Philosophical Question: What is Truth?

[MineralMan]

That's one of the big questions. Many have attempted to answer it, with varying degrees of success. I'm not a professional philosopher. That job pays very poorly, so I didn't major in philosophy at the University I attended. I took a lot of courses, but chose a different useless major, instead.

In my simple mind, my definition is simple: Truth is that which can be demonstrated to be correct by overwhelming evidence.

That has been the definition I have used all of my adult life. If overwhelming evidence is not present, I do not accept anything as truth. I might see something as possible with insufficient evidence, but until overwhelming evidence is present, I do not accept it as truth.

Others may have different definitions. It might be interesting to see some of those.

Note: This is posted in the Religion Group because philosophy is closely aligned with religion in many cases.

[guillaumeb]

1. Scientific truth, philosophical truth?

1
The quality or state of being true.
‘he had to accept the truth of her accusation’

More example sentencesSynonyms
1.1also the truthThat which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.
‘tell me the truth’

‘she found out the truth about him’
More example sentencesSynonyms
1.2count noun A fact or belief that is accepted as true.
‘the emergence of scientific truths’

‘the fundamental truths about mankind’

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/truth

2 contradictory definitions from one source.

[MineralMan]

2. Just Truth, Guillaumeb.

I did not add any qualifying words. Had I wished to, I would have. I carefully chose my words, as always.

[guillaumeb]

9. So truth is fact and opinion.

Illustrating how people can mean many things.

[MineralMan]

22. No. Those are your words, not mine.

I would not write such a thing. Opinions can be based on facts, but are not facts, themselves.

I'd think that would be obvious. Perhaps not, though. But I did not say that, so I needn't defend it. You are the one who said it, in a very inaccurate paraphrase of what I did say.

I'm sorry, but it is very difficult to communicate with you. You seem to misunderstand even simple statements. Perhaps I'll just stop trying.

[guillaumeb]

24. Read the definition that I provided.

Perhaps you misunderstood the definitions, and the contradictions inherent in them. If so, I understand that this might be the source of your confusion.

[MineralMan]

25. I did. But this is my thread. I provided my definition and

opened the thread up for other people's definitions. You provided a dictionary's definition. Others, however, have provided their own definitions of truth, which are what I was hoping to see. Anyone can look in dictionaries. That's boring.

You presented someone else's definitions. I don't care about dictionary definitions of words like truth. That's not what this thread is about. As I said, you seem to have great difficulty understanding simple statements. That makes discussing things with you very tedious. I'm not fond of tedium.

Now, I have taken far more time with this subthread than it warrants. I will not continue to waste my time in that way.

[AtheistCrusader]

42. Dictionaries are catalogs of acceptable usage. They do not actually define words.

They aren't IEEE Specifications. In English there is no official authorized version of the language.

We are not bound to respect, adhere to, or defend the definition you cited.

[MineralMan]

43. Indeed.

[trotsky]

38. This is quite interesting, coming from someone who equivocates so much on words like...

"faith" and "belief."

You DO acknowledge words can have different meanings here.

Fascinating.

[guillaumeb]

39. Which definition do you accept?

Either, both, neither?

[trotsky]

40. Just pointing out hypocrisy.

Going to be linking to it next time you equivocate.

Thanks!

[MineralMan]

41. Please do not start a long he said/he said subthread

in this thread, guillaumeb. It makes the thread confusing. If you want to start a new thread on a different topic, please do so. This thread has a subject already. Thank you for your cooperation in advance.

[guillaumeb]

44. Allow me to make a note of that.

[MineralMan]

45. How could I stop you from making a note of something?

For goodness' sake. What on earth are you on about?

[Mariana]

46. He's on about derailling your thread.

You must realize that when you vowed not to leave the group again, he and his throng of groupies probably considered it a challenge. They're going to try to drive you out.

[MineralMan]

47. They'll be wasting their time,

if they do. I've survived far worse here. I don't know if anyone even remembers. I'm here. They're gone.

[Mariana]

50. Good. I enjoy reading your posts. nt.

[MineralMan]

51. And I yours.

Thanks. I'm quite durable, really. No worries.

[yallerdawg]

48. "Throng of groupies?"

And MineralMan is one of the most respected, dare I say beloved, original content writers on DU, one of the reasons I'm here!

I just respectfully - and playfully - disagree with him on this one little thing.

[DetlefK]

3. This begs the philosophical question: What is "correct"?

[MineralMan]

5. No doubt. But, as I said, I am not a professional philosopher.

I can ask questions freely because of that, and leave other questions for others to ask. I have stated my personal definition of truth. Yours might differ from mine.

[Act_of_Reparation]

4. Whatever ReligionNews.com says it is.

[MineralMan]

6. Oh, now, I can't accept that. Too vague.

There's all kinds of stuff on that website. I'm not familiar enough with it all to comment. But I do know that I have seen things there that are distinctly not true.

[Act_of_Reparation]

12. "Distinctly not true"?

ReligionNews? Surely you jest!

[MineralMan]

14. You have misspelled my name, which is Shirley.

I never jest, except when it suits me to jest.

[unblock]

7. the right-wing definition is, truth is that which is repeatedly stated as true by foxnews and

right-wing politicians.

right-wingers engage in repeated loyalty tests to constantly reinforce their conception of "truth", such as donnie deeming his inaugural crowd to be the biggest ever, or that he somehow actually won the popular vote. these are demonstrably false under the evidence-based definition, but were made "true" under the right-wing definition through repetition on foxnews and elsewhere in the republican bubble.


the evidence-based definition to which you and i subscribe eventually wins, but only after reality hits the right-wingers over the head.

sadly, much grief may happen before we get to that point....

[MineralMan]

17. That is a very poor definition, indeed.

[unblock]

21. but it can be quite enduring. look at cults. hell, look at the dark ages.

[MineralMan]

23. Indeed. What you said is clearly supported by history.

However, I would never accept such things as truth. I cannot.

[edhopper]

8. The definition

depends on the philosophical orientation.
You, like I are naturalist when it comes to philosophy.
Others with different philosophical outlooks would define it other ways.
Some here would say it's what their faith tells them.

[guillaumeb]

10. Multiple truths.

My response upthread.

[MineralMan]

15. Yes. Which is why defining truth is so difficult

and has consumed so much time and energy. I have to settle on my own definition so I can move on to actually do things.

That's another reason not to become a professional philosopher, I think, besides the lousy pay.

[edhopper]

37. Since you bring it up

&t=19s

[WhiteTara]

11. Truth is like gold

when you brush away all that it is not, all that remains is truth.

[MineralMan]

13. I like that.

[WhiteTara]

18. I wish I could remember who really said that

because I have remembered it for many many years.

[jrthin]

16. I like this. nt

[WhiteTara]

19. Thanks. I lifted it from someone much wiser

than I. Unfortunately, I don't remember the true author.

[MineralMan]

27. I did find this:

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. --Leo Tolstoy

That's pretty darned close, although wordier, as is Tolstoy's wont.

[WhiteTara]

30. Yeah! That's the one!

I filed that away when we moved about 10 years ago, so that was just my own memory. Thanks so much for being the good sleuth!

[MineralMan]

32. I owe it all to Google.

You restated it better, actually, than Tolstoy did originally. More concise and with more clarity. It would make a good poster.

[WhiteTara]

33. Hang that baby, MM!

[MineralMan]

20. I can't find the gold reference but the last phrase

is often used:

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS730US730&ei=jg-HWrDKDOXSjwT5w7SQCQ&q="all+that+remains+is+truth."

The most common one I found was: "WHEN ILLUSION IS REMOVED, ALL THAT REMAINS IS TRUTH" - A quote from Suzanne Lie.

[WhiteTara]

26. That's good too

but mine was not a modern writer. Maybe in my file somewhere. I'll look. I had this saying over my desk for many many years.

[SWBTATTReg]

28. Truth is what your reality says it is...

In reality, truth can be many things. There's your truth, within you, and there is scientific truth, based upon the empirical facts derived by scientific measurements.

Ah, your questions MM are gems that we can't get enough of. Truth.

[MineralMan]

29. Very nicely put.

I tend toward the scientific truth, since what I find inside me is not reliably true. I often discover that later, after relying on it.

What is within me might be true, but it might also be an illusion. That's my experience.

[WhiteTara]

31. Those are our own opinions

not truth. My opinion is that republicons are like grubs in the dirt...but that is not truth...just my mind.

[Voltaire2]

34. You do have to separate out the condition of

statements being logically true, from epistemological questions of knowledge and belief. They are related, but logical truth has no meaning other than “has the value ‘true’”.

It is the application of analytical logic to complex statements about belief that is one of the foundations of critical thinking.

[MineralMan]

35. I see what you're saying there.

However, I take a very narrow view of what is and is not truth. Mere logical analysis doesn't cut it for me. I demand clear evidence before assigning the value of truth to anything.

Others clearly are using a different definition, which is fine, if they're OK with that, I suppose.

Perhaps I insist on initial premises meeting my standard of truth before I examine the logical argument. I'll have to think about that some more.

ETA: For example, if a logical argument begins with the premise: "There is a God" - I begin by assessing that premise by asking whether there is evidence that the statement is true. If there is no evidence, which is the actual situation, then I reject the premise as failing the test of truth and do not further examine the rest. The logic is false, because the premise is false. Most religious logic begins with that premise, so I reject it all without further examination.

[Iggo]

36. The definition you use for "truth" is the one I use for "fact."

I have a concept of "The Truth" that basically amounts to everything that is real, whether you can see/know/prove/measure it or not.

That definition is huge, but also a little weak...lol.

[Igel]

49. It's a functional definition, you have there.

But it's subject to change.

Lots of things have been proven by overwhelming scientific evidence. More things of import have simply failed to be falsified. We can judge any of them "truth." But that's with the caveat that many of those things were later found to be false, and replaced by things considered true because they were demonstrated to be correct by even greater amounts of evidence.

So, yeah, that's truth.

Ultimately truth is, IMHO, what actually is. We seek the truth. But in some areas we may never actually find it. Sometimes we sort of do the Zeno-thing with ever closer approximations. And that's fine.

At the same time there are "truths" that aren't just pre-existing, simply because they're a bit socially or morally constructed. Overwhelming preference for one's own group (however defined) is as truthful as a desire to be inclusive; oddly, often people will strongly hold both beliefs at once, and claim each to be fairly absolute. People with small minds may be hobbled by a foolish consistency, but many with small minds are liberated by a foolish inconsistency. Not my business to condemn them. I probably do the same kinds of foolery in some (or maybe the same) ways. Utilitarianism lays claim to truth, but they substitute a specific morality and view of what the common good is for, well, specific morality and a different view of what the common good is. And if we could all agree on the common good, that would still be a changeable, non-veridical truth, because "good" tends to be a judgment call.

Now, take string theory. It can't be "truth" in your sense, because let's face it, overwhelming evidence is not there. Heck, trivial amounts of evidence isn't yet there. But it might be true in my sense.

[MineralMan]

52. String theory might be true, indeed.

For me, it's not...yet. I'm watching it. As you say, my definition is mine. My standards of truth are high, to be sure. Some things that were once not true in my lifetime by that standard are true now. None that I'm aware of, though, are now false.

That is the advantage of strict evidentiary standards of truth, I think. Everything, however, is interesting.