Truth is a White Lie

@George phil,

George;109670 wrote:

nothing is truly true. Oe cannot prove that something is a fact, facts may exist, but noone has proven the have found one, so in essence, if it isn't true what is it. A lie is something which is proven to not be the truth, but if we cannot concieve of any truths, we cannot concieve lies. Thus a truth is not a white lie as a truth is nothing similar to a white lie. Is nothing the same as nothing,m we cannot concieve nothing so i can't answer this, thus cannot answer the question

If this is true, how could anyone ever pass a maths test? Why wouldn't everyone get the same score?

@Reconstructo,

I feel like linguistic philosophy is key in debates such as this. The failure of propositional logic to address metaphor is crucial, as metaphor is how abstractions are born in the first place. I feel like George isn't seeing the metaphor in "truth is a white lie." Such a statement is obviously not propositional in the usual sense. To limit philosophy to propositional statements is in my view absurd, and done almost from a hatred and fear of the Lady Wisdom.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109683 wrote:

I feel like linguistic philosophy is key in debates such as this. The failure of propositional logic to address metaphor is crucial, as metaphor is how abstractions are born in the first place. I feel like George isn't seeing the metaphor in "truth is a white lie." Such a statement is obviously not propositional in the usual sense. To limit philosophy to propositional statements is in my view absurd, and done almost from a hatred and fear of the Lady Wisdom.

Propositional logic is just the logic of propositions as contrasted with the classical logic of terms or classes. Predicate logic. I don't know what else you mean by it, but you clearly do think you mean something else by it. What it means for a statement to be propositional or not propositional I have no idea. I have never heard anyone talk that way. Sometime, you must tell me what you are talking about.

@Reconstructo,

you call logic can't do. This is how humans really communicate, in my opinion, largely by means of metaphor.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109735 wrote:

you call logic can't do. This is how humans really communicate, in my opinion, largely by means of metaphor.

What has this to do with what you call, "propositional logic"? And what propositional logic has to do with metaphor. Classical, or Aristotelian logic, was an elementary form of predicate logic. Not propositional logic. You should not use these terms unless you know what they mean.

@Reconstructo,

I don't believe I used the term "propositional logic". I used "proposition."

I do know what propositional logic is, friend. I bought a book on it 15 years ago, enjoyed it before I got into philosophy proper. Also, I've been programming computers for 20 years, as a hobby. Boolean variables, If-Then statements, Case statements, nested logical operaters {If (not(b or a)) and (c and d)) then etc.}. Also studied digital gates. I love that sort of thing. But I think it should know its place.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109748 wrote:

I don't believe I used the term "propositional logic". I used "proposition."

I do know what propositional logic is, friend. I bought a book on it 15 years ago, enjoyed it before I got into philosophy proper. Also, I've been programming computers for 20 years, as a hobby. Boolean variables, If-Then statements, Case statements, nested logical operaters {If (not(b or a)) and (c and d)) then etc.}. Also studied digital gates. I love that sort of thing. But I think it should know its place.

Then what is all this business about "propositional statements"? What are they? And what has programming computers to do with it?

@George phil,

George;109670 wrote:

nothing is truly true. Oe cannot prove that something is a fact, facts may exist, but noone has proven the have found one, so in essence, if it isn't true what is it. A lie is something which is proven to not be the truth, but if we cannot concieve of any truths, we cannot concieve lies. Thus a truth is not a white lie as a truth is nothing similar to a white lie. Is nothing the same as nothing,m we cannot concieve nothing so i can't answer this, thus cannot answer the question

We can conceive of the truth as well as other moral infinites, and like all our moral forms/concepts/and ideas, as an absolute, and perfect.... But; for us, it is mostly a social form... We need to know enough to survive, and we need enough truth to survive, and whether it is a government, or an individual; those who tell us a lie, knowing it is a lie do us an injustice and an injury....

@George phil,

George;109670 wrote:

nothing is truly true. Oe cannot prove that something is a fact, facts may exist, but noone has proven the have found one, so in essence, if it isn't true what is it. A lie is something which is proven to not be the truth, but if we cannot concieve of any truths, we cannot concieve lies. Thus a truth is not a white lie as a truth is nothing similar to a white lie. Is nothing the same as nothing,m we cannot concieve nothing so i can't answer this, thus cannot answer the question

Why would you think that unless something can be proven true, it is not true? For a long time no one could prove there was such a planet as Neptune. So what? There was such a planet.

@Reconstructo,

I think I've made my case. I was focusing on "truth" especially in the sense of our more abstract interpretations of the world. While I could continue to argue about the limits of the correspondence theory of truth, I fear I would only be repeating myself.

If anyone wants to examine the white lies inherent in our interpretation of our experience, I will pick this back up.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109888 wrote:

I think I've made my case..

What case would that be? Anyway, to make a case, you have to argue it.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;109890 wrote:

What case would that be? Anyway, to make a case, you have to argue it.

Argue that. If it's worth your time.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109895 wrote:

Argue that. If it's worth your time.

That is what "making a case for something" means. That's what they do in law courts.

@Reconstructo,

Sounds metaphorical. I've made my case, for the moment, to my own satisfaction.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;109898 wrote:

Sounds metaphorical. I've made my case, for the moment, to my own satisfaction.

I am afraid that is not the criterion. Anyway, you have to argue to make a case. How do you do it without arguing? Anyway, according to you, if you have made the case to your own satisfaction, that means only that you have persuaded yourself. Did you need persuading in the first place.

@Reconstructo,

actually I do understand what you are driving at now. I didn't understand it to begin with. It is more about the 'ideal of truth' as a social construct, as a conventional notion that we agree to agree to without ever really subjecting it or ourselves to too deep a critique. Am I getting close?

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;109911 wrote:

actually I do understand what you are driving at now. I didn't understand it to begin with. It is more about the 'ideal of truth' as a social construct, as a conventional notion that we agree to agree to without ever really subjecting it or ourselves to too deep a critique. Am I getting close?

Except that he does not believe there is a "deep critique" of it. He does not distinguish believing something is true and, its being true. For some reason. It is like the business with global warming, or climate change, or whatever it is called nowadays. Belief that it is true is good enough. What the facts are doesn't matter. And, if necessary, you fudge them for those who think they matter. Persuasion is all that matters, and, if you have to fudge the facts, fine. As John Dewey said, "Ideas have consequences".

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;109911 wrote:

actually I do understand what you are driving at now. I didn't understand it to begin with. It is more about the 'ideal of truth' as a social construct, as a conventional notion that we agree to agree to without ever really subjecting it or ourselves to too deep a critique. Am I getting close?

That's basically it. What is truth made of? How do determine that something is true? Ultimately it must be grounded to something like pleasure. In the mystic sense of Truth, it would be the numinosity of the archetype that justified belief. Ecstasy is persuasive.

In the practical sense of truth, our respect for science is based on, in my opinion, the pleasure that technology gives us. Take from science the prestige it gets from its successful application (success being based on pleasure), and what does one have? A notion of Nature not unlike that of Spinoza's. That science demands experiments to be confirmed is another way to say that science is based on consensus. Cold fusion means nothing if you can't show it off, even if it "really" happened.

To determine what is "real" is an expression of power. Today's psychotics are yesterday's demoniacs. And we are as locked into our myths (in general) as they were, and just as arrogantly sure of our descriptions, except we pose as a post-mythological society. The devil (for us, "superstition") has convinced us that he no longer exists.

---------- Post added 12-10-2009 at 07:07 PM ----------

kennethamy;109921 wrote:

Except that he does not believe there is a "deep critique" of it. He does not distinguish believing something is true and, its being true. For some reason. It is like the business with global warming, or climate change, or whatever it is called nowadays. Belief that it is true is good enough. What the facts are doesn't matter. And, if necessary, you fudge them for those who think they matter. Persuasion is all that matters, and, if you have to fudge the facts, fine. As John Dewey said, "Ideas have consequences".

This is an incorrect interpretation of my position. Of course the facts matter. Why bother at all if the facts don't matter? I want a more rigorous epistemology, not one that is less rigorous. I want to address the distortion-power of motive and the issue of what truth is grounded on in the first place. I'm the ambitious sort. Smile

@Reconstructo,

To show some honor toward my influences, here's some Nietzsche from Beyond Good and Evil, chapter called On the Prejudices of Philosophers.

"The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life- preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live--that the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNIZE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. "

@Reconstructo,

Yes but perhaps he said this because he felt that 'truth' was an odiously religious concept. Ergo, needs to find some other rationale. He after all believed that all Western traditional religious and moral concepts were degenerate. So perhaps this re-definition meshed with Darwinism by defining truth in terms of adaptivity.

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