Truth

Question 1

3 major interpretations of truth

Answer 1

1. Truth is absolute
2. Truth as subjective-a matter of personal opinion (which would make this statement subjective)
3. Truth as an unattainable entity

Question 2

This books uses the following for a definition of truth

Answer 2

truth is a JUDGEMENT which accords with reality, that our knowledge of reality and the fact of reality harmoniously conform, that the integrated systems of ideas which we have in mind correspond in exact detail with the world of reality

HMM think about this

Question 3

adaequatio intellectus et rei

Answer 3

Truth is the adequation of thought to thing
Aristotle and the scholastics

Truth lies not only in the intellect but also in things.

Question 4

George E Moore

Answer 4

Correspondence theory of truth

defines truth as the correspondence of ideas to reality

Question 5

Spinoza and Hegel

Answer 5

Coherence Theory of truth

A statement is true if it can be INCORPORATED in an orderly and consistent way within the corpus of propositions

Question 6

William James

Answer 6

Pragmatic Theory of truth
Pragmatists maintain that a belief is true if it worth committing us to ACTION, and that only such a belief corresponds with reality

“Grant an idea or belief to be true, what concrete differences will its being true make in any one’s actual life”

True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those we can not.

Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, it is made true by events.

Question 7

Alfred Tarski

Answer 7

Semantic Theory of Truth
Truth is predicated of sentences of meta-language (a language which makes symbolic assertions about another language)
Truth is applicable only to sentences and is basically a semantic matter

The sentence “snow is white” may be predicated as true if and only if “snow is white”, that is, a material adequacy must exist between the sentence and the fact

Question 8

Martin Heidegger

Answer 8

The existential Theory of Truth
though it has other qualities, the ESSENCE of truth is freedom
Truth is unconcealment, the participation in the revealment of what-is-as such

We begin to realize an OVERT and already existing truth

Question 9

Protagoras of Abdera

Answer 9

1. Man’s knowledge of phenomenal world is imperfect because of the imperfections of the human sense
2. instruments such as microscopes and detection equipment increase the range of but not the quality of understanding of objects
3. What is true for me is true for me and what is true for you is true for you alone

Socrates:My opinion is that truth is absolute
Protagoras:Then you would be right

Question 10

Gorgias of Leontium

Answer 10

Nihilism

1. Nothing exists
2. If anything did happen to exist, we could never know it
3. If by some accident man should come to know it, he would never be able to convey it to others

If knowledge is unknowable how did you come to know that?