User:Agnese marino basc/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge (LG seminar)/Group 9/Truth

In our time : Truth

Introduction

When thinking of the word ‘true’, it does not seem that difficult to explain. The sentences ‘it is raining outside’, ‘there is a lemon on the table’ and ‘London is the capital of England’ are true if they state real facts. ‘It is raining outside’ is true if and only if it is actually raining outside when the sentence is said. Nevertheless, ‘truth’ cannot be that simple since philosophers have spent years trying to understand the concept itself. In this podcast, philosophers insist on different processes to understand this concept.

Definition of 'Truth'

First of all, ‘Truth’ is a linguistic term very important and redundant simultaneously. Indeed, it is a very hard concept to understand but also trivial. When focusing on the word ‘truth’, you might notice specific characteristics. For instance, when you say ‘it is true that the Earth is a planet’ you don’t add any other relevant information by using the expression ‘it is true that...’. This feature is called 'transparency’.

On the other hand, ‘Truth’ is also a philosophical concept which led to radical changes in this discipline. During the 21^st century, philosophy expanded widely. One major question arose : how can truth be inscribed in our sentences ? Hence, new branches (so called sub-disciplines) appeared such as logic which led to the study of semantics, syntax, pragmatics and the analysis of truth values of particular sentences.

Approaches regarding ‘Truth’

To approach ‘truth’, various theories have been developed. The most famous one is the Correspondence Theory. In this case, truth corresponds to the facts which can either be positive, negative or neutral. A true statement is independent of me. For example, we can move the monument Big Ben to Shanghai but we will still believe that it is an english monument because it relies on a universal fact.                    

Despite the success of this theory, it raised some concerns. We focus mainly on the notion of facts which is hard to connect with our notion of truth. In some cases, people beliefs’ are very strong and difficult to dispute. The principal obstacle is number theory in which we cannot rely only on facts, we need proofs.

The second one is the Coherence Theory. This theory – based on reality – is very attracting because it insists on the need to domesticate the notion of truth. We use logic to prove ‘truth’. People advocating in favor of this theory have claimed that if a sentence is true in a coherent set of propositions therefore it is always true.              

Of course, this theory raises some concerns. The main protestor is Bertrand Russell. He declared that it would be totally feasible to find a proposition coherent in a set a proposition but false by definition. Therefore, the coherence characteristic for a proposition is not enough to prove that this statement is true. Russell insisted on the need to develop more specifically the characteristics of coherent system to avoid counter examples.

The last theory regarding truth is called Pragmatic. It appeared at the turn of the 20^th century. Pierce was a pioneer of this theory. It claimed that ‘truth’ is the opinion agreed by a large group of people and it refers to the point where we reach the end of enquiries and our beliefs converge. We can rely on those opinions and we do not have to think again about their truth validities. The pragmatic theory sees truth as the commitment people display when they deal with problem, scientific experiments, etc.

Therefore, when asking the question ‘what is true ?’, there are a multitude of correct answers. ‘Truth’ in mathematics is different from 'truth’ in philosophy which also differs from ‘truth’ in artistic disciplines. Nevertheless, people have argued that ‘truth’ is independent from the field of study. Indeed, it is not relevant because we only have to focus on the content of the proposition itself to deduce whether it is true or not. Therefore, it seems that truth is universal. Sometimes, truth depends upon personal experiences and cannot be generalized.

Conclusion

To summarize, ’truth’ is a linguistic term and a philosophical issue. To approach this notion, different theories have arisen, each of them raising concerns proceeding towards the understanding of ‘truth’ which can vary depending on the purpose. This is how two main branches of ‘truth’ were born : personal truth relying on personal experiences and universal objective truths which we cannot call into question.

Link with the notion of evidence

It seems that truth as an interdisciplinary issue can be applied to various fields to prove ‘evidence’ in particular fields of study. For instance, in literary and artistic disciplines, we need to analyze the truth validity of texts, pictures, etc. to use them as evidence. The same process applies for scientific subjects, history, and any discipline, the first step is to verify the reliability of our sources by using our knowledge and our understanding of ‘truth’ and then we can use those sources (e.g. experiments, historical texts) as evidence to support our statement. The truth theory chosen depends on the discipline in which it will be applied.

It is arguable that the Correspondence and the Pragmatic theories are applicable in social fields in which the main approach is interpretivist whilst the Coherence theory attracts scientists because it relies on positivism and search for universal truths.

(by Hermine)

Perspectives on Truth in The Natural Sciences (Shagun)

Karl Popper held a very interesting perspective on the nature of truth in the natural sciences, and how verification could be obtained to find absolute truth in the sciences. In Popper’s opinion, truth in the natural sciences can only be obtained through the falsification of a claim. That is, you can conclusively falsify a claim, but never conclusively ensure that it is true. This is because of the nature of evidence collection that the natural sciences employs which is based on observation. In Popper’s view it is possible to have abundant evidence in favour of a claim, but it would still not be sufficient to prove the claim true. This is because one single contradictory piece of evidence could prove the claim wrong. The typical example for this is the black swan example. All swans that have been observed are white. Thus it may be inductively reasoned that all swans are white. In Popper’s view this statement is not completely verified, because it applies a generalization from only a select sample of observations. The observation of just one black swan could falsify this claim assuredly. This example illustrates one of the many problems of achieving absolute truth in the sciences because of its inductive approach of reasoning.

This thinking thus perhaps suggests that all truths in the sciences are provisional - only believed to be true for a limited period of time until evidence arises to prove it false. Popper argues that truth in science can confidently be obtained when a claim is proven false. This view stands in stark contrast to the justificationist view whereby it is believed that truth in science is found on the basis of positively providing evidence for a claim. In Popper’s view of truth in science, a claim thought to be true from a justificationist perspective (positively proven to be true) is in essence ‘less’ true than that of a claim that has been falsified. Thus these varying perspectives illustrate how the validity of a claim may vary depending on the approach to prove it (justification or falsification). Popper’s idea of scientific truth thus seems to only favour claims that are falsified, which in reality is hard to apply because most claims in science are not negatively proven true. However, what his line of thinking does enable is for us to consider the relative confidence of truth of claims that are positively proven to be true. In Popper’s view, claims that run a high risk of falsification , and that have not yet been falsified are the best claims and thus more likely to be true.

Truth in History (Lottie)

Truth in History, William A. Dunning – The American Historical Review, Vol 19, No. 2 (Jan 1914), pp.217-229

‘The deeds of men have been affected more by the beliefs in what was false than by the knowledge of what was true’

Dunning examines the role of truth in history and how the excessive focus on finding “truth” by modern historians has obscured the relevance of different events throughout time. Dunning criticises the dominant use of first-hand sources in history as a means for evidence, reiterating the equal importance of second-hand sources and other evidence which, all together, create a more comprehensive idea of the past. Dunning states the important fact that history is intrinsically linked to the ‘mind of the investigator’ as ‘the course of history is determined no more by what is true than by what men believe to be true’. History is therefore not only a study of chronological events, but of how people perceived and interpreted these events both as they were happening and from a modern perspective. Dunning also raises the interesting point that often, from a modern perspective, pre-modern societies are viewed as being ‘ignorant’ to truth, limiting their importance within history. Dunning states that whether their ‘ideas were true or false, according to the standard of any other period, has nothing to do with the matter. That they were the ideas which underlay the activities of men at this time, is all that concerns the work of the historian’.

Though his points are largely applicable to the discipline of history (and other disciplines), Dunning is extremely generalising in his piece and doesn’t acknowledge the different methods of individual historians in the reporting of history; not every historian undermines the significance of second-hand sources and many stress the importance of opinion in the reporting of history and are not solely focused on chasing “facts”.

Linking to other issues within interdisciplinarity, the point is made that occasionally history has been ‘deliberately falsified’ either for personal or political motive. This links to the issue of power and how individual power has undeniably influenced our version of history, whether it be factually accurate or not; truth is manipulated, bringing into question the reliability of our perception of what “truth” is.

Therefore, this article prompts us to examine how we view historical “fact” and to be mindful not to impose modern standards on historical writing, both within history and other disciplines. Different opinions, whether we believe them to be true or not, contribute to a wider picture which is often beneficial to our writing and they should not be overlooked. It also brings into question our view on “truth” as a concept and prompts us to examine whether the search for factual “truth” is really so advantageous in academia.

Truth in Science

Does science aim at truth?

In the early days of scientific endeavour, the discipline of science was the epitome of philosophical positivism.  ‘Science’ to most meant the pursuit of an ultimate truth, and the triumph of Comte’s 'Cours de philosophie positive' was one of the driving forces behind this. Comte proposed that society’s search for truth undergoes three stages: the Theological, or fictitious; the Metaphysical, or abstract; and finally the Scientific, or positive. The last stage refers to scientific explanation based on observation, experiment and comparison, and thus it is synonymous with the idea of science and technology on a steady path to an absolute truth.

However, in more recent years, philosophers of science have rejected such a notion, as it does not accommodate how many great scientific figures have held dearly to false beliefs. Such philosophers argue that science ‘does not need to be true in order to be good’ and that ‘asking for truth is risky because it commits one to believing in things that may prove false in the future’. Instead science should be said to aim at empirically adequate theories that ‘save the observable phenomena’ (i.e. help conceptualise complex things that we as humans would be unable to otherwise understand). Perhaps an example of this could be the coastline paradox. This is where, due to the fractal-like properties of coastlines, the absolute accurate length of a coastline cannot be measured, as measuring tools of different scales give different lengths. Thus by controlling the tool and method used, an approximation of the length can be given, which allows different land masses to be compared - a method which may not provide 'truth' but is good enough.

Does science tell us the truth?

Aside from the aims of science, and looking only at its history, there is cause for debate to say the discipline does not have the ‘truest’ track record. Studying modelling practices in science has led to the argument that science does not tell the truth but does instead provide important non-factive understanding. For example, Boyle’s gas law (which states that the pressure of an ideal gas is inversely proportional to its volume at a constant temperature) only holds under highly idealised circumstances. On top of this, for the law to be true, the ideal gas molecules are modelled as perfectly spherical – such an ideal gas doesn’t exist. Therefore despite being true of nothing real, the model does provide important non-factual understanding of the behaviour of real gases.

Social Constructionism

Social constructionism believes that there is no objective truth, contrary to the beliefs of positivism. All ways of understanding are relative, historically and culturally. Reality or the world as we see it is a product of that culture and history, and one example is gender/patriarchy.

Knowledge is also sustained by social structures, meaning that truth is created through processes and interactions between people. Language plays a significant role as well, as it becomes a framework for constructing truth and reality. So social constructionists believe that when you talk, the world is constructed.

Social constructionism's roots

Social constructionism's roots come from the Enlightenment as well as Postmodernism. The Enlightenment promoted the search for truth, to understand reality by using reason and rationality, as people broke away from the fixed dogmas of the Catholic Church. Thus the emphasis shifted from accepting what the Church dictated as the truth to encouraging individuals to make their own judgments, as coined by the term Sapere aude (dare to know/dare to think for yourself). Postmodernism rejects the idea that reality can be understood by grand theories or underlying structures, hence rejecting structuralist views. Rather, there is a multitude of situation-dependent ways of life, also known as plurality.

Truth in Politics

Post-truth era

The term ‘post-truth’ has been elected word of the year by the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016 and has been defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. This term has been illustrated by the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum.

The idea of Alfredo Pareto is that to maintain the social order there is an alternance between two types of elites: the fox and the lions following the terms of Machiavelli. The lions understand the history as ‘a reliable basis to move into the future’ and the foxes question the history of the lion that he considered as corrupt. Indeed, lion’s truth aim to be as far as possible from the fox truth whereas foxes wills are to minimize this moral distance with the lions truth (Fuller 2018:2). For instance, in the election of Donald Trump, the lion Hillary Clinton had more experienced in politics and had a progressive agenda following ‘the post-Cold-War neo-liberal Welfare state’. The strategy of Donald Trump was to undermine this ‘traditional’ agenda and he addressed to the populace neglected by this agenda. He destabilizes the conventional way of information of the well-granted newspapers, with the use of fake news on twitter. In a truth game, the lion is considered by everyone as the truth owner. In a post-truth game, foxes can change the rules. In the election of Donald Trump, the misinformation by the medias have been an essential factor. The U.S. citizens had access to plenty of medias and had to chose what to believe. Thus, they chose their truth according to their feelings. This led to the question: How do we obtain truth in our current politic?

Scientific philosophy and truth by Ines

Introduction

The definition of truth has always been problematical as philosophers gave it different interpretations. But if we stand to the general common sense, truth means being in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or standard. What is even more problematical is the relationship between truth and sciences. We often see sciences as the main shapers of our environment's phenomena, as it gives us "right" explanations based on well-done observations. But how can we really say that what scientists are showing us is real truth? We usually believe more easily what we can't prove with our own provided capacities, but can we really see science as a beacon of truth ?

Auguste Comte and Positivism

Positivism was first introduced by French Philosopher Auguste Comte. In his Cours de philosophie positive (1830-1842), Comte divided the evolution of human knowledge in three stages.

The first stage is the Theological stage were people used religion (monotheistic or polytheistic) to explain some phenomena. Truth becomes then a spiritual truth imposed by a spiritual figure, which doesn't need a tangible justification but more of a personal and totally subjective belief. The second stage is the metaphysical stage, which is an extension of the theological stage. People use abstract concepts to build their truth. They use non tangible ideas, just like a, unknown superior force that has the ability to shape the world. It is not about one unique "god", it is not religious, it is more of a willingness to have a figure or a superior that could be an explanation to the world. The third stage is the positivity stage. It is the positivism that Auguste Comte talks about. It is about establishing truth through scientific experiments and observations. Justifications become more tangible as they are often human discoveries. For Comte, the positivity stage is the highest accomplishment in the human knowledge. It is on the basis of his Positivism. "The basic affirmations of positivism are that all knowledge regarding matters of fact is based on the “positive” data of experience and that beyond the realm of fact is that of pure logic and pure mathematics." So, positivism gave to sciences an extraordinary power to convince and to establish some general and universal truths. In other words, science leads to truth. Positivism has led to many other movements and different views towards truth and sciences, like empiricism and [positivism]m.

The problem is that this way of looking at science like an absolute truth makes truth inscrutable, as sciences are reserved to intellectuals, and people who actually studied it. Moreover, some other philosophers asked about the real role of science. Does it really aim at truth ?

Scientific Realism

Scientific realism is the view that science shuts down the way we see the world through our own senses. Scientific theories are not common to human's normal existence, "reveal the existence of whole orders of unobserved and perhaps unobservable things, hypothesized in order to explain observations and having their reference fixed by the laws governing their behavior." Thus, scientific realism views that scientific theories aim at truth. Their final goal is truth, but this truth is not always within easy reach.

Thomas Kuhn, truth and science

The structure of the scientific revolution is a book written by the American philosopher of science, Thomas Kuhn in 1962.This book is considered as revolutionary as " he singlehandedly changed the way we think about mankind's most organised attempt to understand the world." The old way of looking at science (before Kuhn) was almost idealized. Sciences where a pathway to development, as the mankind was adding more and more scientific truths to old scientific truths in order to achieve progress. It is [Whig interpretation of history]. But Kuhn, saw in sciences discontinuities and not a continuous flow of scientific information and discoveries that changes the world little by little. He mentions different phases for scientists: phases that are turbulent and tormented, and phases that are normal. This alternating between these two phases makes the revolutionary transitions in scientific knowledge, just like the transition from Newtonian mechanics to quantum physics.. Truth in sciences is changing, because works, discoveries and experimentations make something that was true become false. But what Kuhn is saying is that we need to understand a scientist's work at any historical time, we need to see that time's credentials.

Truth in Aesthetic Judgement

Aesthetic judgements or 'judgements of taste' refer to the response of our effective domain towards an object or phenomenon. They have universal validity but are not empirical due to their basis on an inner subjective response.

Hume's thesis

For David Hume, taste is not to be described solely as "the ability to detect all the ingredients in a composition", but in conjunction to our sensitivity "to pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind."

He argued that despite the subjectivity of our judgements, they are still valid and possible to be supported. He thought it was possible to identify certain judges as having reliable taste whose subjective responses could be used as a standard in the evaluation of objects. The 'joint verdict' would be considered 'correct' and those in disagreement would be labelled as having defective taste.

Kant's thesis

Immanuel Kant believed that 'enjoyment' is the outcome of pleasure from sensation, but to the judgement of 'beauty' required that sensation arise from pleasure by engaging our abilities to reflect and contemplate, which are sensory, emotional, and intellectual simultaneously. Kant argued that aesthetic judgements were subjective, and therefore impossible to prove or support, since it would be logically irrelevant to rely on the agreement or disagreement from the responses of other judges.

He observed: "If he says that canary wine is agreeable he is quite content if someone else corrects his terms and reminds him to say instead: It is agreeable to me," because "Everyone has his own taste." The case of 'beauty' is different from mere 'agreeableness' because, "If he proclaims something to be beautiful, then he requires the same liking from others; he then judges not just for himself but for everyone, and speaks of beauty as if it were a property of things."

Factors that affect judgement

Aesthetic judgements can be deemed to need a phenomenological approach as reality is constructed solely through the eyes of the beholder. However, as we are all individuals that reside in a society that has already deemed what is and is not acceptable through millennia, we have been culturally conditioned to respond to things in certain ways. For example, perhaps we will be disgusted if we find a hair in our food, yet food nor hair on their own are not disgusting. Hence the process of aesthetic judgement can also be described as interpretative.

Due to the differing opinions and constantly changing cultural landscape, there will never be a singular objective 'truth' to aesthetic judgement, but rather a generalized agreement of taste as social relations influence that way, we, as humans react to the world around us.

(Selina)