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Single Idea 5651

[filed under theme 3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth ]

Full Idea

Kierkegaard developed the idea of 'truth as subjectivity'; the traditional conceptions of truth - correspondence or coherence - he regarded as equally empty, not because false, but because tautologous; truth ceases to be empty when related to a subject.

Gist of Idea

Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject

Source

report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13

Book Ref

Scruton,Roger: 'A Short History of Modern Philosophy' [ARK 1985], p.189

A Reaction

It strikes me that the correspondence theory of truth also involves a subject. If you become too obsessed with the subject, you lose the concept of truth. You need a concept of the non-subject too. Truth concerns the contents of thought.

The 15 ideas with the same theme [no truth, apart from the way individuals see things]:

14040 Observation and applied thought are always true [Epicurus]
3610 Truth is clear and distinct conception - of which it is hard to be sure [Descartes]
2266 My general rule is that everything that I perceive clearly and distinctly is true [Descartes]
4301 Someone may think a thing is 'clear and distinct', but be wrong [Leibniz on Descartes]
5641 For Spinoza, 'adequacy' is the intrinsic mark of truth [Spinoza, by Scruton]
13157 Choose the true hypothesis, which is the most intelligible one [Leibniz]
5022 We hold a proposition true if we are ready to follow it, and can't see any objections [Leibniz]
5651 Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
22094 Subjective truth can only be sustained by repetition [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
16005 I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters [Kierkegaard]
20313 The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard]
24104 We don't create logic, time and space! The mind obeys laws because they are true [Nietzsche]
5652 True beliefs are those which augment one's power [Nietzsche, by Scruton]
19144 'Epistemic' truth depends what rational creatures can verify [Davidson]
8705 Anti-realists see truth as our servant, and epistemically contrained [Friend]