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True statements

Schlitz
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Posted 04/15/09 - 10:20 AM:	#51
NothingtoSay wrote: Do you disagree with the idea that what's taken as truth would depend on power's interests though? I disagree with the idea that the phrase "what's taken as truth" means the same as "what is the truth." What the interest of those in power is has nothing to do with a discussion about which theory of truth is right.

NothingtoSay
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Posted 04/15/09 - 10:27 AM:	#52
Schlitz wrote: I disagree with the idea that the phrase "what's taken as truth" means the same as "what is the truth." What the interest of those in power is has nothing to do with a discussion about which theory of truth is right. I agree, I don't think it does either. So those in power cannot affect truth--whatever truth is, it's unaffected by those in power, regardless of how hard they try to affect it. Do you agree?

Schlitz
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Posted 04/15/09 - 10:42 AM:	#53
NothingtoSay wrote: I agree, I don't think it does either. So those in power cannot affect truth--whatever truth is, it's unaffected by those in power, regardless of how hard they try to affect it. Do you agree? I have power over my kitchen, so I get to decide what happens there. I get to decide which assertions about my kitchen are true and which ones are false, because the state of my kitchen is up to me. But I don't get to decide whether truth is a correspondence between reality and language, or otherwise.

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Posted 04/15/09 - 10:55 AM:	#54
Schlitz wrote: -I get to decide which assertions about my kitchen are true and which ones are false, because the state of my kitchen is up to me. --But I don't get to decide whether truth is a correspondence between reality and language, or otherwise. -I don't understand this. You can falsify/break a true assertion about you kitchen because you control it? Something can be true about your kitchen one minute and then wrong the other? How? --Why not?

Schlitz
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Posted 04/15/09 - 11:23 AM:	#55
There's really not much to me saying that I get to decide which descriptions of my kitchen are true and which ones are false. It's really trivial. Here's an example of how one thing can be true of my kitchen one minute and false the next: the description of my kitchen, "There are 4 bananas in the basket" was true until I ate one. Now there aren't 4 bananas in the basket anymore, so that description fails to be true of my kitchen, but it was once and will likely be again. I'm the guy who puts bananas in the basket, so the truth of any description of how many bananas are in the basket is up to me. And I suppose I could, if I wanted, suggest that people adopt some concept of truth, but I'd likely get it wrong. The truth of a theory of truth isn't decided by fiat.

NothingtoSay
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Posted 04/15/09 - 11:36 AM:	#56
Schlitz wrote: There's really not much to me saying that I get to decide which descriptions of my kitchen are true and which ones are false. It's really trivial. Here's an example of how one thing can be true of my kitchen one minute and false the next: the description of my kitchen, "There are 4 bananas in the basket" was true until I ate one. Now there aren't 4 bananas in the basket anymore, so that description fails to be true of my kitchen, but it was once and will likely be again. I'm the guy who puts bananas in the basket, so the truth of any description of how many bananas are in the basket is up to me. And I suppose I could, if I wanted, suggest that people adopt some concept of truth, but I'd likely get it wrong. The truth of a theory of truth isn't decided by fiat. Do you disagree with J. Random Hacker's thoughts on truth then, that we cannot falsify the truth, that the truth is true regardless because it was true then and its not being true anymore does not falsify/break it? So what is the truth of a theory of truth decided by?

yffer
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Posted 04/15/09 - 11:38 AM:	#57
Schlitz wrote: I have power over my kitchen, so I get to decide what happens there. I get to decide which assertions about my kitchen are true and which ones are false, because the state of my kitchen is up to me. There's really not much to me saying that I get to decide which descriptions of my kitchen are true and which ones are false. You can make all the assertions you want, but if your assertions consistently contradict consensus you'll probably end up in a psychiatric ward of your local hospital, or worse.

Schlitz
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Posted 04/15/09 - 11:56 AM:	#58
This discussion is really getting off track. Back to truth- Assume that a sentence's being true just is the same thing as its being in accord with consensus. So, on this view either 1)a sentence's truth has nothing to do with reality, or 2)reality is created by consensus. 2) is demonstrably false, although the illustrious journal _Social Text_ famously embarrassed itself endorsing such a position. 1) is a radical (and radically wrong) revision of people's understanding of truth that comes to bear in everyday conversation, scientific investigation, and in math. It seems like this position is self-defeating, since if it is true, how can it be said to be true? I don't think anyone has ever seriously adopted this position.

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Posted 04/15/09 - 12:05 PM:	#59
Why off track? J and I were discussing whether truth can be broken, how are you and I getting off track by coming back to what J and I were discussing before in this thread?

J. Random Hacker
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Posted 04/15/09 - 12:20 PM:	#60
Schlitz doesn't really know what we were talking about because he missed that part of the discussion so let me explain what NothingtoSay is referring to. Take these two propositions: "My kitchen is painted yellow now." "My kitchen is painted yellow on April 15th at 9:16 PM GMT." You can change the truth of the first proposition only if you treat "now" as a relative time marker, as a moving target. However, if you treat "now" as shorthand for the current time i.e. "April 15th at 9:16 PM GMT", then saying something is true "now" at time t is not the same as saying something is true "now" at time t+1. The truth of the second proposition cannot change once it's true. The truth of the first proposition can change only if "now" is treated as a relative time marker.

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