Have you ever been wrong about something Abra?

Why do you ask?

If truth were subjective, there could be no false beliefs. False belief exists. Therefore, truth is not subjective.

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If truth were determined by thought/belief, there could be no false thought/belief. False thought/belief exists. Therefore truth is not determined by thought/belief.

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If truth were equal to belief, then all belief would be true. Person A would believe X, and person B would believe not X, and both would be true. X and not X cannot both be true, simultaneuosly, therefore truth is not equal to belief.

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If truth were equated to what seems to be a true description of a state of affairs, after we look, then what we call true could not be false. That is clearly not the case, therefore that equation does not correspond to fact/reality... it is not true.

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If truth were equated to a true description, then that would make truth contingent upon natural language. We know that children possess knowledge, true belief, and false belief. Therefore, we know that truth is not contingent upon natural language

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Because by parsing out what constitutes being mistaken, we can see truth for what it is, from yet another aspect of consideration.

There are some men you just can't reach, which is the way he wants it... Well,


he get's it.

How many times has science called something "the truth", only to later find that it was not even true to begin with? It was not true, because the claim("the truth") did not correspond to fact/reality.

Truth is correspondence to fact/reality. True claims correspond, false ones don't. When claims once held to be true are later falsified, they are falsified by showing a lack of correspondence to fact/reality.

False claims to not obtain and preserve truth. True claims do.

Old 'knowledge' that is later disproven, is always replaced with new knowledge that better corresponds to the way things are.

When one finds good reason to change a previously held belief, it is always because they have found some reason to believe that the new belief better matches up to the way things are.

Truth is correspondence to fact/reality.

Period.

Truth does not correspond, thought, belief, and claims do. Truth is that correspondence.

That is why it is a mistake in thought to call a true claim "a truth".

I hope you're not trying to impress anyone with your logic here:



Justify your premise "If truth were subjective, there could be no false beliefs."

This doesn't automatically follow.

If there are processes and methods involved in the definition of truth, then even though truth is subjective, it could still be restrained by those processes and methods. The subjectivity would only be a part of the process.

So your statement is far too broad. There exist situations where truth could be subjective yet still restrained by various factors.

I'll given a concrete example below with spiritual truths.



I don't know of anyone who has defined truth in that away. So I see no reason to concern myself with this hypothetical situation.

[quote[
If truth were equal to belief, then all belief would be true. Person A would believe X, and person B would believe not X, and both would be true. X and not X cannot both be true, simultaneuosly, therefore truth is not equal to belief.


Again, I don't know of anyone who has defined truth to be equal to believe in the way you describe here. So again, I see no reason to concern myself with this hypothetical situation.




Sounds to me like you are hung up on some sort of imagined philosophical notion of an idealization of truth that is not practically attainable.

The concept of 'truth' as defined and used by humans in a practical way is not infallible. And it is recognized as such.

This may be your problem right there.

You are seeking the "Holy Grail" of some idealized philosophical notion of some lofty "Perfect Absolute Objective" notion of truth.

You create that as your "target" and try reach it.

I have no interested in playing such futile philosophical games.

Those are philosophical unicorns.

Can you understand my position on that?

I'm only concerned with practical notions of truth.



All you are doing here us attempting to give your philosophical unicorn an objective existence.

You are defining in your mind a correspondence between reality and perception and calling that TRUTH.

Then you imagine that if a child perceives something that correctly matches the state of affairs that qualifies as 'objective truth'.

But that's meaningless thinking. All you are doing there is attempting to objectify this correspondence that you claim to be 'truth'.

See below in my example of spiritual truths why this doesn't work.

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Spiritual Truth

I'm calling this "Spiritual Truth" simply because this is how I like to label it. You can call it whatever you like. I'll just describe it.

There are two kinds of 'truth'.

1. Analytical Truth (which we have been discussing and defining for the most part)

2. Spiritual Truth (again my own label)

What is spiritual truth?

Well, is very similar to what we try to do with analytical truth the only real difference is that we replace the analytical description with actual experience.

Jeanniebean gave an example of spiritual truth.

"I AM". It is true because she experiences existence. No logical analysis required. It's an immediately accessible and knowable 'truth'.

It is simply a direct experience of the state of affairs. Not description necessary.

I gave this spiritual example before I'll give it again,...

The Zen Master is asked "What is the truth of snow Master?"

The Zen Master replies, "Get naked, go outside, lay in the snow bank, make snow angels, then you will know the truth of snow."

This is just like Jeanniebean's "I AM".

It's the direct experience of the state of affairs, in this case the state of affairs is what we commonly call 'snow'.

The spiritual truth of snow is to experience the snow. That serves the place of the analytical description in our analytical processes of attempting to describe the 'truth' of snow via a matching description.

It's basically the same process. We're just swapping out the need for a description and experiencing the state of affairs directly.

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Now here's the interesting part,....

Everyone will experience the snow bank differently!

Therefore in 'naked primordial truth' is indeed totally subjective.

Everyone's spiritual truth of snow will be different, yet TRUE.


~~~~~~

So there is no conflict between truth being subjective and people having different subjective truths.

It's spiritually the way things are.

It's reality.

Truth is entirely subjective when we by-pass the analytical process of attempting to describe states of affairs and just wallow in them for what they actually are.

Truth is SUBJECTIVE.

~~~~~

Now, if you want to go back to the dry analytical approach to truth you should be able to see that there can indeed be different descriptions for the same state of affairs and even thought those descriptions may different then may still BOTH ultimately represent the truth for whoever it was that came up with the descriptions.

Just as everyone will experience a snow bank differently.

And this is why all truth is necessarily subjective, no matter how hard we try to 'objectify it'.

Your equation of truth to the act of assigning truth value to a claim cannot account for later being mistaken. All it can say, is that it was wrong. We falsify claims by showing a lack of correspondence. IOW...

Truth is correspondence to fact/reality takes into account and better explains all of the times both religion and science have been wrong and right.

I have nothing further to say to you Abra. Any reader who had it made it this far can see for themselves what is going on here, if they are so inlcined.

You offer unsupportable, unjustifiable, opinion which does not correspond to fact/reality.

I'm done with it.

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I'll hang out and check back every now and again to respond to those who seem to be sensible.

Micheal you are chasing illusive philosophical unicorns of idealized notions of some sort of absolute perfectly objective truth.

That's a philosophical pipe dream.

If you want to wallow in that pipe dream by all means be my guest.

I've described what humans mean by 'truth' and how they go about determining what is true.

Do they make mistakes? Yes, I've already acknowledge this.

That's irrelevant to how they actually define truth and go about determining what it is.

I'm looking at truth from a practical useful meaningful way.

You're dreaming about philosophical unicorns of idealized notions of some totally imagined idea of an objectified perfect truth.

But so what? Anyone can dream of philosophical unicorns

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I could waste my time doing that too. But there are far better things I'd rather dream of if I'm going to dream.

~~~~~~~~

In the meantime, we have a pragmatic workable definition for 'truth' as imperfect and fallible as it may be.

It is what is actually USED!

And evidently it seems to be good enough for you too because you seem to be convinced that plants orbit the sun.

So I have no interest in your lofty philosophical unicorns of idealizations of imagined perfect truth.

It's just as illusive as a unicorn.

Finish belittling me.

Get it all out. Make yourself feel better.



Acting like a child who refuses to admit being wrong. There are evidently some serious comprehension problems as well.

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'The planets orbit the sun' IFF the planets orbit the sun.



Scientific method does not make the claim true, correspondence does.

So in other words, you have no interest in a practical working definition for truth complete with all the failings of human 'reality'.

And instead you'd rather find another philosopher to pipe dream with about an imagined 'perfect world' where 'perfect truth' could somehow be objectified in some classical absolute fashion.

If that's your thing by all means do it!

I'm sorry to have been too pragmatic for your taste.

Dense is more like it.

Run along will you?



Shoo.

Sure. I'll be glad to leave.

May you find someone who shares your views!

I agree with this.

Truth as correspondence is how people employ truth. That's how truth works. It's very simple. The difficulty is had in getting over the historically mistaken mindsets that have been perpetuated by both the religious and the scientific zealots. The difficulty is had in breaking the bad habits of thought regarding it once it has been set out in the wrong way. The hardest part is our ego.

Calling anything other than correspondence to fact/reality "truth" begins the slide into misunderstanding what truth is. There are different manifestations of truth because there are different 'kinds' of correspondence. Thought, belief, and claims can all correspond. Not that all of them do, but that all of them necessarily presupposes truth/reality correspondence.

The significance of the subjectivization of truth can be clearly seen when looking at the activities of those in power who wield that power with reckless abandon. If the mindset can be put forth that truth is subjective, it follows that morality is as well. Then it is much easier to condone deliberate dishonesty, it is much easier to condone perceived usefulness. It becomes much easier to create a public mindset that we ought accept that this is the best that we can do... whatever "this" may be.

Trust, truth/reality correspondence, and morality are permanently bound at the hip. No matter who's opinion we listen to, those three things, share a common theme within their thoughts, assuming coherency that is. Some people are just downright crazy.



That's just a side-note really.