Talk:Truth/Archive 9

message: People try to fix the section Major philosophers who have proposed theories of truth from time to time, but it has the property that whenever someone who likes some philosopher looks at this list, they have the itch to add that philosopher, whether or not they made acontribution that could seriously be called a significant contribution to the theory of truth.  I propose that we make this a list of pairs of list, eg.:
* Aristotle's Organon;
* Kripke's Causal theory of reference;
* Quine's attack on the analytic—synthetic distinction.
This won't fix the problem, but following WP:CITE it should make the section more self-policing. --- Charles Stewart 15:07, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Fixing drift

message: This debate about the introduction has gone on for years (literally). 
Perhaps it would help if we sat back and looked at what is needed in a good introduction. 
The perfect Wikipedia article...
...begins with a definition and clear description of the subject; the lead section introduces and explains the subject and its significance clearly and accurately, without going into excess detail.
For this article, it is not possible to provide a definition that is neutral, precisely because of the self-reference involved in providing a true definition of truth. 
From Wikipedia:Lead section
The lead should briefly summarise the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it could stand on its own as a concise version of the article. It is even more important here than for the rest of the article that the text is accessible, and some consideration should be given to creating interest in reading the whole article
What are the most important points covered in the article? From the TOC, it is clear that the article looks at:
* what sorts of things can be true?
* robust, deflationary and formal definitions of true
* Subjective, objective, relative and absolute truth
* Some other aspects, not directly philosophical in nature
Wikipedia:Lead section suggests a lead of one or two paragraphs. It should be possible to do this by writing a one-sentence summary for each of these main sections.
To this we should add that the lead should link to a few key articles - Philosophy and Epistemology at the least. 
Do we all agree that this sort of lead section is what is needed? If not, what is it missing?
An if so, can I suggest that we develop a set of guidelines for the introduction, and place them at the top of the talk page to explain the reasoning to any would-be editors who inadvertently "simplify" the introduction by making it POV, as happens every few weeks, throwing the article into turmoil?
Banno 21:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. --Nate Ladd 04:10, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

text: A chronology would not preclude the need to introduce the topic that the chronology is about, so it would just be an extra intro in addition to the non-chronological one. Banno's version is NPOV and it follows wiki recommendations. (By the way, it was me who tried to do a historical intro, not Jim. He just shortened it to only the 20th century. But I now think Banno's approach is better.) --Nate Ladd 20:29, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A chronology would be as long as the article itself, not an introduction to the article. Nat is correct - a chronology would be another part of the article, not an introduction. Banno 21:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't know about "deflationary theories" & all, but the opposition between an objective definiton of truth and a more romantic subjective definition should certainly be in the intro, as well as the opposition between relativism and the universal conception of truth (which, in some cases - Plato for example - overlap with the objective definition - Ideas are eternal for Plato). Lapaz 01:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Planning the lead section 

message: It strikes me as odd that epistemology is referred to in the intro. Truth is part of metaphysics, not epistemology. (Of course truth has some bearing on epistemology, but also to various other topics too.) Ben Finn 14:05, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Truth belongs to both domains. Actually, metaphysics as well as epistemology or political philosophy are all sub-fields of philosophy, and truth is important enough a question to be included in the general sense of philosophy. Do you know one philosopher who hasn't spoke about truth? Lapaz 01:51, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metaphysics, not epistemology 

message: Why do we need a quotations section when we already have a wikiquotes page? Seems more or less redundant. Sasquatcht|c 00:55, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm all for deleting it, and all other quotation sections on the Wiki. But this should be discussed as a general policy, I guess. Banno 07:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I also favor deleting it. --Nate Ladd 22:57, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm for deleting it, so far as all quotes not duplicated at wikiquotes (which are also verifiable) are copied over there.  -Seth Mahoney 01:29, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My first reaction to the pair of quotations A, ~A was outrage. But I am learning that there is actually a mathematical approach to this: Dempster-Shafer theory. It looks like there is more to be learned and that the subject of the fusion of paradoxical and indeterminate knowledge with reliable knowledge is growing, quickly. See: :category:evidence.  Ancheta Wis 16:02, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

text: It doesn't look like anyone bothered copying the quotes to wikiquotes (while checking for any duplications) before deleting.  Please explain.  --nirvana2013 10:33, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotations section 

message: I have removed (for the second time) the sentence: "truth is telling it like it is".  First, this is unhelpful and the notion that true statements "tell it like it is" is covered in the theories section.  Second, truth is not telling it like it is.  Telling truths might be telling it like it is, but truth as a concept is considered distinct from linguistic action.  If you would like this sentence to be in the article, please discuss it here before returning it to the article.  --best, kevin  ···Kzollman | Talk··· 22:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Possible DotSix Puppet? Banno 23:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Or just the return of Howard Cosell? --Christofurio 13:47, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Telling it like it is 

message: I just wanted to say that this is one of the best Wiki articles I have read. Rick Norwood 23:48, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Excellent article 

message: Those of us who are interested in the truth are referred to Talk:Laws of Form for the names of the editors who have improved that article. I would nominate it for FA except it would get shot down immediately, realistically (no pictures). BTW, as a user/bystander, I appreciate that the truth article has stabilized. Congratulations. --Ancheta Wis 16:31, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I wholeheartedly concur.  Amazing how long that mess went on.  --Coolcaesar 06:40, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If all we need is a picture, how about a video clip of Jack Nicholson saying "You don't want the truth.  You can't handle the truth." : ) Rick Norwood 14:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:Laws of Form]] 

message: It would be a big mistake to merge the article [Absolute truth] into this one for several reasons:
# It is too long.
# It is badly, and pretensiously, written. The second sentence, for example, is unreadable.
# It cites no sources. It appears to be entirely someone's original research filled with neologisims. 
--Nate Ladd 03:48, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In keeping with your concept, see that talk page for a rejoinder. More work is needed, on that page only. There is no need to tamper with an existing stable article. The issues can fit nicely there alone. --Ancheta Wis 10:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger of Absolute Truth 

message: Searching for an area to speak about truth outside the Bible would seem most suitable to go here. Thomas Schaeffer would say that there is no absolute truth existing outside the realm of the Bible. The idea would be that God redeems us to the point of realizing what actual truth is. Arthur Holmes on the other hand would say that all true, whether stated by Believer or not is then all in all God's truth. For example, water boiling at over 200 degrees is truth. Did I need the Bible, not really, nor would being illuminated by God really bring that out. Both of these men share great points when it comes to understanding truth. Perhaps someone could share what they percieve about the revelation of truth. (The Mule 04:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Divine truth 

message: I like the first part of the recent edit -- the second part, sadly, doesn't quite work.  First, it doesn't quite say what it intends to say.  Second, this famous paradox needs to be formulated in some formal language, and is therefore inappropriate for the introduction.
The arguement is this: If no statement is true, then the statement that no statement is true is true, a contradiction.  The problem is that this assumes that the set of statements is non-empty.  A postmodernist would argue that the set of statements is empty.  That is, that sequences of words are just that, sequences of words.  Such "signs" produce a reaction in the person who observes them, but have no "meaning" -- that is, the sole content of "signs" is the reaction they produce.  Therefore, even the statement "There are no true statements." is not true, because it has no content.  It is mearly a sequence of signs that produces a reaction.
Now, personally, I think this is horseshit, but I am forced to acknowledge that assumptions are required before any theory of truth can begin to be developed.  One of these assumptions is the assumption that words have meaning. Rick Norwood 22:22, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A truth too far 

message: How does a mind conform to reality? Doesn't that mean that "truth" is something that minds do, rather than statements? I don't see this phrasing as helpful. Banno 21:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Rick Norwood 21:31, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  conformity of the mind? 

message: I edited the introductory paragraph from (1) to (2):
#When someone sincerely agrees with an assertion, they are claiming that it is the truth. Epistemology, the study of knowledge, seeks solutions for the many philosophical problems associated with truth.
#Truth is the characteristic that one ascribes to an assertion when he or she sincerely agrees with that assertion.  A naïve (which is not to say incorrect) definition of truth is: the feature that a sentence or proposition has just in case it portrays (part of) reality correctly.  It is impossible to define truth in a way that will be satisfactory to everyone, but perhaps the best attempt to give such a universally acceptable definition is still the one made by Aristotle over two millenia ago: "To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true" (Metaphysics, Γ, 7.27).
My changes were reverted by User:Nathan Ladd, who found them to be "wordy" and "pretentious".  They may well be wordy and pretentious (unfortunately, I am not immune to these sins), but two problems with the introduction remain:
* it is (arguably) ungrammatical, using "they" as a singular pronoun (admittedly this is relatively trivial, and maybe I'm just a fuddy duddy, but it irritates the heck out of me);
* it gives the impression that the nature of truth is primarily an epistemological issue, when it is primarily a logical/metaphysical one.  (Accounts of the nature of truth generally do not make any reference to knowlege or belief at all--though, obviously, all branches of philosophy are in some sense concerned with the nature of truth.)
Anyway, I'll leave the intro alone for now, since I have no interest in getting into a revert war over something so trivial as Truth.  ;)  Anyone else want to take a stab at rewriting the intro in a succinct and unpretentious but also grammatical and philosophically accurate way?  'Twould be much appreciated.  Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 18:52, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice work, Nathan Ladd!  I think the current introductory sentence satisfies all four criteria.  :)  Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 05:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introductory paragraph 

message: I am not happy with the section "Bearers of truth", especially with its position so high up in the article.  It seems to me to be original research, and less sound than the rest of the article.  Comments? Rick Norwood 15:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to see it moved down lower in the article, too. But it is not original research. It is a nice little summary of the various candidates for the title of truth bearer. I don't think any philospher would disagree with it. It doesn't cite anyone, but you could cite the Kirkham book since it is a highly summarized version of that book's 2nd chapter. There's nothing unsound about it that I can see. --Nate Ladd 05:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bearers of truth 

message: I find some of the category choices for this article to be dubious, namely:
* Category:Core issues in ethics
* Category:Ethics
* Category:Political philosophy
The nature of truth doesn't seem to be a major or "core" issue in ethics or political philosophy per se.  Does anyone want to defend placing the article in these categories?  Dbtfz (talk - contribs) 05:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Core issues in ethics was the contribution of banned user:EntmootsOfTrolls who had the POV that if you subscribed to his core issues (perhaps understood as values), then you were acceptable, but if you didn't then you were fair game for retribution. As you can tell, he had a soft spot in his heart for trolling. "All Hail the Troll" was his POV. Thus  at the time, if you had felt that Truth were not to be a core issue then you would also have been a potential target of the Entmoots. But that was then. This is now. Are you arguing that Truth (or perhaps devotion to the Truth) is not an ethical (etc.) property? I personally am steering clear of this minefield. Is this section a troll, BTW? --Ancheta Wis 10:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I personally can detect a political component in even the supposedly most neutral of institutions, such as the Royal Society. See history of science. In other words, there is something to the categorization; perhaps it has to do with human nature. But if this encyclopedia were to embody truth then perhaps that would give the lie to the listed categorization. However even the Wikipedia:Five Pillars can be viewed as a policy/political statement. Note that the statement "Wikipedia contains only truth" is manifestly false. 10:16, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Truth is of course a major issue in political philosophy as much as in metaphysics. Just think about all the debates lifted by how is it possible to achieve objectivity or the controversy between followers of the Enlightenment conception of universalism and relativism. Relativism has, as shown by the sophists, many political implications. AFter all, that actually may be one of the primary reason for Plato's idealist philosophy... Lapaz 01:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious categories 

message: I think the statement "But at the least it claims that we cannot have direct knowledge of the real world" somehow indicates that there is a "real world" out there. I suggest adding something like: "However, most believers of this theory thinks there are no 'real world' whatsoever, but that all is just subjective interpretations" or something similar?
Trangius 13:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your statement is too strong.  Not only do I doubt that "most" believers in this theory think there is no "real world", a true believer in this theory would be forced to be agnostic on the existance or non-existance of a world he maintains we can know nothing about. I have, however, slightly modified the sentence in question to allow for the possible non-existance of an objective universe.  Rick Norwood 14:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are corrrect, I have nothing to prove that "most" believers think so. It was mostly a bad word-selction from my, my english is not that superb. I think your changes are good :) Anyway, I'd say that many of the post modernistic thoughts on truth (no absolute truth/relativistic truth) indicates that there are nothing but subjective perceptions (or interpretation of the perceptions, or whatever) - and hence no "real world". To clear this out, and to make the article more coherrent, I think there should be a clearer connection made between the subjective and relativistic viewpoints (and the objective and absolute viewpoints). --- Also (just a stupid little comment), I think the sentence "when most people believed the earth was flat, it was flat." is a good description in this case, but it could be critized by people claiming it to be false, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth Trangius 17:22, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I didn't make myself clear. It is disputed weither people really did believe that the earth was flat (as mentioned in the wiki-article i linked to), not weither it's a subjective or objectiv truth that the earth is(or was) flat. (When most people believed that people had believed the earth was flat, the people had believed the earth was flat :p)Trangius 01:23, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

text: You made yourself clear, and I agree with you.  I was trying to be funny. Rick Norwood 17:26, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  subjective vs objective 

message: I'm not sure what counts as positing a theory of truth for this page, but my recent addition of Heidegger as a philosopher who proposed a theory of truth was deleted. I'm not quite sure why this is, since, aside from his numerous remarks on the nature of truth in Sein und Zeit as (αληθεία), he also wrote a paper entitled (in English) On the Nature of Truth (Vom Wesen der Wahreit). While, admittedly, the idea of truth that Heidegger advanced is not found on this page, I am unsure how it can be denied that he developed a theory of truth. Could someone please enlighten me? Ig0774 06:38, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can cite his writings on truth in English in the References section, then you can put him back on the list. Lots of philosophers wrote things whose titles might suggest they were about truth, but they really aren't. In many cases, they turn out to be about justification, not truth. I'd like to read the Heidegger stuff you mention so I can verify that it is really about truth. --Nate Ladd 09:14, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heidegger and Truth 

message: Do we really need this rather twee section? Rick Norwood 21:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes we do, but with perhaps a bit less prominence - moved to further down the article. Banno 06:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bearers of truth 

message: Someone I once heard, said 
every war is about the definition of a word, 
every argument is about the suffering of the herd.
I must first state my apologies to Rick for using pejoratives, perhaps based on a assumption bad faith, but more likely due to my prejudice toward making the herd suffer a little sharp criticism rather than make them suffer poor writing. Reverts, it should be noted, are likewise incivil. Anyway the apology is sincere.
With that out of the way, I do understand the nature of this debate as being one of definitions, and in that regard the nature of understanding "truth" rests on other words. Better said, the nature of explaining truth is understanding it. Whatever "it" is. Truth, perhaps. 
Rick made his initial revert no doubt due to being frustrated with the futility of wordy rewrites, and mine appeared to be no different. I cant say I disagree with frustrated sentiments, though its unclear if he noticed the night and day difference between the first version and the last one. In which I used the word validity. This of course doesnt suffice for spiritualists, and spiritualist diatribes are just unbearable to science fundamentalists. 
So since we all appear to be looking for the perfect words to describe truth. We can start here. Validity and affirmation are two. Any others?
:I want to work to make the article a better article, and while the correspondence theory of truth is not the last word on the subject, it should be the first word, becasue that is how the vast majority of people understand truth, and that is how dictionaries define the word.  (Actually, the first dictionary I picked up defines "truth" as "the quality of being true", which is not very helpful.)  But this is an encyclopedia article, not a dictionary, and the purpose of the introduction is to introduce an article about the various standard views of truth.  I still maintain that correspondence between words and reality is the most common idea about truth, and so is the best place to start.  But we can talk about it. Rick Norwood 21:01, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Writing style, semantics, reverts, and...