User:HMaloigne/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/2020-21/Seminar group 15/Truth

Truth in Theatre Studies

Perceiving personal truths in Theatre

Many playwrights and directors use theatre to provide an effective instrument for audiences to understand and interpret their impression of truths. In conveying truths, theatre does not always mirror reality. Many practitioners create an immersive experience through which people can engage with and experience truths directly and personally (with the knowledge that prior experiences influence perception). A constructed reality plays on stage, where both the actors and scenic elements provide a bridge between the audience's existence and the fictitious story.

Work in theatre arts utilises perceiver truths, which lends playwrights and practitioners the freedom to express personal truths. For example, Robert Lepage is a Canadian theatre practitioner who places a focus on sharing truth in his work. He often explores themes such as memory, identity and self-discovery, which reflect his experiences having grown up in a culturally mixed environment through multimedia and characterisation. Lepage's practices in devising theatre places focus on internal truths, such that he constructed the concept of the Alter Ego, a character who projects aspects of the actors private-self on stage to act as an instrument in conveying the truth. Yet, the concept of the alter ego also acknowledges the subjectivity of truth - that it forms out of perception. According to Lepage, this character has a simplicity to them, so that many audiences may personally identify with their psychological journey throughout the play, as well as gain insight into Lepage's exploration of his truths. LePage's notion of the alter ego is a powerful example of how theatre may provide a medium through which personal truths can be explored, conveyed and experienced by the audience and practitioners alike.

Truth in the portrayal of schizophrenia in media

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental illness in which a person will experience a disturbance in their pattern of thinking, beliefs and emotions. Sufferers may experience visual or auditory hallucinations; however, symptoms can extend beyond this. People with schizophrenia may appear to have lost touch with reality, which often causes them distress.

Schizophrenia is often misrepresented in the media despite it affecting a large proportion of the population worldwide. In spite of this, the media continues to reinforce false stereotypes facing those with schizophrenia. From 1990 to 2010, 80% of main characters in 40 films who were schizophrenic were violent and nearly 1/3 were homicidal. These figures show the extensiveness of the depictions of those suffering with schizophrenia as violent and a threat and hence the criminalization of schizophrenics in society. In reality, this is rare, and violence is usually directed inwards as it was estimated only 10-15% exhibit violent behaviour. Additionally, in ¼ of the movies and films chosen, the person suffering with schizophrenia committed suicide as well as there being an emphasis on medication.Some notable examples of schizophrenia in film and tv shows are Nightbreed (1990) and Better Call Saul (2015).

In reality, many cope with schizophrenia and mange to live normal lives through the use of therapy and/or antipsychotics, however, coping with this mental illness is rarely portrayed in film or TV. Comparing real life statistic with those in films and tv shows some obvious disparities. It is estimated that roughly 30 murder cases in the UK are committed by those suffering with schizophrenia every year. Comparing this with the full figure of roughly 600 murders in the UK per year, this does not support the exaggeration of homicidal tendencies of those with schizophrenia.

Truth in Literature

Poetic Truth

When talking about truth, we usually think about factual, proven truths. But what about the truth of a feeling or an impression? Talking about truth in social studies and humanities is already complicated as it cannot rely on hard quantitative facts and is often biaised by opinion or drawn to a certain conclusion, but it is does not face the problem of integrating feelings to the description of a certain truth.

Can we say that something one feels on a given moment in certain circumstances is a truth? It is to the person who represents its impressions, and it might be to someone relating to it. The writer who does its best to translate his emotional experience into words is illustrating something that he lived in reality and his reaction to it, which are things that happened in reality, so he's writing about truth. In an interview, Anne Sexton said "When I'm working for a poem, I hunt for the truth... it might be a poetic truth, and not just a factual one" , explaining that a "poetic truth", inspired by an event in one's life, does not need to take in account everything related to the subject to successfully depict "truthfully" what the writer has felt as he went through it. Sometimes, some works of art can even add or remove some facts to get closer to the true emotional experience :"Many of my poems are true, line by line, altering a few facts to get the story at its heart"

Truth in novels

The act of writing fiction requires creating the world of the novel. This world may or may not be based on the ‘real world’, and the ‘objective’ facts therein. However, it is understood that the world of the novel is indeed real and true, at least within the bounds of the covers.

In the case of science fiction or children’s literature, for example, readers may often have to suspend their disbelief. The truths found in the Harry Potter series were created by JK Rowling for and within the world of the novels themselves. When reading Harry Potter, the vast majority of readers would agree that although flying on broomsticks is of course not true, within the bounds of the novel it feels true, and is actually objectively true for the characters and the world of the novel.

The fictional world of Harry Potter.

Novelists are, of course, human beings. Naturally, they draw from their own experiences, and arguably it would be quite impossible to entirely separate the act of imagination from the ‘real world’ of objective truths, since it is this real world from which novelists draw upon to create the truths found in their work. As writer and creative teacher Julia Cameron puts it in her bestselling work The Artist’s Way: “In order to create, we draw from our inner well.”

Take, for example, George Orwell, who in his prose takes a reality of the real world, often a political reality, and explores this truth through the aesthetic form of prose writing. As he says himself, “I write because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention”. Thus when reading George Orwell’s novels, it may sometimes be difficult for readers to make the distinction between the facts and truths presented in his prose, and the facts and truths of the real world, since his literary world is a symbol, a representation, of the real world.

In this way, the literary world could be said to be like a map for the real world, a map of words, symbols and images.

As Virginia Woolf puts it: “remote and extravagant as some of Shakespeare’s images seem… at the moment of reading they seem the cap and culmination of the thought: it’s final expression.” She goes on to express how the enjoyment of the reader “depends upon the exactitude and truth of the image, on its being the counterpart of the reality within.” The image, a construct, a non-fact, is thus a reflection of some real truth, be it a historical fact or a subjective truth we’ve experienced.

Truth in Mathematical and Philosophical Logic

Mathematical logic plays an active role in the understanding computer science and metamathematics. The logic here helps determine what is true in terms of propositions that make a logical equation, or statement. Propositions are the components of the equation, and may be either true or false. The concepts of truth is limited to what can and cannot be determined in following a set of rules. The terms of logic that are used to understand whether something is true or false are called the 'Truth values'; conjunction, disjunction, negation, and conditional.

Examples of the different types of logical understandings and statements are:

Implication : If James is at the tennis courts, then James is playing tennis.

Converse: If James is playing tennis, then James is at the tennis courts.

Inverse: If James is not at the tennis courts, then James is not playing tennis.

Contrapositive: If James is not playing tennis, then James is not at the tennis courts.

These statements can also be written in propositional logic with each propositional letter being representative of a statement.

Implication $A\Rightarrow B$

Converse $B\Rightarrow A$

Inverse $\urcorner A\Rightarrow \urcorner B$

Contrapositive$\urcorner B\Rightarrow \urcorner A$

Although these rules must carry in mathematics, it is important to note is that the formation of knowledge does not need true propositions, to make truthful conclusions. .

Syllogisms also determine valdity of logical statements, but not necessarily whether something can be considered "true". This complicates the mathematical understanding of truth but only by separating what can be mathematically proven as valid and what can be proven as true. A syllogism demonstrates this by showing that a logical conclusion may not always be a true one, however it may very well be valid. .

For example:

all cats have whiskers

James is not a cat

therefore James does not have whiskers.

In this formation of knowledge, something is either true or it is false. The binary is set and can be proven by logical theory and whether they follow the predetermined axioms.

In computer science, the binary is extended further into coding and the theories of logic govern whether something is possible to be coded. If one code follows logically after another and can be processed by this theory, then it is true. Similarities exist within philosophical logical fallacies like Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc; which highlights ideas of causality, much like the examples of logic above, it presents an idea of implication. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc loosely means that because B came after A then A caused B.

For example:

The Boston Red Sox win (B) every time I rub my good luck charm (A), therefore rubbing my good luck charm (A) makes the Boston Red Sox win (B).

These fallacies form the basis for some epistemological arguments within philosophy and extend into other disciplines like computer sciences and mathematics, as we have just seen. This logic can be explained mathematically and in some cases result in the formation of a true statement, not just a valid one. Now the analysis of this fallacy by Robert Pinto questions the accuracy of this fallacy in the production of truth, when causation is implied and not analysed. The natural sciences would question this production of truth and ask whether the correlation means causation.

The formation of truth in these disciplines is dependent on logic which then determines what is possible and what is impossible. These relationships between mathematical logic and epistemology's logical fallacies demonstrate a mirror or realist approach to truth, as they understand these fallacies to be following the constraints of reality and the observed/ empirical world . However, in response to the logic that contributes to the formation of knowledge in these disciplines, other aspects of philosophy question the reality that has formed these axioms of understanding. Such as the phenomenological philosophies, questioning our ability to actually observe reality outside of the structure of the world we have created Therefore the question for logic is: how do you know you are constructing truth on the basis of these axioms if the observation of reality might be subjective? Does the truth of reality exist outside our own perceptions and therefore do these logical understandings only demonstrate the truths we have created for ourselves?

Truth in Political Science and Brexit

Post-truth is now commonly used by academics in political science denoting instances in which emotions take precedence over what people believe instead of objective truths. Some political scientists believe that post-truth politics played an crucial part in the UK's decision to leave the European Union.

The two main factors which led to post-truth politics playing a greater role in public discourse during the EU referendum include the increasing use of technology (the democratization of truth) and an erosion of public trust in institutions that uphold knowledge. For example, technology, especially in the form of social media had allowed people to get their news from 'non-traditional' sources; the opportunity for anyone to share information online often undermined the accuracy of these claims. 126,000 twitter stories from tweets by 3 million people were analysed and it was found that false stories spread far more quickly than their true counterparts. The extent to which readers can accurately verify claims on social media is thought to be worryingly low. A study from the London School of Economics concluded that individuals evaluated the truthfulness of various news stories using questionable metrics such as the number of shares or the number of similar articles.

Political commentators point to the fact that the leave campaign told numerous lies which were promulgated in social media network sites as evidence of post-truth politics. Some scholars have also drawn parallels between those leading the Brexit campaign and that of Donald Trump who argue that populist rhetoric has ushered in a period in which lies are easily disseminated.  

Truth in Film Studies

Much like in other artistic fields, truth in film studies is hard to confine in a precise frame. If one looks at art in general, it is a subjective medium, hence conveying the facts (“the truth”) is strictly intertwined with its creator, as well as receiver. People as individuals react to and absord information in various ways, resulting in multiple interpretations of the same phenomenon. However, if one looks at cinematography through a narrower lense, namely - focuses on documentary cinematography (whose main idea is to present unbiased facts, at least to a certain extent), it is easier to talk about truth as a universal concept.

One of the most prominent examples of attempts at capturing the truth in film is cinéma-vérité, also known as observational cinema. It is a style in filmmaking developed in 1960s in France, which is knwon for its non-intrusive character. Filmmakers resort to light and basic equipment, so as not to disturb the naturality and “realness” of the recorded picture. Creators refuse to follow a script or any precise directions, as it would intefrere with the truth of what is being captured. In this case, camera is not an artistic tool allowing the creator to externalize their vision, butrather a mere recorder of events - a catlyst that enables receivers to access the truth.

On the other hand, film has always tried to hide its own construction. What may seem like an unbiased narrative is still , in reality, a directer’s view on the portrayed matter; a selection of the most aesthetically pleasing shots, often times enriched by a voice over or score - in general, somebody’s own, personal take on the phenomenon. Hence, even in cinema-veriete, so focused on expressing the truth as it is, it is impossible to omit some subjective, external factors that influence and shape the film’s reception.