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Ideas for 'On the Question of Absolute Undecidability', 'Concluding Unscientific Postscript' and 'Propositions'

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5 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth

22092	Kierkegaard's truth draws on authenticity, fidelity and honesty [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
	Full Idea: Kierkegaard offers a different interpretation of truth, which draws on the notions of authenticity, fidelity and honesty.
	From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4
	A reaction: This notion of truth, meaning 'the real thing' (as in 'she was a true scholar'), seems to begin with Hegel. I suggest we use the word 'genuine' for that, and save 'truth' for its traditional role. It is disastrous to blur the simple concept of truth.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 3. Value of Truth

15999	Pure truth is for infinite beings only; I prefer endless striving for truth [Kierkegaard]
	Full Idea: If God held all truth enclosed in his right hand, and in his left hand the ever-striving drive for truth, even if erring forever, and he were to say Choose! I would humbly fall at his left hand and say Father, give! Pure truth is for infinite beings only.
	From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846], p.106)
	A reaction: A sobering realistic thought of our own limitations; Kierkegaard allows that there is no limit to how far we can strive for truth. Just that truth is comprehended by infinite beings (if any), not by mere mortals. [SY]

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers

13941	Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
	Full Idea: What is it that is susceptible of truth or falsity? The answers suggested constitute a bewildering variety: sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgments, propositions, statements.
	From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 01)
	A reaction: Carwright's answer is 'statements', which seem to be the same as propositions.

13942	Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
	Full Idea: The current fashion among logicians of taking sentences to be the bearers of truth and falsity indicates less an agreement on philosophical theory than a desire for rigor and smoothness in calculative practice.
	From: Richard Cartwright (Propositions [1962], 01)
	A reaction: A remark close to my heart. Propositions are rejected first because language offers hope of answers, then because they seem metaphysically odd, and finally because you can't pin them down rigorously. But the blighters won't lie down and die.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth

20313	The highest truth we can get is uncertainty held fast by an inward passion [Kierkegaard]
	Full Idea: An objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest truth available for an existing individual.
	From: Søren Kierkegaard (Concluding Unscientific Postscript [1846])
	A reaction: [Bk 711] Offered as a definition of truth, knowing how strange and paradoxical it sounds. If we view all life as subjectivity, then there can of course be nothing more to truth than passionate conviction. Personally I think thought can be objective.