Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Value of Science', 'The Folly of Trying to Define Truth' and 'On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense'

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7 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
23295 Truth cannot be reduced to anything simpler [Davidson]
     Full Idea: We cannot hope to underpin the concept of truth with something more transparent or easier to grasp.
     From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.21)
     A reaction: I suppose precise accounts of correspondence or coherence are offered as replacements for truth, but neither of those ever seem to be possible. I agree with accepting truth as a primitive.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
23298 Neither Aristotle nor Tarski introduce the facts needed for a correspondence theory [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Neither Aristotle's formula nor Tarski's truth definitions are sympathetic to the correspondence theory, because they don't introduce entities like facts or states of affairs for sentences to correspond.
     From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.25)
     A reaction: This seems convincing, although it is often claimed that both theories offer a sort of correspondence.
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 1. Tarski's Truth / c. Meta-language for truth
23297 The language to define truth needs a finite vocabulary, to make the definition finite [Davidson]
     Full Idea: If the definition of the truth predicate is to be finite (Tarski insisted on this), the definition must take advantage of the fact that sentences, though potentially infinite in number, are constructed from a finite vocabulary.
     From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.23)
     A reaction: Not sure whether this is in the object language or the meta-language, though I guess the former.
3. Truth / G. Axiomatic Truth / 1. Axiomatic Truth
23296 We can elucidate indefinable truth, but showing its relation to other concepts [Davidson]
     Full Idea: We can still say revealing things about truth, by relating it to other concepts like belief, desire, cause and action.
     From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.21)
     A reaction: The trickiest concept to link it to is meaning. I think Davidson's view points to the Axiomatic account of truth, which flourished soon after Davidson wrote this. We can give rules for the correct use of 'true'.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues
23294 It is common to doubt truth when discussing it, but totally accept it when discussing knowledge [Davidson]
     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.).
     From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], 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….
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
20363 Leaves are unequal, but we form the concept 'leaf' by discarding their individual differences [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Every concept arises through the setting equal of the unequal. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never wholly equal to another, so it is certain that the concept leaf is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense [1872]), quoted by John Richardson - Nietzsche's System 2.1.1 n28
     A reaction: Nietzsche adds an interesting aspect to psychological abstraction, of abstracting away the differences between things, which we might label as the (further) capacity for Equalisation. If two cars differ only in a blemish, we abstract away the blemish.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
15877 The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
     Full Idea: In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose.
     From: report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
     A reaction: I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts.