The bulk of the following was not written in mid April to mid May while I was still in Budapest, but the basic ideas were being developed in my journal during that time. The ideas predate those which I have since explained and are the motivation for beginning this blog. Perhaps some of these ideas do not mesh (or "jive") completely with what I have elsewhere said in this blog, but such is development.
The "basic" notion of truth. Truth in it's basic form is manifest in whatever makes a person exclaim "Yes!" either with his or her mouth or within his or her mind.
A:
Does what I have just said resonate with you?
[Without a pause]
B:
Yes, it does. What you have said sits well with me.
A:
Then let us set about putting it into practice.
B:
This is a wise course of action.
This is truth for both A and B.
A:
Does what I have just said resonate with you?
[With an aprehensive look]
B:
Not exactly. What you have said fails to acknowledge a few key things.
A:
Would you be more specific?
B:
I'm not able just now to say exactly what, but let us consider the cases.
This is truth for A and falsity for B, but there is hope.
There are many other possibilities of course; hence the truth values True and False are too strict.
The truth of the logician (and most philosophers, especially the ones in the analytic tradition) is something mechanical (the external property possessed by a proposition). Indeed, it was derived from the basic form of truth, but ultimately it is something entirely different.
The basic form is manifested in a conversation, in a poem, an experience, a gut feeling, a story, a song, a good meal, a good day, etc. (An explanation of a good many of these examples is well warranted--in time, all in good time.) In these manifestations there is "truth" when there is affirmation of some good quality--what this is will be left undefined for the moment; for now just understand the phrase "good quality" naturally, i.e. untechnically.
A conversation between friends will at one time yield a "Yes!" response from the one who listens (and even from the one who speaks), but at another time this affirmation may be absent (an indeterminate response "Maybe.") or there may be a negative response--a "No!" response. The words which at one time manifested truth, at another time did not have this property. This illustrates that truth is inherent in a person and not in the words.
Objection. Of course the analytic philosopher (or some person of that ilk and broth) will say that this is merely an example of one person making a mistake perhaps or one person being confused about the nature of reality. For example, the one who originally said "Yes!" was mistaken or just confused and then later realized the mistake or the confusion. Hence such a person will say that truth still resides in the words (or the expressed proposition, state of affairs, etc.), but sometimes we make a mistake or are confused and hence my example shows nothing other than that sometimes we make mistakes or we are confused about the nature of reality.
Reply. Indeed, this is a good objection. The simple response to which is that I do not admit that there is some sort of truth "out there" which is to be discovered and about which it is possible to be mistaken--i.e. I do not admit that there is some sort of logical space which is analogous to physical space (e.g. we can be mistaken about something in physical space, for example, from a distance I can think that a tower is round when in fact it is rectangular, but I do not assume, as does the contrary view, that it is the same with matters of truth when we are investigating about matters other than the physical universe). When we are investigating about such "physical" matters and when we are investigating about matters "beyond" the physical, such as God, etc., is a fuzzy distinction, which complicates my response. For now, suffice it to say that my notion of truth is social rather than metaphysical, and I argue against the metaphysical notion of truth. Someone subscribes to a notion of metaphysical truth when one believes that he or she is out to discover truth and to come to exemplify in his or her beliefs more and more the
True (in the sense of one of Plato's forms existing in some ethereal realm).
The truth of the logician is set in stone. The bearer of truth is a proposition, and a proposition is either true or false, and if a proposition is true at some particular time, it must always be true. In this theory, truth and falsity is a feature of the objective universe. In my basic notion of truth, however, we cannot even discuss truth or falsity until we have an utterance, an utterer, as well as a hearer--all three are necessary (of course, perhaps, the utterer and the hearer may be the same person in a degenerate case, but this will have certain implications on the final truth evaluation which will be discussed later). The important thing to note is that truth in this sense is not some feature of the objective world (assuming the existence thereof, the alleged substantiality thereof), but is determined by the sociological space (e.g. two people conversing, one person having a particular experience, this blog, a large conference, a group of friends sitting around a table, and the like) and the interactions taking place therein. In particular, whether or not something is evaluated as true or false depends upon the attitude of both the hearer and the utterer. For example, in conversation A (the utterer or speaker) may utter S with a skeptical attitude (indicating the "falsity" of S), but at the same time the mental state of B (the hearer or listener) may be such that B thinks S to be rather profound (indicating the "truth" of S). Let us apply this idea.
What is an utterance? Examples are the saying of a sentence, the writing of a sentence, the humming of a tune, the waving of a hand, as well as so many other things. A direct definition seems ellusive and would ultimately be a stumbling block to the development of my ideas. However, for those who need a discursive definition I should say the following.
(D) An utterance is any act performed by someone in a social space.
This is my sentence. I have uttered sentence D, now you, the reader, evaluate it according to your understanding of the terms. Most likely you will react with suspicion (a sort of indeterminate truth evaluation, a "Maybe"). Perhaps you will be completely negative about it and even make some comment to that effect ("No!"). And If I am a good rhetor (not really) or if I am lucky (open to debate) then you would agree with me ("Yes!"). Perhaps you might agree in part but not wholly, or you might not wholly understand what the hell I'm saying (this is more positive than the "Maybe" response but is still rather indeterminate).
Sentence D suffices as a deffinition only partially for me (My response to sentence D: "Yes, but there are some special cases.") It is very ellegant, assuming definitions of 'act' and 'social space' and 'someone', but, for my part, I feel there are some cases that it misses. For example, and you may laugh at this, I consider things like beautiful sunsets, great music, and the like to be bearers of this basic notion of truth. (After all, you can respond to them with a "Yes!" or "No!" or the like and it
has meaning, though it is hard to pin down.) If you are staunchly logico-analytical in nature then you will certainly laugh at that, perhaps you'll even quit reading. But remember that your are limiting yourself to the bias of one man--Aristotle. The logic system of Aristotle has held the world captive for many centuries. I prefer to free my mind from that bias, it is difficult for me to do that oftentimes.
Modus Ponens (MP). My suspicions have been growing for some time. Ever since the aforementioned independent study I did on modal logic (and the resulting presentation) I have been thinking about formal logical systems and the rationale for having inferential rules such as MP. Namely, I suspect that principles of logic (
modus ponens,
reductio ad absurdum, etc.) are just rhetorical devices. As such, there is nothing special (or "divine" as I like to say) about them except that they tend to be useful in communicating to an audience the affirmative response of the basic notion of truth ("Yes!")--i.e. provided one can distil what one wants to say into their form. For example, MP is special only insofar as it allows a speaker to get an audience to affirm the utterance of "
q" provided he or she first gets the audience to affirm the utterance "if
p, then
q;
p". Perhaps these forms are sufficient for the more quaint perennial problems of philosophy, but they are fatally limited if one desires to talk about the more profound issues of human existence.
Logic says that MP is "truth preserving"--i.e. that if the premises of the MP argument form are true then the conlcusion
must be true (it is necessarily so). To a point there is nothing wrong with saying this. I do admit that MP is useful in communicating truth (in the sense above described), but we must not go too far by saying that there is something
special or
divine about MP. For example we must not say that MP is somehow a
necessary truth--i.e. an absolute truth; true in all possible worlds. To say so is to make more of MP than is warranted, I think. To say so is to think, for example, that not only did Prometheus give man fire, but also MP--i.e. to ascribe some divine feature to MP, as if it were some beautiful feature of the universe established by some creator and without which there would be no hope of ever preserving truth or making any inferences. No, indeed, we humans have made up MP, and in this sense, there is nothing divine about it. MP is merely a pattern of speaking.
Application. I said that I think the logical "laws" are really just special cases of persuasive techniques or rhetorical devices for communicating to an audience. One of the implications of this is that what people conventionally mean by "reason" when they say "Use reason, don't try to pull the wool over my eyes with mere bombast" is really no more "correct" or "good" or "true" (if I may use such evaluative terms coherently) than "mere bombast" but is just a different method of acheiving a result. The above speaker is mistaken in assuming that by using "sound reason" it will be guaranteed that no one is pulling the wool over his eyes: it is possible to be duped by so called reason. "Reason" is not a guarantor of truth, though it is a good way of organizing some of our thoughts. "Reason" is just one class of methods for communication among many. Those who might say that such and such a speaker (or film maker as in the case of Michael Moore) should use "reason" instead of whatever "suspect" methods he or she does assume the same as the above speaker: that reason is the arbiter of truth. Furthermore to say that the philosophers and scientists (using these terms with loose designation) deal with
rational thought (indicating superior position: correct, real, true) whereas the artists (poets, novelists, painters, etc.) deal with the mysterious, even profound, yet
irrational (indicating a subordinate position: less correct, illusory, false) parts of life is to apply a false distinction. The distinction between what is
rational and what is
irrational is based upon giving primacy to a
particular way of getting a point across: the "logical" argument.
Rules of thought. There is a tendency to call inferential rules such as MP a "rule of thought" or a "law governing thought." Indeed I am inclined to accept this--but only so far. It seems absurd to even try to conceive of a situation in which an utterer could affirm "if
p, then
q;
p" but yet deny "
q". The same is true of
reductio ad absurdum as long as we accept the law of non-contradiction (another convention put in place by humans and not some God given rule of logic). However, this does not imply that these patterns of speaking are immutable laws. Furthermore, human thought is capable of transcending these patterns in order to achieve more creative ways of communicating the "Yes!" response--for communicating truth. Rules like MP and
reductio are tried and true recipies, but ultimately the human intellect is the cook! In this way, to say that "logical" thinking is the only "good" thinking is like to say that the only good painting is Impressionism, post-Impressionism, or some other school; is like to say that the only good music is jazz, classical, or some other form. Certainly careful thinking is a good thing--I am not an advocate of sloppy thinking, but I do claim that human existence is more complex than what can be contained within a limited set of logical rules. What is good thinking should not be considered synonymous with thinking which can be put into, e.g., syllogistic form. Furthermore, so called "non-logical" thinking too is valuable, this is because human existence manifests itself in many a wild way, like some overgrown vine which is not readily forced into a given bound. Hence the communication of human experience requires creativity transcending that of the philosopher and scientist. This is the domain of the artist, perhaps.
Social Construction. Here we come to a point where I can describe how truth is a socially constructed phenomenon. (In one of my recent entries I talked about how dialectic is that social phenomenon which constructs truth. Here I am describing that same phenomenon from a different viewpoint and in different terminology. Perhaps I am looking at a different facet of the same concept.) Truth is the response that one has to an utterance. In this way the mind of each person is the seat of truth. (I am using 'seat' in the archaic sense.) This is why some will say that my theory is relativistic: each person has his or her own truth so to speak, but there is plenty more to say about that. In particular, I am not advocating relativism, at least not an extreme form, but certainly there is an element of relativism inherent in what I'm saying.
