Re: BHA: truth

[Doug Porpora <porporad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ruth (and everyone),

I'm very glad you're raising questions about truth because for some time
now I have been struggling with truth myself.  So let me try to engage your
questions.

1.  Generally, I think you can hold that there are no ideas without
thinkers.  I agree that the contrary borders on the unintelligible.  (One
exception to this non-intelligibility, which I might concede, is the Idea
in Hegel's system.  That might be at least intelligible, but is in any
event a special context.)

2.  On the correspondence theory, truth is a relationship between beliefs
or propositions and the world.  Beliefs and propositions are constructs of
intelligent beings.  So without the intelligent beings to formulate them,
there would be no beliefs or propositions to relate to the world.  So no
truth.

3.  That does not mean that what our beliefs or propositions attribute to
the world might not truly apply to the world independent of our existence.
In other words, the relationship between a circle's diameter and
circumference identified by our concept pi would exist independent of that
concept.  Put still another way:  The relationship truly exists whether
there are thinkers or not but without thinkers there would be no assertion
about the relationship to describe as true or false.

4.  Re-reading your post, I seem to have just repeated what you suggested.
So let me add:  Of course on one level, truth is an idea too so without
thinkers, no ideas, no truth qua idea.  But the realities identified by
true beliefs and propositions can exist without thinkers.

5.  I don't think Habermas is just talking about honesty.  I think he is
making the important point that for an assertion, for example, to be
intelligible, we must understand the asserter to be implicitly presuming
the truth of the assertion.  So to bring this somewhat back to Tarski, the
relativist assertion that truth is relative can only be intelligibly
understood as entailing the corresponding assertion that it is true that
truth is relative.

Well, I'm just trying to think through this with you myself.

Aside to Carrol. Do I (truly) recall that line from _Persuasion_?  (I
realize that that is a complex question you are not in a position to fully
answer -- unless the line does not come from _Persuasion_, in which case,
you can easily show that I am not recalling truly -- although I may still
be truly recalling.)

doug

doug porpora
dept of psych and sociology
drexel university
phila pa 19104
USA

porporad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx




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