What is the truth myth and philosophical directions? - Chapter 8

Truth and relativity

If we say something like, "The water is boiling,"  we express a conviction – a belief. A belief is an attitude that we adopt towards a proposition – a statement . A belief expresses that we believe a proposition, or we accept it as true. In fact, saying that a conviction is true is the same as pronouncing the proposition itself. Whether a proposition is true, however, depends only on whether the proposition is actually true and not on the person who says it is true. This seems simple, but it goes against a widely accepted myth that truth is relative. To disprove this myth, we must make a difference between different kinds of statements.

1. 1. If someone says, "Neptune is bigger than Venus," they use an assertory form. The fact that the person believes that the proposition is true does not mean that it is actually true. Whether the proposition is true or not depends solely on whether or not Neptune is actually larger than Venus.
   2. If someone says, "It's raining here," they use an indexical (here, that, this, they, today, etc.). An indexical is a word that indicates something specific, where what it indicates (in this case, where the speaker is located) is contextual . This also makes the truth content of the entire sentence contextual. Yet such sentences are still factual statements; when all relevant characteristics of the context have been established, we have a complete proposition with a fixed truthfulness.
   3. If person X says, "Math is difficult", that person makes an implicit relative claim . What the speaker means is that mathematics is difficult for him personally. A claim is implicitly relative if it sets a comparison or other relationship to something that is not explicitly mentioned. Since such sentences actually say something about the speaker while the sentence does not explicitly mention this, they are implicitly speaker relative.

When people seem to disagree about implicit speaker-relative sentences, they often compare this to actual factual disagreement. If person says X; "White chocolate is tastier than dark chocolate" and person Y says: "Pure chocolate is tastier than white chocolate", it may seem that person X and Y actually disagree. However, both people express different, not contradictory propositions, namely: 1) White chocolate tastes better for person X than dark chocolate and 2) Pure chocolate tastes better for person X than white chocolate. Person X and Y therefore do not actually disagree.

True for me, true for you

The myth that truth is relative is often erroneously reflected in discussions about factual matters, for example when someone says, "That's your opinion," or "Maybe that's true for you, but not for me." However, unless the topic of discussion is an implicit speaker-relative issue as described above, this is not a legitimate move. In discussions you must therefore pay close attention to whether the topic is about a preference, belief or other attitude, or about a factual statement. In the second case, there is no question of "true for you but not for me". So truth is not relative. It is objective, and the truth of a proposition is independent of our desire for or belief in its truth.

Truth, value and morality

In addition to the fact that many people think that truth is relative, we are often inclined to think that values as are relative in moral issues. In statements such as "euthanasia is immoral", disagreements about the truthfulness of such a statement are often seen as speaker-relative differences. It is not possible to prove that moral relativism is incorrect. There is, however, a good reason to be opposed to this. For example, suppose a terribly oppressive regime emerges in a certain country. The moral relativist cannot, however, hope or think that the regime is wrong; in his eyes it is a matter of preference (speaker-relative). Although this is an extreme example, it does show that moral relativism deprives us of the opportunity to rationally convince others of beliefs that may be harmful to others.

Theories

Just as people in a discussion often say that something is "just an opinion," you often hear the statement "that is just a theory." It seems as if theories are something subjective, while the term "theory" is precisely a way to distinguish scientific hypotheses from less valid and methodologically correct statements. A scientific theory proposes a hypothesis that can be tested by means of tests that can be performed in a perspective-free manner. The same principle applies to scientific explanations.

Conviction, justification and truth

It is not the case for every proposition that we either believe that it is true or believe that it is not true. Sometimes we take the position of a delayed judgment, for example because we believe that we do not have enough reason or evidence to accept something. It is also possible that a certain issue has never come to our attention and we therefore simply have no opinion about it. It is therefore important to remember that saying that if someone does not believe something, this is not the same as saying that someone does believe something. For example, if someone says, "I don't believe the minister is a bad person," they don't necessarily have to believe that the minister is a good person. He may not have enough information about the minister, or has he never thought about it.

So there are four positions that we can take against a proposition; believe, do not believe, postpone our judgment or not engage in the proposition. Believing and not believing are matters of moderation ; for example, you may believe that the minister is a bad person to varying degrees. If someone has a certain belief, we may wonder if he is justified in having that belief; in other words, whether the argument he has for the conviction is rationally convincing for him. However, whether a belief is justified does not mean that the belief is actually true.

Justification without arguments

To be justified in having a certain belief it is not necessary to have an argument for the belief. An example of this is perception : when you see that your cat is lying on the bed, you are justified in thinking that the cat is lying on the bed. Another example is introspection ; for example, if you feel hungry, happy or scared, you are justified in most cases to think that you do indeed feel hungry, happy or scared.

Knowledge

The truth of a belief is a necessary condition for being able to call that belief knowledge . However, it is not correct to say that the knowledge that something is so is the same as having a true belief. For example, suppose that someone who takes LSD every day has the hallucination that a friend's house is on fire. If one day it happens that the house of that friend is on fire, you cannot say that the LSD user knows that the house is on fire. A true belief only applies as knowledge if we arrive at that belief through the right route. We must therefore be justified in our conviction; we must have evidential support .

Failure of justification

There are two ways in which a belief may lack justification; it can either be genuine but inadequate or insincere.

Inadequacies

Suppose there are five suspects in a murder case, three men and two women. If you have no further evidence and person X says he believes the culprit was a man, the argument is somewhat rationally convincing to him (the chance of a man is greater than a woman). However, this is not sufficient justification; even if the culprit turns out to be a man, you cannot say that person X came up with his conviction through the right route. Person X is therefore not justified in his conviction. However, there is no precise limit for when our evidence support is sufficient to qualify as justified knowledge.

Errors related to justification

Sometimes the wrong assessment of the evidence leads to the formation of irrational beliefs, for example if we overestimate our evidence support. People often use this when convincing others incorrectly, for example, to give a few vivid examples as proof of generalization. Another form of irrational belief is when we allow ourselves to accept an incorrect belief if it benefits us. In such cases, we not only lack evidence, but we don't seem to care that we don't have evidence. This is the case, for example, if you believe that your terminally ill grandmother will get better, or that the predictions from your horoscope will become true.

Knowledge and rational persuasion

It is possible to have good reasons and therefore to be justified in keeping a false belief. However, rational persuasiveness does not require that the premises of an argument are actually true. Knowing, or having the knowledge, that an argument is correct therefore comprises more than rational persuasiveness; after all, we must be sure that the premises are true.

Even in the case of an inductively powerful argument, the degree of justice is not sufficient to equate the conclusion with knowledge. For example, if there are 51 white and 49 black stones in a bag, it is an inductively powerful argument that is rationally convincing to draw the conclusion that the stone you grab will be white. However, the argument is only a little inductively powerful and therefore does not count as knowledge, even if the stone you take turns out to be white.

Philosophical directions

Fundamentalism versus coherentism

As stated earlier, we usually do not find beliefs based on perception reasons or need arguments. So we see perceptual beliefs as self-justifying. It follows that we see other beliefs as ultimately based on perception. This vision is known as fundamentalism . However logical this vision may seem, there are also very logical arguments that contradict the vision. Perception is not always accurate; think of visual illusions, perceptual errors, dreams and hallucinations. The coherentism states that we are only justified in (perceptual or other) beliefs if it fits within our existing network of beliefs. For example, if a magician seems to saw a woman in two, that does not fit within our existing knowledge and thus we do not believe it.

Internal versus external justification

How can we justify perceptual beliefs? We can assume that if the person who has the belief functions normally and the perceptual circumstances are normal, then the belief is justified. But should the person in question not know that the circumstances are normal? The externalism suggests that beliefs are justified simply as they are produced correctly. The internal mechanism enables you should always be aware of the way of justification.