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On Heidegger and Truth

Morrandir
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Posted 05/31/05 - 03:15 AM: Subject: On Heidegger and Truth	#1
Skip the chapter one (and two), if you feel you know the basics of truth theories and wish to see what I want to say about Heidegger. 1. Introduction to the problem. Most discussions on truth revolve around the same theories: correspondence, coherence, pragmatism and deflationism (and redundancy, if that can be considered as a theory). The simplified definitions of these theories are as follows: Correspondence: "p" is true iff (if and only if) it corresponds to an actual state of affairs p. Coherence: "p" is true iff it coheres with other true propositions. Pragmatism: "p" is true iff it works, i. e. produces desireable results. Deflationism: "p" is true iff p. There are huge problems with these. Normally correspondence theory is considered as the "default" theory of truth. That has much to do with the fact that it has been the only truth theory out there for 2000 years or more. It can be retraced back to the Ancients, and often is anchored in Aristotle. This is an important point to note, because it is basically the only reason why one would advocate the other theories of truth (them being rather counterintuitive to begin with). Simply: more and more philosophers conclude that correspondence theory simply doesn't do the job. Despite its initial appeal (that carried it through more than two millennia). 1. 1. On the problems of correspondence theory Correspondence theory has a flaw, and that flaw is skepticism. It hands the skeptic all the weapons he would ever need. Because it defines truth as a relation between a proposition and a mind-independent reality, it constructs a relation whose second member is either impossible to reach, or at least exceedingly difficult. Correspondence theory, or so it is often said, actually falls victim to the "certain knowledge" and "knowledge" -dichotomy. It can only establish knowledge in the form of certain knowledge. (Which is not true of other theories.) Why? Because the relation it fixes is between something mind-dependent and something mind-independent. This constructs a wall between us and the state of affairs. The only way to circumvent this wall is to establish something that simply cannot be false. This, I think, is the basic reason why so many philosophers tried to establish certainty - and when their efforts were considered to be in vain, the new theories of truth arose in the late 19th century. Let me give an analogy that I have given elsewhere before: I stand before a wall and I have before me two balls, green and red. Let us also assume that behind the wall there is another like me, holding either the green ball or the red ball in his hand. The wall is solid and I cannot get past it - the other side is beyond my reach. I now hold either of the balls in my hand and state "the ball I am holding is the same ball as the one on the other side is holding". Now we CAN say that my claim is either true or false, given the circumstances. But we cannot say which! This is the basic problem of correspondence theory: it does establish something that sounds like truth to us, it can even work (that is, we can assume that indeed, our propositions either are true or they are false), but its weakness is in the fact that it seems to rob us of knowledge. This is the reason why other theories have arosen: to save knowledge. This I think is a direct consequence of the gradual change that took place after Kant and because of Kant: the turn from metaphysics to epistemology. That allowed us to see that perhaps fixing truth before knowledge is not such a good idea, and that truth should instead be fixed through knowledge. A sharp-eyed reader has noted that I skittle around the problem of realism and idealism. I wish to stress that I do not want to enter into a debate about the correctedness of correspondence theory as such, but try to explain what the problems associated with it are and how it gives rise to other theories. 1. 2. Towards epistemological truth theories. So we come to the primacy of epistemology, and fall into a quagmire. The pragmatists take truth to be something that is in relation to our needs and their fulfilment. Truth is known by simple measures: if we want to know whether "p" is true, we just have to see if what it means is something that works. Of course, this also leads to relativity of truth, and to the fact that "p" can be true at t-0 and false at t-1 (and true again etc). The coherentists simply want a system that is not contradictory. Truth is the property of a whole (at least according to the more plausible coherentist-theories, the wholistic coherentism), something that arises from a system of propositions instead of individual propositions, much like temperature in physics. Simply: a proposition by its own has no truth-value, only in relation to other propositions. This of course, even though it allows a neat way of seeing whether our propositions are true or not, seems to lead to a detachment from reality (unlike pragmatism). It also seems to have no criterion as to which one of the coherent systems of propositions is to be assumed. Some theorists combine pragmatism and coherentism to form a rather powerful combination, where the relativity and untrustworthyness of pragmatism is kept at bay by the demands of coherence, and pragmatism then gives means to choose between the coherent systems, and a way to enter them. Deflationism more or less ducks the problem. It gives formal conditions for a statement to be be true. It is sometimes referred to as a sort of reformulated correspondence theory, because it turns truth into a correspondence between (at least in Tarskian formulation) a proposition of an object-language "p" and the proposition of a meta-language p. Often expressed like this: "Snow is white" is true iff snow is white. The idea is made explicit, when I write: "Lumi on valkoista" is true iff snow is white - where "Lumi on valkoista" is the Finnish expression for "Snow is white". 2. Redundancy of truth? Abandoning correspondence theory, no matter how compelling it would seem, leaves us in a difficult position considering truth. For correspondence theory truth is something that is, something we can find, and therefore something we can have a correct or false theory about. The epistemological theories give far less value to truth, and even make it completely omittable. Let's go through them one by one again. Pragmatism takes truth to be functionality, or usefulness. So, what is the position of truth? Basically: "p works" --> "p is true". We could say that truth is the property of every useful proposition, in that if it is useful, then it is true. The implication leaves us asking: why speak of truth at all? Can't we just say "p works" instead of "p is true"? I guess we can. Coherence theory falls into the same pit. "p coheres with a set of propositions A" --> "p is true". Why can't we speak of p's coherency in system A instead of its truth in system A? Moreover, coherence theory seems to lead to the fact that justified beliefs are knowledge. This then leads to the idea that truth is simply the property of a statement that is known. Truth has no criterium-value, but is merely the entailment for a proposition that is known. Can't we just say "p is known" instead of "p is true"? Again, seems so. Deflationism is a rather different case. I will not concern myself with it here, because it doesn't really give a criterion for truth as much as express the necessary condition a truth theory must fulfil. In any case, it seems to leave the whole matter of truth open, simply reducing it to a relation between languages. Or a proposition and its meaning. I must confess that I am not that knowledgeable in deflationism to go into details anyway, so I will leave this as it is. (Someone who wants to give a short introduction to deflationism may do so.) We are left with theories of truth that force us to ask what is the point in such a truth at all. Is truth considered in a wholly faulty way? What if we got it wrong in the first place - what if truth is not to be considered as a property a proposition has, but as something else? This gives us the motivation we are often left lacking when someone throws Heidegger in our faces. So now we have it. Enter Heidegger. 3. Heidegger and the correspondence theory of truth. In the book "The Essence of Truth" Heidegger starts with a simple proposition: What makes each of these propositions true? Just this: that what* they say corresponds with the facts about which they say something. [...] Truth is correspondence.* (p. 2.) But this is just an indirect proof, a modus tollendo tollens. We assume the stance of correspondence and follow it through to its end: to its regressio ad absurdum. How Heidegger does this? After short considerations, he states: And what is the true? The true is what is known. It is just what corresponds with the facts. The proposition corresponds with what is known in knowledge; thus with what is true. The true? So does the correspondence of the proposition amount to correspondence with something corresponding? A fine definition! Truth is correspondence with a correspondence, the latter itself corresponds with a correspondence, and so forth. [...] What presents itself as self-evident is utterly obscure. (pp. 2-3.) What is Heidegger saying here? Well, if we take the definition of correspondence theory, then truth is the property of a proposition which corresponds to an actual state of affairs. Truths are found. There are states of affairs in the world, and we find them. So is correspondence theory true? If we take the stance of a realist who advocates correspondence theory (can't really be other than a realist), then the correspondence theory is something that is found. There are propositions (produced by subjects) and those either succeed or fail in referring to the outside (objective) world. From this, let us consider the two options available: 1. Correspondence theorist claims that his theory is true. Then according to this definition the correspondence theory corresponds with something, and this something must be the correspondence between a proposition and the states of affairs. This again is a correspondence that is true, and so it corresponds to something and we fall into an infinite regress that renders the whole notion of correspondence theory totally unintelligible. 2. Correspondence theorist does not claim that his theory is true. Basically: he says that the criterium of truth cannot be applied to the criterium itself. Okay then, but why should we be interested in correspondence theory, if it can be true as easily as " 'p' is true iff apples are green"? The strenght of correspondence theory as something that links us to reality is lost, because it itself detaches itself from reality. Moreover, in this case the advocate of correspondence theorist must account for why there is no such correspondence in reality (if it is not true, then there can be no such correspondence) - and therefore, I think, makes it totally unintelligible even what is meant by such a relationship between propositions and states of affairs that doesn't even exist! Both ways, correspondence theory leads into unintelligibility. Heidegger's regression-argument is powerful. But after destruction must follow construction. 4. Heidegger and the essence of truth. Heidegger takes the battle elsewhere. He first makes the observation that in correspondence theory truth is a property of a proposition. This, he thinks, is either an error, or simply does not define truth as a whole. Heidegger asks: "what is the essence of truth?" This is most probably something that makes the hair rise for an analytic philosopher. Let us not forget that such analyticians as Kripke have been raising the issue of essence back into philosophy. Just because essence sounds mystical we should not be deterred. By essence Heidegger means the "what-being" of something. He starts with simple cases: what is a table? We can point out objects in our life and say: "that is a table" and "that there is a table too" and "that there is not a table, it is a chair". Heidegger says, correctly I think, that in order for us to say "that is a table", we must already know what a table is. When defining "table", we already know what a table is - otherwise we couldn't define it. This "whatness" of the table he calls the essence of the table. The essence here doesn't have even as much mysticism as Kripke's essences, which, after all, are something that stay the same across possible worlds etc. For Heidegger, at least at the moment, essence is simply that which allows us to recognize different things. The essence of truth? Well, first Heidegger considers the fact that we all know a host of truths: Earth is round, 2 + 5 = 7, the First World War begun in early August 1914, Kant is the author of Kritik der Reinen Vernunft and in the honour of Gassendi, Quito is the capital of Ecuador. We also know that 3 + 5 = 6 is false, and that Moon is not larger than the Earth. The former are truths, the latter are falsities. So when we set out to define truth, do we not already know what truth is? Just like we know what a table is? Even though we cannot define it properly? Do we not know the essence of truth? But why is it so hard to define truth, if the essence of truth is readily available to us? Heidegger, if you please. We must first of all ask how it comes about that we quite naturally move and feel comfortable within such self-evidencies. How is it that the apparently self-evident turns out, upon closer examination, to be understood least? Answer: because it is too close to us and because we proceed in this way with everything close. [...] We know that truth belongs in a certain way to our daily affairs, and we know quite naturally what this means. It lies so close to us that we have no distance from it, and therefore no possibility of having an overall view of it and comprehending it. (p. 5.) Everyone who has worked with a lot of problems (like mathematicians) knows that sometimes we are simply too fixated with something to see clearly. We must detach ourselves from the problem, take distance, and only then we can again see the big picture. Often a solution presents itself quite naturally with a little distance. Painting a picture is difficult without sometimes taking a distance to the picture, to see it wholly. The land formations are easier to see when one is sufficiently distanced from them. Even the roundness of Earth is (notoriously so) difficult to see without proper distance. This works for theoretical things too: one of the biggest problems we have in our contemporary philosophy (and have always had) is what is consciousness. But what, indeed, would be closest to us than our consciousness? We simply cannot detach ourselves from it well enough to understand it. And this, my patient reader, is the point of Heidegger here: truth is too close to us, too everyday, to fundamental. He is not saying that truth is something that cannot be grasped, but that we must understand why indeed whatever route we seem to take, we always end up in either answering to a different question, or in the unintelligibility of the answer. How to take the distance from truth? 5. Truth and the Cave-Allegory. Heidegger has a solution: this has already been done by Plato. Heidegger then uses about 100 pages to embark upon one of the most detailed analysis of the Cave-Allegory ever produced. Of course, he does this in such a detail for a proper reason, and a referate of it here would only serve to undermine the point in that analysis. I can say, however, that truth is always present in a way or another. There is always something unhidden for us, but there is pretty much always also something hidden for us. I will give a brief explanation of the concepts hiddenness and unhiddenness. 6. Truth as unhiddenness. For Heidegger that which is presented before us is unhidden. That which is not seen or understood by us is hidden. Consider the first step of the Cave-Allegory, where the people are shackled in the cave facing the wall and the shadows. What is unhidden to them are the shadows (note that they wouldn't understand that they are shadows, of course), and what is, at least, hidden to them is the fire that produces the shadows. That hidden can be found. Truth, the unhiddenness of beings, is then something that is grasped through a process of finding things formerly hidden from us. It is very important to understand that "unhiddenness" implies that something must first be hidden, and then uncovered. That is, Heidegger is a realist! This is, of course, rather vague. Let me try and explain what this might mean - even though I do not consider myself to be in a position to say that how this really is. For Heidegger truth is not something that is attached to properties. Or, it is, if we take it to be so, but this truth demands something more fundamental to back it up - it is a special case of truth, so to speak. Truth is something that is present to us at all times. The propositions refer to this unhiddenness, and to that we compare the statements in the correspondence theory. A statement that we do not yet know to be either true or false is a statement that lacks the corresponding unhiddenness. "What causes the activity in the wall of the cave" is a question to which we can give answers, but we can know which of these is true only by turning away from the wall, to the fire. Truth is a property more fitting for experience than for knowledge. Perhaps this is a way to go? Perhaps what we learn from other truth theories is that truth has no place within knowledge. That truth is something else. Truth is something in the way we experience things - and experiencing is surely a prerequisite for knowing (about the world, excluding analyticity). Perhaps truth is actually something in the belief-requirement of knowledge - in the exact opposite of where the analytic tradition would have it? Perhaps truth is in the vividness of our experiences. Perhaps it is that which causes us to be interested in knowledge in the first place. 7. Ending remarks. Defending Heidegger is too laboursome a task to do here. If someone offers 100 pages of allegorial analysis to back up what he means, it cannot be reduced to few pages of text in an internet forum. I am simply trying to show from what context does Heidegger's idea rise, and show that his ideas are very actual, and should not be ignored. He offers a genuinely different solution to the problem of truth, something that is very near to what analytical philosophy has found. Only that analytic philosophy has not really even started to examine truth in any other way - the closest theories are the redundancy theories, which omit truth as a property of propositions altogether. I will, in the end, quote myself from an IM-exchange between Valens that occurred some minutes ago: If it turns out that the red ball you found doesn't fit the square hole, do not throw away the ball, but seek a round hole instead. What the...? Well: if truth as a property of propositions simply doesn't fit, don't throw away truth: find another use for it. ~M~ Source: Heidegger, Martin - The Essence of Truth, Translated by Ted Sandler, Continuum: New York, 2002. Original work Vom Wesen der Wahrheit, 1988. I recommend the book with all my heart for those interested. It is very approachable and understandable. Plato's Cave Allegory can be found in The Republic, book VII. An online source: http://morrandir.philosophyforums....books/Republic/book07.html Edited by Morrandir on 05/31/05 - 04:18 AM. Reason: Fixes and additions
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

Tobias
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Posted 05/31/05 - 06:27 AM:	#2
Very well done Morrandir, cheers I raise my glass. Explaining Heidegger without starting to speak Heideggerian is not been done often on the forum and you give a very clear coverage of one of the hardest concepts in Heidegger. I have no time to go into deatails or start arguing, just wanted to stick some feathers up your ass....:P And yes, that Heidegger is in fact a realist is an issue that cdannot be said often enough. regards Tobi
"The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you"

Morrandir
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Posted 05/31/05 - 12:18 PM:	#3
Tobias wrote: Very well done Morrandir, cheers I raise my glass. Thank you Tobi . Explaining Heidegger without starting to speak Heideggerian is not been done often on the forum I think it is too rarely done elsewhere too. I have been often even outraged by the way Heideggerian philosophers simply cannot speak plain language. It makes it hard for someone from the outside to get in. In fact, I was so annoyed by it that I decided to get into Heidegger in order to show that it can be done - I am not sure I am doing it as well as I should, but that is mostly because of my ineptitude in Heideggerian philosophy. Whatever of him I grasp, I can explain in ordinary language. I am very glad to hear that I am succeeding in my task. I have no time to go into deatails or start arguing, just wanted to stick some feathers up your ass....:P Hah, make time! I posted on Heidegger in order to see all the forum descend upon me in their anti-Heideggerian wrath, but look what happened. Bah. They are happy enough to slander Heidegger behind the curtains and in small sentences, but please, do come here people and explain what is so horrible in Heidegger. And yes, that Heidegger is in fact a realist is an issue that cdannot be said often enough. I believe it is a common misconception that basically all continental philosophers are some sort of idealists. ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

Klaatu
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Posted 05/31/05 - 01:14 PM:	#4
I must chime in with Tobias here, and I would respond but I have a nasty test on differential equations coming up in a few hours... Heidegger pointed out with respect to the correspondence theory, that for instance, a concept of an apple is not actually round, good tasting, crunchy, etc. Therefore what must correspond? That remark I found to be particularly interesting.

Morrandir
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Posted 05/31/05 - 01:22 PM:	#5
Klaatu wrote: I have a nasty test on differential equations coming up in a few hours... How can a test about differential equations be nasty? Good luck with the examination! Heidegger pointed out with respect to the correspondence theory, that for instance, a concept of an apple is not actually round, good tasting, crunchy, etc. Therefore what must correspond? That remark I found to be particularly interesting. Yes, it is something that the correspondece-theorists have tried to solve: what does the correspondence mean at all. How does a proposition correspond to the reality, and what the heck does this mean? It actually reminds me of good old Berkeley, who criticised his contemporaries of assuming that an idea can somehow resemble a physical, material object. I think the challenge thrown by Berkeley still stands untouched. ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

darkcrow
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Posted 06/01/05 - 07:08 AM:	#6
Granted, Herr Heidegger’s Philosophy may have held to the correspondence Theory of truth; although, it may be that it did not; I myself wonder and I have read the text in question. I too did not find the reading difficult; anymore difficult than Ludwig Wittgenstein’s, “On Certainty”… However I must point out the Heidegger text had neither the flow nor rhythm of Wittgenstein. My overall feeling on reading Herr Heidegger’s, “The Essence of Truth” was that his view of truth was more akin to what E. A. Poe said, “Truth is the satisfaction of the intellect.” Whatever the case, Herr Heidegger is a hot topic in some current circles. I’m nor sure if the Postmodern want him or the Realist; but, he has been referred to as the, “First Postmodern.” In any case good post and overview, well done Morrie. That the Correspondence Theory fails is so obvious I can’t understand why is has persisted since the printing press; what truth is not based on another? Another question might be, “is the Theory useful.” To that I would answer yes, yes in the same sense that the mind-body concept is useful; useful in organizing our thoughts so that we might move forward, progress to new knowledge, but, it should be always kept in the back of the mind that neither is real.
"To the success of our hopeless task."

Morrandir
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Posted 06/01/05 - 07:59 AM:	#7
darkcrow wrote: Granted, Herr Heidegger's Philosophy may have held to the correspondence Theory of truth; although, it may be that it did not; I myself wonder and I have read the text in question. I too did not find the reading difficult; anymore difficult than Ludwig Wittgenstein's, "On Certainty"… However I must point out the Heidegger text had neither the flow nor rhythm of Wittgenstein. It is fun to see how much Heidegger and Wittgenstein actually have in common. This waking up to see the similarities has been late in coming, but it has gained wind beneath the wings. It is actually often very difficult to see where these two juggernauts of 20th century philosophy actually differ. I think that Heidegger might consider it irrelevant whether correspondence theory is acceptable or not. This is probably why he doesn't make it explicit whether he thinks it should be drop-kicked or not. It is evident, however, that he thinks correspondence is in any case secondary to unhiddenness. Much like someone who finds a truth might leave it up to logicians to determine how this truth should be formalised. In any case good post and overview, well done Morrie. Thanks That the Correspondence Theory fails is so obvious I can't understand why is has persisted since the printing press; what truth is not based on another? Well, neither do I. But during my stay in the PF in particular, I have learned to accept both that it hasn't lost its advocates, and that fighting those advocates is like bashing one's head on a brick wall, except that it hurts more. Another question might be, "is the Theory useful." To that I would answer yes, yes in the same sense that the mind-body concept is useful; useful in organizing our thoughts so that we might move forward, progress to new knowledge, but, it should be always kept in the back of the mind that neither is real. Agreed. ~M~
Philosophy is disciplined bewilderment. A mathematician is a person who thinks that if there are supposed to be three people in a room, but five come out, then two more must enter the room in order for it to be empty. http://www.beyondappearances.com

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