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Full Idea
You are following Plato's lead if you worry about the concept of truth when it is the focus of your attention, but you pretend you understand it when trying to cope with knowledge (or belief, memory, perception etc.).
Gist of Idea
It is common to doubt truth when discussing it, but totally accept it when discussing knowledge
Source
Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.20)
Book Ref
Davidson,Donald: 'Truth, Language and History' [OUP 2005], p.20
A Reaction
Nice to find someone pointing out this absurdity. He says Hume does the same with doubts about the external world, which he ignores when discussing other minds. Belief is holding true; only truths are actually remembered….
| 23294 | It is common to doubt truth when discussing it, but totally accept it when discussing knowledge [Davidson] |
| 23295 | Truth cannot be reduced to anything simpler [Davidson] |
| 23296 | We can elucidate indefinable truth, but showing its relation to other concepts [Davidson] |
| 23297 | The language to define truth needs a finite vocabulary, to make the definition finite [Davidson] |
| 23298 | Neither Aristotle nor Tarski introduce the facts needed for a correspondence theory [Davidson] |