Where was the statement above discovered? Or did you invent it? Or is it just not true?

Is truth made or found? Are philosophers/scientist inventors of tools or lifters of curtains?

Perhaps I should have been clearer. But yes, of course I meant that a proper name refers to one thing. Does the word "justice" refer to one thing? Do we all experience the same meaning upon hearing this word? Not likely. What about "truth"? Does that mean one thing to everyone? This thread suggests that that it not the case.

"Truth" and "justice" are useful for rhetoric, in a non-pejorative sense of the word.

---------- Post added 02-13-2010 at 05:11 PM ----------



Where was the statement above discovered? Or did you invent it? Or is it just not true?

Isn't it just obvious that the truth that Mars is the fourth planet; that Mr. Everest is the highest mountain; and that, the Nile is the longest river in Africa, are all discovered? I wonder what you will give as examples of invented truths.(Or, as we usually call them, lies).

Truth is discovered. It's not invented.

I think the question of truth as invented or truth as discovered is a fundamental question of philosophy in some ways the fundamental question. The universe is inherently rationally intelligible in my view and this speaks to reason and intelligence preceeding material essence, existence or being. In the begining was the word (Logos).

- "Sadam got weapons of mass destruction" G W Bush
- earth is the center of the universe
- earth is flat
- i think, therefore i am
- what keeps a galaxy together = gravity (gravity only explains 1/10 of the forces keeping a galaxy together, in any simulation galaxies disperse. That's why the search of dark matter is the new fad)

When did you discover this truth? And where?

I think our more conceptual truths are better described as invented. I also think that basic scientific truths are invented. But this is coming from a person who insists that "truth is made of sentences." But in some cases invention and discovery seem like equally valid characterizations to me.

I think it's a more exciting position to stress the invention of truth. Mine is an epistemology that takes motive into account. I would enjoy your thoughts on a thread I started called "first-science."

I don't know if I like this "invention of truth" as meaning to lie. Lying isn't inventing truth, it is intentionally not telling the truth. You can only discover truth, as noted earlier.

When we say that someone invented that truth, what do we mean?

I never say that, so I never mean anything by it. I either say someone is telling the truth, or someone is not telling the truth (to lie).

Right. But if you hear, for instance, that the president of Iran invented the truth that there was no Holocaust, what would you understand that as meaning?

Truth is based on facts and facts are discovered not created.

Whether or not something is more exciting has nothing to do with whether or not something is true.

Is the above truth another discovery? Or just an opinion?

Some may, of course, discover it. But many have just known it. I would have thought it obvious.
I have still to be presented with an example of an invented truth. The OP question itself, assumes that truth is either discovered or invented, and therefore assumes that there are such things as invented truths. But the assumption that all truths are either discovered or invented implies what is false to begin with, namely, that there are such things as invented truths (which are not lies). Before we go further, what is an instance of an invented truth?

Before we go further, what is an instance of an invented truth?

Yes, the O.P. does imply what in fact I do not believe, that truth is either invented or discovered. But the O.P. wasn't a thesis but only bait for the dialogue. I'm not on either side. I think the idea that truth is discovered is the conventional view, and therefore a less exciting position to defend. But I don't deny that "discovery" is an apter term in certain contexts.

As far as examples of invented truths, one could argue that all truth is invented. I generally agree with the notion that truth is a property of sentences. Are sentences invented or discovered? I'm voting for invented.

Still, I hardly think it's absurd for someone to talk of the discovery of truth. Just as I can easily see the value of the correspondence theory of truth. But for me these concepts are easy and obvious, too easy and too obvious. Another thought I find potent and significant is "the real is revealed by discourse." Philosophical thought has largely abased itself before natural science. It's fallen asleep. The abstract objectivity of natural science is useful practically but deceptive philosophically.

One could argue that all definitions are invented truths.

One could argue that all definitions are invented truths. For example, a scientific body officially coins a new technical term, thus inventing the truth that term X has meaning Y. This truth is then discovered (learned) by others.

Is the above truth another discovery? Or just an opinion?

Of course I know what you mean by this, but it strikes me as idealistic. Yes, we expect more accuracy from unbiased (or less -biased) observation, but humans are presumably evolved from germs. Is this struggled-evolved-brain of ours capable of emotionally-unbiased "pure" truth? How can epistemology deny motive? On some issues, humans mostly agree. But move to questions of values or the nature of truth, and we see just how biased all of us are. The most biased are arguably those who deny the existence of bias altogether.