Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Being and Time', 'Either/Or: a fragment of life' and 'The Approach to Metaphysics'

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2 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth
Traditional views of truth are tautologies, and truth is empty without a subject [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
     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.
     From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
     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.
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
Heidegger says truth is historical, and never absolute [Heidegger, by Polt]
     Full Idea: Heidegger is a relentless enemy of ahistorical, absolutist concepts of truth.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927]) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 1
     A reaction: I presume that if truth is not absolute then it must be relative, but Polt is a little coy about saying so. For me, anyone who says truth is relative doesn't understand the concept, and is talking about something else.