Truth
Notes
It seems irrelevant to ask ourselves what truth is, but this concept is far from being solved. We can assume that truth is related to our reality, to facts, such as the current temperature of the room, or the amount of spoons in a drawer. While these are the most "easy to solve" cases, what about:
- Statistical facts - In most cases we don't have direct access to all the data we need to find out what the truth is. For example, to say that the "human body is 70% water", does it count as truth? not only that it is based on a sample, rather than the entire population of the world Population and sample estimates (never mind it's constantly changes), but also we have Bias and Variance, meaning that my body can be 60% water, and yours is 75%. All the facts that we "know" from scientific experiments are just that, experiments done in a specific setting with a limited sample. And as the scientific method likes to point out, it might be found out as false in the future. So are those facts "true"? perhaps not
- Abstract concepts - what is the truth value of "justice"? What is considered a work of art? Do these claims even have a truth value? Some claim that they do, that truth can be connected even to abstract concepts that have no "physical proofs" in reality. Idealism
- Matters of perspective - if I say "it's cold here", while my friend says "it's hot here", who is right contextualism? is it only a matter of the room's temperature? is none of us right, or both of us? It feels wrong to say that only one person is right, but it also feels strange to say that both of us are right, that truth can be both one thing and it's opposite, or relies on our Subjective Reality, it can make truth sound less like a matter of fact and more like a matter of opinion.
- Actual or practical? - Does truth have to be related to a tangible, physical concrete fact, or does a Social Construct also considered as "true"? For example, money has no value other than our belief that it does. On the one hand, it sounds weird to say that the value of money is a true fact, yet we use it every day and it is an inseparable part of how we think and act Pragmatism
While Deliberation is a useful strategy overall to "find" the truth, we might fall pray into Group Thinking. Therefore we might be forced to ;Debate on what the truth should be, making sure we are not blocking out voices that oppose us but rather listen to them carefully, giving them an attempt to persuade us and vice versa. Freedom of speech
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🔼Topic:: Epistemology (MOC) ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::