Philosophy 101 Unit 1

What is truth? One might argue and say that truth describes things that are real, authentic, or genuine, or they might also use it in its semantic sense. Some think it to be relative; others believe truth is whatever produces successful results. There are several theories regarding this matter that are quite relevant in the quest for knowledge, because this is the one thing truth is not, for truth is only a determinant of knowledge.

The first Theory of Truth is Relativism (Protagoras), which are the beliefs held in common within a group of people. Truth may be relative to the individual, the society, or the culture (there are probably more examples, but these are more than likely the most prominent). However, the fact that X is entitled to X’s opinion isn’t enough to determine whether or not something is true. If I belive the sky to be blue, but you hold it true and swear up and down that the sky is dark green, then we have reached a problem. If two contradicting statements are true simultaneously, then something has gone horribly awry in the Matrix, and either one or both of those statements are false. This leads me to the next theory…

The Theory of Coherence (Blanchard) is a sort of fancier version of relativism. This theory has nothing to do with the facts; it’s all a matter of consistency among old beliefs with the incorporation of new ones. In order to understand this theory, picture your belief system as a web of nodes (beliefs)- millions and millions of nodes; some connecting, others not. We’ll call the inside of your belief system your core beliefs; the ones you hold most dear. As you approach the outskirts of your belief system, we’ll dub these nodes your peripheral beliefs; the ones that aren’t nearly as significant as your core. Strange occurances manifest themselves in the complexity of the nodes and the connections in your belief system; many we can easily relate to, given the following terminology. Association is more or less the unconscious connection someone makes when something is sensed, which leads them to think of something else that associates with the the thing being sensed. Inference is rational problem sovling from one node to the other (”first we do this, then this…”). Conservative thoughts are synonymous with core beliefs, and if they are changed, it often causes a feeling of physchological pain or discomfort (anxiety). Anxiety is also caused from a feeling of cognitive dissonance, which happens when you encounter something that disproves a core belief. It can be concluded that when you encounter a new belief, which can be incorporated into your belief system without cognitive dissonance, then the new belief is true, but if a feeling of cognitive dissonace arises due to the inconsistency between the new and old belief, then the new belief is false, but this isn’t always the case… (ask me the otherwise, I’ll respond in the comments).

The third Theory of Truth is Pragmatism (James), which says that the belief must be coherent and tested to success, which is somewhat bias, because some truthful beliefs aren’t successful and some successful beliefs are false; for instance, the use of the Bohr model atom in the developement of the atomic bomb was successful, but now, due to progression in science, the Bohr model is outdated and is shown to be the incorrect structure of the atom, but this still didn’t halt any success. Success is no guaruntee of truth. Falsehood can be successful as well.

Concluding the 4 theories is the Theory of Correspondance (Tarsky). Any statement, when applying this theory, is only true when the statement being asserted corresponds to the facts at hand. Ex: This box is cube-like because it corresponds to the shape of other cube-like objects. However, this became a huge problem about 13 centuries ago when the Liar’s Paradox was born. “This statement is false.” There is no correspondance between the statement and the facts, so it contradicts itself, which [logically] makes this theory useless, until a man named Tarsky (very recently) solved the Liar’s Paradox. He said you had to strip self-reference when corresponding and said in order to talk about an object language, then you must use a meta language (ex: explain English in Spanish), then a meta meta, then a meta meta meta… and so on.

I hope this was somewhat on point and mostly “true.” I’ll just leave the rest to discussion, questions, corrections, and opinions of which theory is best for you.

…that rhymed. I’m terribly sorry, completely unintentional.