justice can never happen. True justice is not that there should be two cripples, rather it is that both can still walk. In Glen's case, he had to come to terms with forgiving this man; in order to stop the hatred eating away at him.

There is the question of absolute or relative truth,

There can only be an absolute truth if is there is a God; who created the universe and life with an absolute truth in mind. Can there be one truth so great, that possibly even God could do nothing greater? I believe this truth would include justice and mercy.

[JackDaydream]

Perception of reality and truth may vary according to one's position in the social order and be a framework for viewing the nature of how life and its justice or injustices are seen.

True justice rarely happens. I listened to Glen Fielder tell his story, he was stabbed in the back and beaten up. He has been paralysed from the waist down for the last twenty five years, as a result of these injuries. They caught the man, and he served four years in prison, he was then able to walk out of prison on his own two feet. Justice had been served. Glen stalked his assailant with the intention of running him down, but he could not go through with it. If he ran the man down, he would then become a violent man, just like his attacker.

He said that true justice can never happen. True justice is not that there should be two cripples, rather it is that both can still walk. In Glen's case, he had to come to terms with forgiving this man; in order to stop the hatred eating away at him.

There is the question of absolute or relative truth,

There can only be an absolute truth if is there is a God; who created the universe and life with an absolute truth in mind. Can there be one truth so great, that possibly even God could do nothing greater? I believe this truth would include justice and mercy.

I am not sure if you meant that Glen Fielder was able to walk again. That is amazing and it can be a hard challenge to go beyond the idea of revenge.

I hadn't really thought about whether the existence of God would mean that there is an absolute truth. That is because even if there is an absolute it is filtered down to the relative experiences of each person, who sees differently to another person Carl Jung spoke of God becoming conscious through the dialogue with human beings. However, Jung was speaking of the human construction of the image of God rather than the transcendent reality, which is beyond direct human knowledge. However, this is based on more of a Gnostic interpretation.

[Gertie]

I think Bagnini and Polanyi make fair points.

I start from the position that we humans are limited and flawed observers and thinkers with a limited first person pov - Subjects. Apparently 'designed' for evolutionary utility rather than true knowledge. We each create an experiential model of the world based on our own interactions with it, which is coherent, predictive and essentially useful. Utility trumps in the mechanisms of how these models are constructed. We create experiential sounds and colours from air disturbances and the wave lengths of photons hitting our eyeballs and so on. The cacophany of sensory input is filtered and focussed to provide us with a coherent, predictive map of the world's terrain, with a comtemporaneous narrative voice in our heads keeping it all comprehensible and useful, noticing lawlike patterns which become theories.


Then we compare notes with other Subjects like us, and together we create a shared model of what our shared world is like. Physical stuff which is observable and measurable is treated as objectively knowable, because it is third person, inter-subjectively, falsifiable. I point at a tree, ask you if you see it too, and you agree. In this way we can eliminate anomalies in our perceptions, but as humans we still have the same utility based flaws and limitations. It's a good enough basis for working model tho, good enough to reliably establish a shared model of the public/physical world and how it works. And as we use tools and theories to extrapolate from our observations, we discover the physical world is indeed more complex than it seems.


But we also give value to other types of knowledge, of what it's more broadly like to be an experiencing subject, for example psychologically, socially, creatively, and in terms of flourishing and suffering. This sort of knowledge is useful in making decisions too, personally and societally, It underlies the directly known first person experience of being a Subject just as much as seeing a green tree. And it justifies the concept of Morality and Oughts.

[The Beast]

By being pragmatic, I could make the assertion that there is truth, the knowledge of truth, the experience of truth and the application of the knowledge of truth. In this application we might find relevancy. “And the truth will set you free”. I don’t have the full grasp of the preceding phrase unless there is Lincoln. It might be that the Omnipresence of truth correlates with the presence of consciousness permeating its essence along the statistical gaining of free citizens. It is binary: To serve or not to serve the truth. Here we might find the designs of conduct and forgiveness.

[Pattern-chaser]

Philosophically, truth is complex because there are so many different angles. Some may be more correct than others.

I wonder if "truth" is another word like "good"? In the same way as I see "good" as something desirable, I see something true as being trustworthy. There are probably many better synonyms than "trustworthy", but my reasoning still stands, I think. There is no thing in the universe, that we can examine, called 'truth'. It is a concept; an idea. It's an idea that describes a situation when someone is speaking, and not lying. And so on...

[EricPH]

“And the truth will set you free”. I don’t have the full grasp of the preceding phrase unless there is Lincoln.

John 32.

The31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

It might be that the Omnipresence of truth correlates with the presence of consciousness permeating its essence along the statistical gaining of free citizens. It is binary: To serve or not to serve the truth. Here we might find the designs of conduct and forgiveness.

Jesus taught much about forgiveness.

[Pattern-chaser]

I wonder if "truth" is another word like "good"? In the same way as I see "good" as something desirable, I see something true as being trustworthy. There are probably many better synonyms than "trustworthy", but my reasoning still stands, I think. There is no thing in the universe, that we can examine, called 'truth'. It is a concept; an idea. It's an idea that describes a situation when someone is speaking, and not lying. And so on...

If I say something to you that I believe to be correct and accurate, but I turn out to be incorrect, did I speak 'the truth'? In other words, is 'truth' relative or absolute?

If truth is absolute, then it becomes a hypothetical fantasy. We have no access to that which actually is, so we are incapable of knowingly speaking words that correspond to that which actually is. Therefore, absolute truth is a non-starter, in practice.

So truth, as a practical thing, must be relative. If I honestly believe I am speaking truly, I have spoken 'the truth', yes?

P.S. The idiom "speak the truth" is a misleading one, I think. Truth is not a thing. It more correctly reflects our intended meaning if we say instead that I have "spoken truly", yes?

[Pattern-chaser]

“And the truth will set you free”. I don’t have the full grasp of the preceding phrase unless there is Lincoln.

John 32.

The31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”

34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”

You clearly believe that the words you have quoted are true beyond any form of challenge; I assume you see them as the literal Word of God? The problem is that I do not share these beliefs, so what you have written is not at all convincing, to me. In a forum like this one, there will be others who share my concerns. What have you to say to us?

[EricPH]

I am not sure if you meant that Glen Fielder was able to walk again. That is amazing and it can be a hard challenge to go beyond the idea of revenge.

Sorry, I didn't explain myself very well. Glen never walked again after the attack. He learned to drive a disabled car, and stalked his attacker in his car; with the intention of running him down.

I hadn't really thought about whether the existence of God would mean that there is an absolute truth.

I think this could only happen if God intentionally created the universe with "One Greatest Purpose in mind"

Jung was speaking of the human construction of the image of God rather than the transcendent reality, which is beyond direct human knowledge.

In Christianity it says we are created in the image, likeness and nature of God; we are God's children.

Can God create anything greater than children in his own image?

Could God love each and everyone of his children as he loves himself? ( the greatest commandments) Can there be any greater good purpose to create children in your own image?

Could God love us more than he loves himself?

God gave us the greatest commandments, did these commandments first have a greatest good meaning for God before he gave them to us?

Just a collection of words to challenge the mind to think.