|
| Group: |
sci.philosophy.meta |
[ Post new message ] |
|
|
 |
| Author: |
Haines Brown |
| Subject: |
Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value |
| Body: |
jason <jasonkstevens@gmail.com> writes:
> Yes, the camera can't take a picture of itself analogy. You can't see
> your power of sight, although in a lab you can see eye balls and the
> part of the brain where the visual processing goes on. But it's the
> experience of sight that's the bit we can't get at, not the impression
> it leaves in our memory or the commentary "I know I'm seeing right
> now". The subject pole of the subject-object axis, is the exact thing
> that can't be the object of our awareness. If you take away the
> object the awareness vanishes, in this picture of things. We can't
> simply say that because we are aware of an object then there must be
> awareness, because it's begging the question.
Excuse the picky point, but try taking a picture of yourself looking at
a mirror ;-) . But you are right, you can't see your power of sight, for
it is an unobservable. I can get a direct experience of sight in that
I'm conscious of myself seeing and the effect it has on my mind. So I
don't quite get your point.
I never brought up the "subject-object axis", but only that I can see
the relation of my statements and the world. If I state that I'm now
typing, I am aware of the words in my mind, I can I can see my fingers
going and the consequent formation of equivalent written words on the
screen. I see the correspondence between the thought and what appears on
the screen, and is correspondence between them is why my statement that
I'm typing my thoughts I call true. The word true, in correspondence
theory, refers to the formal relation of things (statements and the
world), and when there is such a formal relation, I can know it
directly. I verify the its truth that way, but the word truth is not an
observed feature of any particular thing. Is that what you are saying?
>> I offered the conventional meaning of truth and suggested it does not
>> reduce to utility. You don't address the point I raised.
>
> I thought I did elsewhere. Talk of truth and utility are
> incommensurable. Utility, from economics, doesn't just mean useful
> but what we find desirable. For our own reasons of desire we trade
> stories that we might call "true", so there is no reduction of truth
> to utility and I haven't suggested there is one. I'm suggesting to
> let go of using terms like "truth" and "knowledge" after the old
> manner, and start using new terms in new ways.
I probably agree that truth does not reduce to utility. Your example
from economics is unfortunate, for to suggest that utility is merely
desire is ideological (is a probable function of social class). I'm not
saying you are wrong here, but only that your statement can't lay claim
to being universally true.
But we are being drawn into side issues. You want to get rid of the word
truth and knowledge. That can mean a) they are misleading encumbrances
that are unnecessary, so that we can make true statements or possess
truthful knowledge without their use, or b) there is no such thing as
truth and knowledge, or c) truth is entirely subjective and so entirely
relative. You not only have to indicate which you mean, but also to the
extent that your position deviates from convention, offer some
justification. Casting doubt on the word "utility" in economics seems at
best only relevant by implication concerning your point that we not
speak of truth or knowledge. Give me a good reason.
>> On what grounds do you say that no theory has any truth? If no theory
>> has truth, then your theorem that they have no truth is surely not
>> true. In other words, you are free to argue that no theory is true,
>> but you must justify that position, for it seems illogical and is
>> surely unconventional.
>
> I'm not asserting my theory is true, like I said, assertions are
> possible without the idea of truth.
Assertions are possible without the idea of truth? Again, not sure how
to take this. That we can assert something without realizing that we are
making a truth statement? That a statement can be true without there
being any definition of truth? If so, I'd be inclined to agree. And
there's the semantic argument that truth statements have nothing to do
with truth, but with our personal relation to the statement, and with
this I'd disagree for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it runs
against convention. Since it is not embedded my dictionary or in
scientific texts, it must be spelled out and justified by who ever
offers it.
> Logic relies on the idea of truth, so under logical analysis you would
> get a contradiction. But why do we need an artificial language and a
> system of symbol manipulation to tell us how to think? I'm surely
> being unconventional too, but since when is popular vote good criteria
> for argument?
I've no idea what it means to say that logic relies on the idea of
truth. I'm aware of the suggestion that logic makes the truth value of
our statements more probable, but that's not what you are saying. But to
be honest, I don't know what logic is. My dictionary suggests it is a
description of the powers of mental reasoning with the requirement of
coherence. That makes sense. But what does that have to do with truth,
since truth conventionally is a relation between a product of mind and
the world and so is not a feature of the mind or of its operations. But,
again, I'm ignorant about all this.
>> What does warrant have to do with god? I only meant the word in the
>> sense of justify. My dictionary definition for warrant does not
>> mention any gods.
>
> I used "god" as a marker pen for where the idea of warrant departs
> human durastiction and so can only be followed by faith.
Not sure if I understand. When we claim that a statement is true, we are
commonly making a statement about its correspondence with the
referent. It is commonly felt that our justification for this claim, our
warrant for it, entails more than just the mind (its product in our
statement), but involves the world. Are you saying that a) statements of
truth are entirely mental (a coherence theory) and b) when we try to
relate it to the world we presume unsubstantiated facts? Perhaps, but it
would be useful if you were to specify just why. An empiricist would say
that the facts of observation can verify (or falsify) the truth of our
statement, since we can observe its compatibility with the known facts,
and he would insist that no observational theories are entailed. I'd
agree there are problems with this point, one of which is that it
entails unproven ontological assumptions. But empiricists today respond
to this criticism.
>> On what grounds do you believe that no one knows anything? If that
>> were true, how could I discuss it with you?
>
> I'm not saying that the truth is there is no truth, or that I know
> that we don't know. I'm not looking for the grounds under which to
> support truth, or the grounds in which the tree of knowledge can be
> planted. There is no such garden of eden. Moreover, this doesn't
> mean I believe our claims of truth and knowledge stand over an abyss.
> I'm abandoning this whole picture of a grounds altogether because it
> is a religious one, and adopting a more mundane picture of things; at
> this point, one that involves the idea of utility.
I find you hard to follow. You are not denying truthful statements and
you are not trying to justify claims of truth. You seem to say simply
that there are no grounds for us to claim our statements are true. OK,
then you must have some objection to the dictionary/correspondence
theory of truth, presumably because it entails unsubstantiated
axioms. However, there's a world of a difference between pointing out
that we assume our axioms are true and stating that they represent
something unnatural.
All theories entail axioms that are presumed true, and often the reason
for this presumption is convention. But in looking for your objection,
all I find is this reference to religion, which I take to mean the
presence of something non-natural or supernatural. But are our axioms
beliefs that we accept because of convention, or because they represent
the best current theory, or because of utility, or because they prove to
be instrumental, pragmatic, etc. etc.? None of these reasons seem to
presume anything unnatural, and on the contrary I assume they probably
assume their justification is quite natural. An axiom of my behavior is
that to harm others is wrong. I can justify this belief without recourse
to anything non-natural.
> It doesn't mean we can't talk about things either or that we should
> stop using the terms. I'm trying to get across that the whole picture
> of truth and knowledge is so entrenched in our cultural word game that
> we've lost the ability to do without them, and that there are other
> word games that we might play, ones that do without religious beliefs.
> These beliefs are a relic from times when it was thought the world was
> spoken into existence, a time when it was thought that language
> mediated reality.
Up to a point I'd agree. However, that we presume truth does not seem a
word game, but rather how we define it and perhaps verify it. A newborn
learns to react to its mother in a certain way prior to the acquisition
of language (yes, there's a classic debate over whether knowledge arises
first from our action in the world or from language, but I fear this
debate presumes an unwarranted reductionist distinction between
individual and society). I have no reason to presume that the "word
games" we imbibe from our culture are necessarily non-natural
("religious") or why a replacement word game is likely to be more
natural.
I'd agree with the conventional wisdom that our truths are one-sided
approximations of reality, and that for some time (since the end of
Cartesianism) we try our best to justify our beliefs in naturalistic
terms. That our beliefs turn out in the long run to have been wrong only
means that they are incomplete and in response to deepening
contradictions we invent ways of representing reality that is somewhat
less one sided.
I don't know of any time except now when people believed the world was
simply thought into existence other than in an occasional parlor game. I
know a young autistic woman who is blind and can't speak, but she has a
very acute truthful knowledge of her world, such as being able to
identify who is entering the room from their footsteps, even if she has
not been in contact with that person for months.
Yes, there is a widespread sense that the world is terribly out of
joint, and most people associate it with
westernization/imperialism/trade liberalization/globalization, etc.,
which are natural causes. However, peoples' response is usually to turn
for relief to the supernatural, to a world that is purely an invention
of the mind. However, I consider this a pathological response because it
fails to seize upon the real (tangible) powers that in fact have been
brought into existence, which offers a real potential for their use to
create a better world. I can only assume this is because they
underestimate their potential real power because of localized awareness
and given the overwhelming enormity and alacrity of global change.
> Well, if I believed in truth and knowledge, then I suppose I'd have to
> say yes to your question. If I understand it correctly that it. The
> more points of view you have on the world the richer its apprehension,
> so presumably, if you have many points of view agreeing then you've
> covered off more potential reality.
In the quote of your passage above, you said you were not denying there
is truth, but here you imply you don't belief in truth. You loose me.
>> I don't understand what your problem is. Yes, truth is a relation
>> between a statement and the world, but it is a causal relation in
>> that a truth statement is caused by the mind under conditions
>> constrained by the world. What do you mean there are no causal
>> relations out there? Obviously there are, for there's all kinds of
>> things going on of which we presumably are unaware.
>
> As far as I'm aware, this is the first time you've started to get at
> the nature of your truth correspondence relation.
Well, this is interesting. I brought in the idea that our statements are
caused by the operations of the mind, but that the mind is constrained
by matter in that it determines the probability distribution of the
truthfulness of our possible statements in relation to the world. I
would add that the world constrains our knowledge only indirectly,
though the medium of action in the world. The idea is a creation of the
mind, not of the world.
I hesitated addressing the specific nature of the correspondence between
our statements and the world because there's a range of theories, and I
was not trying to evaluate their relative merits, but deal with
correspondence theory in general - that there is some kind of
correspondence between truthful statements and the world. What I
shouldn't have injected above was my own take on this
correspondence. Curious that it should come at all as a surprise to you.
> You say truth is a causal relation but it is also caused by the mind.
> Does the mind cause a causal relation or do you mean that this causal
> relation, if we traced it, would be the truth relation? (although
> reading what you say below I'm not sure either are right)
The mind can't create the relation, for the _formal_ relation is between
statements and the world. It takes two to tango; you can't very well do
it by yourself. No, the statement itself is a product of the mind (a
_causal_ relation). However, the mind can't create statements entirely
at random, for the mind has limited powers, and, as you suggest, it
carries a specific culture, and so any statement expresses the limits
and powers of the mind in probabilistic terms.
Some of our statements we describe as has having truth value, not so
much in relation not to the mind as I have just described, but to the
world beyond the mind, and by that we mean that these statements
correspond in some sense (have a formal relation) with the world. That
simply defines a truth statement. As to why such a statement _can_ be
true is because we gather truthful knowledge about the world through
action in the world, and from that acquire knowledge; that is, the world
indirectly constrains the probable content of our knowledge of the
world. You can't say that fire will keep you cool on a hot day because
our experience suggests otherwise. The relation of the statement and the
world is _not_ causal, but formal. So a truthful statement is both
subjective (in that it reflects the powers of the mind and also what the
mind presumes is true) and objective in that it arises from actions
constrained by the world. The real causal relation is between mind and
our statements, and in the case of truthful statement, between ourselves
as actors and the world.
There's a major weakness in this little diatribe. We arguably have
knowledge of unobservables, and so what does it mean that a theory
entailing unobservables "formally" corresponds with the world? It can't,
for "formal" implies observationals. This is why, despite my elaborating
a correspondence theory, I ultimately don't agree with it. A common
alternative approach might be pragmatism, but I reject that as well, as
ultimately based on observation of outcomes to validate the truth of
one's theory (if I understand pragmatism correctly). So I take a rather
bizarre approach that might be called existential, but I'll not
elaborate it here, in part because I can't presume you are at all
interested. I got hung up on correspondence theory because it is the
most conventional notion of truth (is embedded in the dictionary and is
presumed by practicing scientists) and used it to counter a possible
suggestion that there is no truth outside the mind. So I found myself in
the unfortunate position of defending a theory I didn't entirely agree
with.
> Hey, what happened to c?
?
> I remember objecting to the idea that truth and warrant are necessary
> preconditions for the possibility of stopping at a red light. I
> figured causality was enough.
I assume you meant "probability" not "possibility". I can always stop at
a red light if I see it and if my breaks work. What causes me to stop?
Habit, of course, but habit based on my knowledge of the situation
(likelihood of accident or arrest if I run the light). It is also a
choice because I know that if for some reason I wish or need to run the
light, I can do it. So my action was presumably caused. There is a
variety of causal factors, ranging from the force of habit, to my
truthful assessment of the situation that there is a light, that I
should stop at the light, and how to do it (correspondence), and by
choice based on a cost/benefit analysis of the probable outcomes of my
choice (pragmatism). The last two involve truthful assessments. It seems
off hand that my assessment of the situation and of probable outcomes of
my choice involve statements that I must presume are true if I am to
act on them.
> Yes, re-reading it its poorly written. I'm saying firstly that I'm
> not trying to prove correspondence right or wrong - just remove the
> need for it. The best I can claim to do is make it look unattractive.
> I certainly don't accept it because of the assumptions it has. I
> think it can be made to work, but the price to be paid is too high.
> Second, that our common sense is full of contradictions, circular and
> blind assumptions, so it's a poor choice for grounds for a theory.
Yes. Understood that you are not launching a critique of correspondence
theory so much as suggesting that it is an unnecessary encumbrance. I
suppose one would do this by two means: a) suggesting that our
statements have truth value gets us into trouble, b) an avoidance of
truth statements results in a language that is utilitarian, efficient,
appeals to common sense, etc.
You haven't really been clear about (a) or (b). Just how do statements
of truth get us into trouble? There's a school that suggest that when we
say something is true we are really making a statement about our
personal relation to the statement, not its truth. Fine, but what ill
would such a re-interpretation correct? As for (b), you have not been
specific about any alternative. I say, "Your honor, I did see the
suspect, and he was wearing a yellow hat". The defense counsel
challenges me, Did you really see the hat?" He is asking me to verify
that was what I saw, and I reply "Yes". It is important for the jury to
know if my statement is truthful or not. What difficulty arises because
this judicial procedure aims to establish the truth or falsity of my
statement? And how could the cross examination occur without presuming
that statements of fact have truth value? Or is my example too
simplistic?
>> I'm not persuaded. We don't develop by becoming detached, but by
>> being engaged. Otherwise, we would learn more by not going to school
>> or experiencing the world, but we know very well that the opposite is
>> the case. Detachment is death, not freedom.
>
> I'm sure the buddhists would disagree with you :)
Well yes. While I have respect for Buddhist teachings, that doesn't mean
I feel they are appropriate today.
> Well, I'm not persuaded either so at least on this we agree. I don't
> believe in the idea of development however, unless by development you
> mean getting better at surviving.
No, I mean development of our power to act (for good or ill). This power
is constrained by social structure and productive powers, and does not
mean progress in the Enlightenment or the positivist senses. That is, I
don't give it moral value. I don't want to get into this issue here, but
just to give a hint of where I'm coming from, I see existing societies
as being contradictory, and the structure that supports development of
social capacities at the same time means these capacities fail to meet
the emerging social needs caused by development. So we are in effect on
a treadmill that would get nowhere (stagnation) if it were not that
emerging capacities reach a point that a restructuring becomes possible
and necessary (periodization in history). Through such restructurings,
there is a potential for new capacities and new needs, but at a "higher"
level in that these capacities accumulate and are quantitatively greater
and needs shift toward a development of our social rather than our
biological being.
> I suppose I'm a pragmatist at the moment, but my main "position" is
> that I don't really believe in the truth of positions, only in their
> current utility, which will is personal and will inevitably change. I
> doubt I'll come back to truth however.
I'm trying to make sense of this. Are you saying that your concern is
not whether your take on life happens to be true, but you feel that at
best you only somehow manage to muddle through? I find this
disappointing for two reasons. It implies that that you are incapable or
or uninterested in any critical position. This in turn is a hint that
you feel rather powerless in this world and/or discouraged about trends
over which you have no control.
The concern of the Enlightenment for truth was not new, for certainly in
feudal Europe people were very concerned about truth as well, although
its source was not primarily natural human powers, but the power of
god. In both cases, however, the ideology of truth was closely
associated with power. In the Enlightenment, it was assumed that the
only person who counted was a person in private possession of means for
self-development, and in fact, that was a fair assessment of the real
situation. A large percentage of the population did own means of
production, and they could expect to improve their lives by their
reasoned employment (the word "rational" was cooked up at the time, and
it referred to actions that would likely result in an increase in one's
"talents"). The difference today is that there is a relatively very small
percentage of people who have enormous power, and the great majority
have no power at all based on private possession, but can only develop
through their social relations. But to the extent one does not realize
that potential, there is a disjuncture between one's own situation and
the reality of the world, and so one therefore does not see truth as
being crucial. Scientists see truth as important because they feel they
have some power in their field of knowledge.
> If I were to disagree, I'd say that effective action is close to
> sounding like useful action, and if useful action warrants us to say
> that a sentence is "true" then it sounds to me like it's a realist
> position couched in the language of a pragmatist. Let's call this
> position the "new realist" (after the "new right" from politics). So
> I'd probaby say great, that sounds good, but why bother with the word
> "true"?
I fear you may be making things unduly complicated. Effective action I
suppose only means that our active has the effect we intend. There may
be reason to suspect that effective action implies we have truthful
knowledge of the situation in which that action takes place. That is the
common assumption, but of course there are exceptions. A realist
position is that reality does not reduce to observables, and we can gain
true knowledge of a reality that includes unobservables. But the
validation of such a claim can take a number of forms, including a
pragmatist test of saying that if our theory that includes unobservables
supports our predictions, one can infer the presumption of the reality
of unobservables has warrant. There are problems with is line of
argument. On the other hand, why say a useful action is true? I made a
cup of coffee this morning and that was useful. But other than the
trivial truthful knowledge was present in the technique of making
coffee, one can't say on any obvious sense that my action was
truthful. For one thing, it is not a statement about the world, but
merely an action in the world. And as for realist positions being
couched in the language of pragmatism, that charge is often made, and
when it is, it suggests that the person doing it is really a pragmatist
who ultimately validates a theory by an observation of its predicted
outcome, which is essentially empiricist; prediction is essentially
empiricist the sense that it presumes closed systems in which outcomes
are unequivocally determined by their initial state, both of which are
defined in static empiricist terms. So "realism" can be a tricky term. I
suspect (but won't elaborate here) that scientific realism should be
confined to a presumption that everything is a process, which in turn
implies unobservables in the form of the causal potency that makes
everything a process rather than whatever outcome the process might
happen to result in.
> Yes, I understood you mean that. I was generalising to say that we
> can live our lives quite happily without the notions of truth and
> knowledge.
Think about my suggestions about power and truth. First, I'm skeptical
that anyone who is aware and has moral responsibility, can really be
happy these days. Most of use have an enormous sense of wrong and of not
being able to do much about it. One can bury one's head in the sand, or
become an egocentric hedonist and find a kind of contentment, I suppose,
but I can't quite translate that into happiness, which I feel only comes
from engagement.
> If I just said "truth and theories don't exist", you'd be right. But
> I come with a story of why we use words like "truth" and "knowledge",
> that their notions aren't needed to make sense of the world and that
> there is another set of notions that could replace them.
But have you in fact shown this? Have you shown that words like truth
and knowledge are not needed? Have to offered an alternative set of
notions? Not that I can see.
> Under the view I offer, what I'm offering you is critical feedback.
> What you see is contradiction, non-sense and nihilism, which I
> appreciate because I felt the same way when I first started trying to
> make sense of it.
No, I understand that to point out the flaws in a particular theory or
way of seeing things and to offer an alternative that appears better in
some explicit ways that are intersubjective is a valid criticism. My
objection is not to that, but to your not having pointed out the flaws
of the existing world view (other than to say that words like truth and
knowledge may be unnecessary, but that has neither been demonstrated nor
shown to be significant), and not having offered an alternative world
view that does not rely on statements of truth or knowledge, that has
something to recommend it that you can readily persuade others of its
truth. I realize that you reject truth statements, but then why
shouldn't I just conclude that you shoot your self in your own foot?
> You'll find that some physicist appreciate that "truth" is a tenuous
> notion. Many mathematicians and logicians realise that "truth" is a
> techincal term particular to their field.
Well, yes, some physicists are philosophically inclined and may well
appreciate that truth is a challenging notion. But _all_ scientific
practice presumes truth, and most physicists that are philosophically
inclined adopt a correspondence theory of truth, and now the consensus
among philosophers of science is either that truth can be approximately
known or or can't be known for sure, but not that there is no truth.
I happen to be interested in this question at the moment, and so would
really like to see a substantiated argument that, contrary to some
authoritative statements I've seen, natural scientists don't on the
whole accept a correspondence theory of truth and have ontological
(rather than epistemological) doubts about there being truth.
--
Haines Brown, KB1GRM
|
|
|
|
| Topic: |
Universality as warrant for relative truth value |
|
| Message: |
Author |
Date |
|
|
*Message 1* |
Haines Brown |
Mon, 14 Jul 2008, 8:20 pm |
|