Re: Objective truth

[HANLY@xxxxxxxxxxx]

Sorry, I overlooked this earlier.
Paul writes:

Ken,

I cannot say I know what you are talking about.  But one item struck me:

> ...There are oodles of non-trivial true statements.
> "I am now composing a message re "truth"", "Some people can see. Some are
> blind." "Ottawa is the capital of Canada."

Ottawa is the capital of Canada?  On what BASIS do you make that
assertion?  I say it is Washington, D.C.   Now what?

	In the logical positivist tradition "non-trivial" means "non-analytic"
that is statements that are not true or false because of the meanings
of the symbols involved i.e. "A rose is a rose", "It is raining or not
raining" "Bachelors are males" would be true but TRIVIALLY TRUE. Non-trivial
truths give information about the world. The three statements I list are such.
Another way of putting it is that trivial truths are compatible with any
states of affairs whereas non-trivial truths are not. e.g. It is raining or it
is not raining is compatible with any state of weather but it is raining
excludes weather states in which it is not raining and hence give information
about the world, as do all the statements I mention.
	The basis on which one makes a statement is one thing, its truth is
another. I may say that Ottawa is the capital of Canada because I have just
looked it up in a recent atlas.  This would refute your claim that Washington
D.C. is (normally). However, this is irrelevant to my point. Ottawa is the
capital of Canada and hence "Ottawa is the capital of Canada" is true.
If I were to claim to KNOW that Ottawa is the capital of Canada it would be
relevant that I could verify my statement by reference to a recognized
reference atlas. (I am not claiming that one can do this for every case since
there are some cases where maps themselves will not be universally accepted
i.e. as Tibet being part of China etc.)
	Hope this clarifies matters. My main aim is to question the whole idea
of relative truth and to defend a common sense notion of objective truth.
While Tarski's formula" "p" is true if and only if p" is certainly not the whole
story about "truth" it seems to me to capture part of what Aristotle
meant when he said that it is true to say of what is that it is and what is not
that it is not. Any theory that tries to wriggle out of this basic insight
by confusing truth with coherence or make it relative to grounds or evidence
 or adopt some hi-falutin post-modern concept of truth are way off base to my
mind. It is noteworthy that post-modernists don't seem to have the slightest
clue about the analytical philosophical literature on the concept of truth.
(to be fair the analysts have not found the pomo literature worth commenting
on for the most part)
	Cheers, Ken Hanly