User:Manuela.Irarraz/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/ Seminar Group 8/Truth

Truth

The question of truth is fundamentally one of the most important questions in the world today. As it is one of the first questions that was ever asked and marks the start of philosophy. The quest for truth is the main objective of philosophy but also the main objective of our lives. However, a slight problem impedes the answer to this question. How do we distinguish truth and reality? Is reality the truth?

Definition and Etymology

The definition of truth is most commonly described by "in accordance to with fact and reality". Truth is determined by factors such as certainty, evidence, proof and justification; it is considered to be the opposite of falsehood.

The meaning of "truth" as something accurate or correct arrives in the English language in the 1560's. The word originates from the West Saxon triewð meaning faith in the 10^th century, which is derived from the Germanic suffix "deru" meaning "to be firm, solid".

Different Origins of the Word "Truth"

Greek

From the word ἀ–λήθεια Alethia means "the state of not being hidden".It has been translated to mean the state of "unclosedness" " unconcealedness". The words originates from the goddess Alethia who is the daughter of Zeus, yet according to Aesop fables she was crafted by Prometeus. She is the embodiment of "truth and sincerity".

Veritas the goddess of truth by Marino Gropelli at Summer Garden

Roman

The Roman significance of the concept of truth is held in the mythology behind the Roman goddess "Veritas", who embodies the spirit and essence of truth, she is the daughter of Chronos the god of Time. The pursuit and capture of the quality of truth was widely considered essential for all Roman citizens. She is often represented as a virgin holding a mirror and wearing white therefore embodying "the naked truth" (nuda veritas).

Today the word "veritas" is often used as a "motto" and can be found in various places such as universities, colleges, fraternities as well as the U.S naval criminal investigative services.

Types of Truth

Truth does not just depend on objective reality. It is not necessarily 'logical' or 'empirical' as there are multiple 'states of truth' and hence, the different types of truths co-exist and are non-comparable.

Aesthetic Truth

Aesthetic truth refers to what we can visually find and see in any pictures, videos, or novels. The term 'truth' used in this context, is not necessarily reality, but it is 'true to life' meaning that it is believable. Aesthetic truth can be well explained by the concept of Suspension of disbelief, which is the momentary acceptance to believe any 'disbelief' presented, scarifying any realism and logic laying in front of it. It is mainly essential to the arts, in literature and drama, as the viewers suspend their disbelief for the sake of enjoying and understanding fiction. We accept a presented image in a painting or movie to be 'true', even though we know in the back of our minds, that it is not the 'realistic truth'.

Historical Truth

According to Sigmund Freud, historical truth can be defined as "a lost piece of the subject's lived experience that is accessible only through the work of construction", which in his early works refers to the material truth of an event.. We have the knowledge that something had happened as there is evidence of it, and through those pieces of evidence, we can be sure that certain events had happened in the past.

Some historians believe that "historical truth" is not fully "truth" in the sense that it connotes certainty. This is because the lack of sources implies we can only obtain truth from the whatever remaining sources that we have access to, and we need to fill the gaps in our knowledge through our own perception. As such, "historical truth" is something that we subjectively perceive, and not something of absolute certainty. For example, politician and historian Chris Skidmore believes that "For the historian, the truth is neither impossible nor improbable; it can only be, quite simply, whatever remains." Moreover historical truth can be manipulated by governments. For example, in France, after World War II, the government was ashamed of the facts and gave a much more heroic vision of the French government and people. Until around 1960 the French were depicted as fighting the German occupation during the whole war. The Jewish genocide was denied until then too. The French government only opened its archives from the war and recognised taking part in the genocide in 1980. By keeping archives closed a government can easily manipulate the official historical truth. The problem is still present today, for example the Armenian genocide has still not been recognised by the Turkish government.

Moral Truth

An action can only be classified morally good or bad dependent on the non-moral states or setting in which the action was taken. Disagreement of morality can arise from different reasoning when considering an action, for example, capital punishment may be illegal in one area and thought to be morally wrong to kill someone, however it is looked upon as a deterrent in another country, which in the long term may reduce the number of crimes and suffering of the wider population because it is success in reducing crime rates. When we refer to moral truth, it is based on what we believe to be 'right' or 'wrong'. In other words, it depends on our judgements and knowledge 'within' ourselves. For instance, we know that it is 'wrong' to steal things from a store, and we know that we would receive a punishment for doing so; despite the punishment, we know 'within ourselves' that it is morally wrong.

Meta Ethics

Meta ethical theories deal with the scope of moral decision making, not in the normative sense of whether it is or isn't true to argue if murder is always wrong, for example, rather the sense of if an ethical statement has the capacity to be true. The belief that ethical statements don't have the capacity to be true is called Non-Cognitivism. Non-Cognitivism refers to the belief that moral statements are not truth apt or capable of expressing belief and are therefore meaningless. Alternatively, Cognitivism is the rejection of this belief. It asserts that moral statements are truth apt and have the capacity to express belief. However, this does not mean that all Cognitivists assert that all moral statements are true, just that they have the capacity to be true. With this they also therefore have the capacity to be false, a Non-Cognitivist would reject this as they believe that moral statements can't even assert as falsity but are simply meaningless.

Scientific Truth

Scientific truth is solidly based on empirical evidence, as facts cannot become truth if they are not proved by experiments within this discipline. The result must be assured by repeated tests, and the results must be the same throughout, in order to prove a scientific fact to be 'true'. According to Descartes, the only way to find truth is to doubt and question everything obtain certainty. By using this method one would use reasoning to understand everything he encounters in life and would therefore know the truth. Moreover, there are three things one must do to doubt correctly:

1. Doubt and separate the problem into different logical parts.
2. Think of the parts in an orderly way (from most to least obvious)
3. Go through the reasoning a last time, once a conclusion is reached and make sure nothing has been forgotten.

Descartes illustrates this theory using the example of a piece of wax, he explains that if we melt the wax it will become liquid, our senses would therefore indicate that they are not the same object. However, our reasoning tells us that it melted therefore giving us the truth.

Jean-Claude Ameisan, doctor, researcher and professor of immunology in Diderot University of the Sciences in Paris, argues that there is no one truth in science. Ameisan argues that the idea of one absolute truth does not exist, but instead what is true is the closest we can get to truth in a certain moment in time in a certain field. This is what he calls the "validity domain". Thus, not one, but many, truths exist and the search towards truth only makes sense if it is falsifiable and takes place with a particular method and in a particular domain of validity. We can only hope that further knowledge in the future might put to question the totality of our current versions of the truth. It is not knowledge as such that is the most important in the quest for truth but research itself. The importance of research methods applies not only in science but in journalism, the laws and many other disciplines. Jean-Claude Ameisan argues that it is no surprise that throughout history one of the first things totalitarian governments got rid of were institutions. Institutions, in all domains, responsible for research which would allow people to come closer to the truth.

Scientific Truth and Common Sense

Although science aims to discover objective reality, because of our tendency to conceptually interpret the world we see, its accuracy depends on our ability to challenge our prejudiced and mistaken view of the world. Science is not able to establish or prove any absolute truth because of this, but it still can present evidence for ideas of the real world. These ideas often contradict with common sense, although scientific truths are relied upon our senses. Throughout history, common sense amongst humans was that the earth is flat, until the round earth was observed in 1961; but science has proved these kinds of ideas to be wrong. Our psychology and sense perception make us see the real world in certain ways that are very easy to fool. Scientific truths attempts to remove these flaws and correct our mistaken view of the world.

Truth in Art

Although truth is not represented in all forms of art it can be found in some. Considering that some key movements of art have for objective of representing reality and that essentially reality is the truth hence art represents the truth. For instance, the Neo-classical movement figured a return to greek artist vision; that nature is the best form of beauty. Artist therefore tried to represent nature using geometric ways in order to have the most alike representation of nature. For example, the "cannon of Polycelte" in sculpture urged that the height of the head must be contained seven times in the height of the body.

Truth in Music

Music is considered as a 'nonrepresentational' form of art in that it is a form that requires a subjective outlook - hence its interpretation is dependent on the listener. However, if we analyse music depending on its 'content', we can perhaps apply correspondent truth and propositional truth to it.

One way we could look at Correspondent truth in music involves determining how the features of a musical piece including its "melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, dynamic, and textural pattern" can express and represent the 'nature' of various human emotions, and this is known as the Langerian hypothesis. Following on from this, it can be said that the way a musical piece embodies and conveys a supposed emotion, can be compared to how this emotion exists in the 'world', and we can then therefore determine whether that musical piece displays such correspondent truth. However, it can then be stated that all structures of music would express one form of emotion or another, in which case all musical pieces would be determined as 'true'. Therefore, we would then need to establish instead, whether a listener can "typically" identify the emotions of a piece that the composer "likely" wanted to convey, and aligning that with the emotions usually represented of music that shares a similar style. Despite that, the "structural mirroring" suggested by the Langerian hypothesis may still be used to reflect the degree at which music accurately represents emotions in different ways. We can therefore see how truths regarding aspects of emotions, and music are inextricably linked.

Propositional truth in music refers to the extent of which a piece of music instills a certain "proposition to mind in a receptive listener". Examples of this include a musical piece proposing a vital 'message' surrounding an emotional state, especially when presenting a relationship between two emotions that are considered opposites/clashes, and thus carrying the proposition that this can occur in humans 'naturally'. Therefore, works that reflect an unnatural sequence of emotions may then be considered as 'false', and this may be determined by a sense of "discomfort" felt by the listener.

Religious Truth

Religious truth is centered around the ideals of faith and belief. Those who abide by a certain religion believe in a spiritual truth that cannot be proven scientifically, making it very difficult to persuade non-believers towards their truth. Religious truth can prove to be very controversial as individuals following different religious paths often claim that they have 'the truth' while others do not.

People who specifically do not believe in God or a higher power are deemed 'atheists'. People who believe that it is impossible to accurately deem whether religion is real truth are deemed 'agnostics'.

Religious truth is often developed by the passing through familial generations. Religious people are often found to cling to their religious beliefs despite being faced with contradictory evidence as religious beliefs are often closely linked with one's moral beliefs.

Religious truth is important to many people as it directly influences our mental outlook on the world and our experiences in life. Hence, seeking out religious truth is practiced by people as it can provide internal comfort and stability which can stimulate certain actions to be taken, such as practice of good morals.

Subjective Truth vs. Objective Truth

"There are no facts, only interpretations."

from Nietzsche's Nachlass, A. Danto translation

Subjective truth is based on each and every individual's experience and perception of the world. An American philosopher, Thomas Nagel, states that the most knowledgeable chiropterologist does not know what it is really like to be a bat as much as all the other people. In more simple terms, the truth is solidly based on that person, and only that person; person X would not know how Person Y feels when they see the color, blue. However, the nature of subjectivity makes the meaning of 'truth' ambiguous and questionable; if 'subjective truth' is conclusive and epistemically valid or not. The idea of subjective truth emerged with pyrrhonisme, very similar to relativism, the thinking behind this way of thinking is to question everything as truth is not unique and each and every one of us has their personal truth. The main problem with pyrrhonisme was the confusion it caused between opinion and truth.

The exact opposite type of truth to subjective truth is objective truth. It is solidly based on reality and the facts of the external world. In contrast to subjective truth where everything within the inner mind becomes 'truth', there is no interference of individual beliefs and preferences. This type of truth is also strongly related to scientific truth as science relies on objective reality. As science evidence is used to prove independent and objective truths through devising predictions and tests, the ultimate goal of scientific truth is to find out this 'objective truth'.

Positive vs. Normative

Often viewed through the lens of economics, positive vs. normative statements are explained through their credibility in relation to available evidence and are closely related to the concept of objective vs. subjective truth.

Positive statements are objective statements that can be tested and ultimately accepted or rejected through the use of the available evidence.

In contrast, normative statements are subjective statements held as value judgments, based more on opinion rather than fact. These statements can be tested by looking at the available evidence, however, interpretation of the available evidence may differ among individuals in forming normative statements.

From narrative statements we can derive normative truth, which are value judgements that reflects what a society wants. These are universally agreed moral judgements, for example, 'kindness is a virtue'. This is further explored in normative ethics, which is an area of ethics that discusses moral standards and its sources.

Absolute vs. Relative

Absolute truth is something that is true at all times and in all places which is not changed by beliefs or perspectives. There a several qualities of absolute truth such as:

• Truth is discovered not invented
• Truth is transcultural: it can be conveyed across different cultures.
• Truth is unchanging: it can be conveyed across time.
• Beliefs cannot change a truth statement no matter how sincere one may be
• Truth is unaffected by the attitude of the one professing it
• All Truths are absolute
• Truth is knowable

Absolute truth is more common in religion. For instance, Christianity is built on the premise that truth is absolute and that the teachings of the Bible are universal. However, nowadays postmodern view is that truth is relative. A survey of the American public revealed that sixty-six percent agreed with the statement, “There is no such thing as absolute truth.” Among youth, seventy percent believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth; two people could define “truth” in conflicting ways and both be correct.”

Relative truth posses following quantities.

• Truth is created not discovered. Truth is a matter of perspective and each culture or individual defines for themselves what is truth.
• Since truth is invented, there is no universal transcultural truth. Each culture or individual will define truth differently according to their background and perspective.
• Truth changes. Since it is inseparably connected to individuals and cultures which continually change, truth perpetually to changes.
• Since truth is a matter of a group or individual’s perspective, one’s beliefs can change a truth statement.
• Since an individual determines truth, truth is affected by the attitude of the one professing it.
• There can be no such thing as absolute truth.
• Absolute truth is not knowable. Absolute and objective truth cannot be known since it is built on the shifting foundation of man’s perceptions. As each individual’s perception is different, truth cannot be known.

Philosophical Theories of Truth

Correspondence Theory

In the field of epistemology, the Correspondence Theory of Truth supports that if something is considered true it follows that it corresponds to reality i.e: to a fact It traces back to the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and his perception of truth. “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true”. As stated by Dr John Searle of the university of California, Berkley, in Ancient Greece the word "fact" did not exist and thus, although an advocate of this theory of truth, "Aristotle couldn't state it using the word "fact"'. The correspondence theory of truth is nonetheless the idea that 'the world provides “what is” or “what is not,” and the true saying or thought corresponds to the fact so provided' Uclqmpa (discuss • contribs) 16:18, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Critics of the correspondence of truth theory argue that the definition of truth it provides us with is too narrow. While truth being defined as what corresponds to facts can apply to areas such as physics and maths, where quantitative research can bring rise to facts, this cannot apply to areas where no facts exist i.e: morality, since no moral facts exist. "The objection recognizes moral truths, but rejects the idea that reality contains moral facts for moral truths to correspond to". Other criticism include the objection that this cannot stand as a theory due to its simplicity and trivialness.

The Coherence Theory of Truth

The Coherence Theory of Truth holds that a proposition is true if it is logically consistent with other truth-bearers already held . One can think of all his beliefs as being part of a spiderweb. It is clear when a belief does not cohere with the rest, like a fly falling on the web. True beliefs are those that do fit while those that don't i.e the files are faults.

Objections to this theory include Bertrand Russell's "specification objection". Russell argued that although two different statements may both correspond to a different set of propositions, only one of them may actually be true i.e: they may be contradictory. It could ,for example, be argued that "Lord Byron was shot and killed", a statement that may cohere with a set of propositions. At the same time ,however, the statement "Lord Byron died of malaria" coheres with another set of propositions. While it is widely known and accepted that it is the second statement that holds true, the first statement does cohere with its own set of propositions event though no one believes it to be true. Thus, coherence theory arguably cannot give us what is true and what is false.

The Pragmatic Theory of Truth

The Pragmatic Theory of Truth, principally led by philosophers Peirce and James, denotes utility as the utmost marker of truth. According to James, if a certain belief is useful, leads to the best payoff or simply makes us satisfied, it is held to be true under this theory. Pierce, argues that beliefs "fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate" must be the truth .

Opponents of this theory argue that if this is the case then what the majority of people believe, despite it being actually false, must hold true. If , for example, the majority of human kind are saying that "the world is flat" then the world must be flat. While this can be seen as a compelling argument, defenders of the Pragmatic Theory of Truth may argue that the fact that at some point the world was considered to be flat, meant that the "investigation" was not finished. Hence, now common belief is that "the world is spherical".

Plato - Allegory of the cave

The statue of Plato in front of the Academy of Athens. Original Work od Leonidas Drosis (d. 1880)

Plato, the Greek philosopher, uses the Allegory of the Cave to show his point of view on philosophical truth. At the start of the story, men are chained up and tied to a wall in a cave, they do not know about what is outside and are happy living in ignorance. At one point, one of them breaks free, this man represents the philosopher, he finds his way out of the cave. At the moment he finds out, he sees the sun, symbolising truth. The man goes back in the cave to tell the others about what he saw but the others do not want to believe him. The first conclusion Plato wants us to get from this story is that truth is the philosopher's goal. The philosopher also appears as a superior being, as he is the only one who isn't contempt with living in ignorance. He also gives more details on how the way out of the cave is rough to show how the philosopher's job is difficult. Template:Unreferenced section

Protagoras and the Relativist Theory of Truth

In his dialogue Theaetetus , Plato accounts the relativist theory of the Sophist philosopher Protagoras. He claims that "man is the measure of all things". This relativist theory interprets Truth to an individual and subjective perception. Reality therefore is reduced to what appears to everyone. Hence defending the theory that "everyone has their own perception of truth".

However, Plato counters this relativist theory by demonstrating that if truth is subjective this would cause disturbing social consequences; no opinion would be wrong, errors would be impossible, rational discussion would be futile, everyone would define justice in their own way... Plato acknowledges that certainty is not a valuable criteria to consider something as "true". Subjective certainty is not a principle of truth. Template:Unreferenced section

Karl Popper and Critical Rationalism

In Tolerance and intellectual responsibility (1981), Popper counters the idea of relativism in truth by arguing that it leads to a lax tolerance which eventually brings violence. Indeed, "relativism is the position that one can assert everything or almost everything, and therefore nothing. Everything is true, or nothing is. The truth is then meaningless." Therefore Popper refutes the theory of critical rationalism, where there are numerous theories about one idea and to find the one that is "true" people must engage in rational discussions, hence the theory that resembles the most "truth" in the critical discussion is the best, the best theory puts the other ones aside. The objective being finding the "truth". In contrast to relativism, critical pluralism makes it possible to master violence because it allows refuting false opinions through rational discussion.

Logical Positivism

Logical Positivism (also known as logical empiricism ) refers to a philosophical movement in which philosophers believed that only that which can be proved through empirical testing can be found to be true and that scientific knowledge is the only basis for factual understanding. That the metaphysical questions asked by philosophers should be disregarded as not just untrue, but meaningless. Having gained traction in the 1920's in Germany and Austria, the movement gained following and by the 1950's was the leading philosophy of science.

However, issues with the movement arise upon closer inspection. The most obvious one being that the statement itself that proposes the validity of logical positivism cannot be proved through empirical testing. Thus, if one were to follow the logical proposed by logical positivism, the statement is not only untrue, but meaningless. It is impossible to prove through empirical testing that a statement is always true when it is tested empirically therefore, the statement must be accepted as meaningless if one is to accept the terms that the movement proposes.

A man with "fake news" rushing to the printing press, 7 March 1894

Post-truth

"When I talk about the idea of post-truth what I am really talking about is the idea of not necessarily what is true or false but controlling the conditions under which one decides what is true or false"Steve Fuller

“Post-truth”, a word coined in 1992, was Oxford Dictionaries’ 2016 “word of the year”. Oxford defines this as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.

In a recent study done by PolitiFact, 70 percent of Donald Trump’s “factual” statements have been found to be “mostly false,” “false” and “pants on fire” untruth, while statements circulating during the BREXIT referendum regarding immigration, the NHS and the UK economy were filled with inflated figures and appeal to emotion such as fears of overcrowding and financial instability.

Philosopher and author AC Grayling, argues that the evolution of our world to one of "post-truth" can be blamed partly on inequality following the 2008 financial crisis. "The world changed after 2008," says Prof Grayling. Growing inequality between the rich and the poor and a "sense of grievance" among middle-income families, has " "inflamed" emotions over issues such as immigration and (...) case doubt on mainstream politicians". Another reason for the "explosion" of "fake news", according to Grayling, is social media. It used to be difficult for anyone to publish his/her opinion "But all you need now is an iPhone. Everyone can publish their opinion", he says. Uclqmpa (discuss • contribs) 16:06, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

In an Al Jazeera article titled "The media in the post-truth era", former chief editor of Al Jazeera Arabic, Ahmed Al Sheikh, highlights the role of mainstream media as a force responding to 21st century's "fake news" in the Arab world. "Arab mainstream media is the most in need of this in the post-truth era, as the wave of racism and Islamophobia is strengthening representations of our culture and values as backwards and reactionary", he argues. "It is important to do an introspection and see what we are currently presenting to the young generations and how it does not properly challenge these hateful discourses".

Means to fight back the mass circulation of false news seem more and more necessary as referendums, elections and the socio-political structure of the world as we know it are increasingly influenced by this wave of "fake news". Ali Velshi , a Canadian television journalist and senior economic and business correspondent for NBC News , highlights the dangers of "fake news". He argues that when you delegitimise journalism and keep on debating and discussing on the nature of news and media themselves i.e if a story is real or fake, you do not allow for debate on issues that matter. “I am a veteran journalist in my 24th of this bussiness (…) but increasingly I am getting pushed back on social media from people who accuse me of perveing fake news” , he states during a talk of his given at a TEDx event in 2017. A 2017 Buzzfeed study found that the top 20 fake news stories on Facebook had over 8.7 million shares, comments and reactions while the top 20 real news stories reported by major news organisation had 1.7 million fewer. More time trying to discern whether a news source or information we come across is legitimate or not leaves no time for constructive debate on pressing issues such as terrorism,the refugee crisis and freedom of speech, which illustrates the gravity of the "time-suck" effect "fake news" has .