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| What is truth?................................... |
tonyrey |
01/13/06 |
Attempts have been made to explain truth as nothing more than linguistic convention. According to this theory, if language did not exist neither would truth! Yet truth is widely regarded as correspondence between belief and reality, e.g. our belief is true if we believe the world is round and the world is in fact round. Correspondence is a relation and not a human construct. So the truth is not invented but discovered.
Bertrand Russell tried to evade the reality of "universals", i.e. abstract ideas like truth and beauty. He gave up the attempt when he realised that it is impossible to deny that similarity exists whether we recognise it or not. Even if no human beings existed the facts would remain the same... (except the fact that there are human beings!) |
Clarification/Follow-up by tonyrey on 01/13/06 3:15 pm:
Ken, I don't see how I've confused truth with "true". You agree that truths are not "linguistic conventions" and that truths are independent of language. Anything which is true, whether it be a belief or statement, faithfully reflects reality. But although such truths are not to be identified with the reality to which they refer they are not fictions but facts and therefore part of a more comprehensive reality.
At all events I'm delighted we both believe that facts exist independently!
Clarification/Follow-up by Choux on 01/13/06 4:28 pm:
tonyrey: I thought there was little common ground between us. Glad there is. :)
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