ax fords Blactewel lL, oseplacnlys Chapter 10 Non-epistemic uses of “true” The kindof thing that i true or false The nature of truth What makes an assertion true or false Competing conceptions of truth Why truth is important Three laws of thought ‘The Law of identity The Law of Non-Contradition The Law of Excluded Midcle © Sixsources of truth Snsation, introspection, reason intuition, dreams, revelation They are not infalile ‘Now we begin doing philosophy rather than looking at it from the outside. Earlier ‘we saw that epistemology, one of the basic areas of philosophy, investigates the nature of knowledge, sources of knowledge, methods for achieving knowledge, and methods for evaluating knowledge claims. We also saw that in philosophy one ‘thing leads to another. Because knowledge is a form of belief, we must ask what belief is if we are going to understand what knowledge is; because belief consists Of thinking that something is true, we must understand what truth is in order to understand adequately what belief is; because the goal of belief is knowledge of the truth, we must ask when icis that we are justified in thinking that we have the truth, Let’s begin our exploration of these epistemic concepts by asking, “What is truth?” Philosophers often ask awkward questions — at least they seem awkward in ‘comparison to the questions that we usually ask ~ but they are important ques- tions, and they usually cannot be formulated in less awkward ways. For example, we often ask “What time is it?”, but we rarely ask, “What is time?” We often ask “Is that statement truc?”, but we rarely ask “What is truth?” Socrates thought these “What is X?” questions co be terribly important because if we do not know94 Epistemology ‘what X is, how can we tell whether something isan example of X? If we do not iknow what a polygon is, how can we ell whether something we see isa polygon? If we do not know what truth i, how can we tell whether a statement is true or not? Non-epistemic uses of “true” Before trying to answer the question, “What is truth?”, le’s ask an even more awkward question: “What kind of a thing is it that is true or false?” ‘There are ‘many different kinds of things that are true or false; that fact is one cause of our confusion over the nature of truth. “True” can be an adjective, For example, “His teeth were false, but his love was true.” Also, we distinguish true gold from fool's gold (iron pyrites, which resemble gold in sparkle and weight). “True” functions also as an adverb: the arrow flew straight and true; cattle from the same pure stock will breed true, “True” even serves as a verb: the carpenter trued the door frame (made each of its angles 90 degrees); the mechanic will true your Dieycle wheel (adjust the tightness of the spokes so that the wheel doesn’t wobble when ie spins). The kind of thing that is true or false It is the adjectival function rather than the adverbial or verb function of “true” and “false” that we are most interested in in philosophy, and the kind of thing the truth or falsity of which epistemologists are most interested in is the ager tion. An assertion isa statement or claim that something is the case. Often the word “proposition” is used by philosophers to refer to what is being asserted or stated or claimed. For example, in writing the words, “Its raining,” I mean to assert the proposition that itis raining. I assert the same proposition in French and German, respectively, by writing, “Il pleut” and “Es regnet.” Hence, a proposition is the meaning of an assertion, claim, or statement. Obviously, the same proposition can be asserted in different languages (and even in different words in the same language; for example, “Precipitation is occurring”). In ordi- nary language, however, these four terms — assertion, claim, statement, and proposition ~ are roughly synonymous with one another, so we will say that the kkind of thing that is true or false is an assertion or claim or statement or proposition. (A more advanced treatment would disclose subtle differences be- tween these concepts)Whatis Truth? 9 The nature of truth [Now that we have an idea of the kind of thing that is true or false, let's ask, “What is truth?” Given that an assertion is the kind of thing that is true or false, it turns out that truth is the property of an assertion which says that things are certain way when in fact they are that way. If, for example, I assert that Socrates died before Aristotle was born, then if that’s the way things were, namely, if in fact Socrates died before Aristotle was born, then my assertion has the property of truth. If Socrates did not die before Aristotle was born, then my assertion has the property of falsity. Hence, falsity is the property of an assertion which says that things are a certain way when in fact they are not that way What makes an assertion true or false Now let's ask: What makes an assertion to be true or false? What conveys upon an assertion the property of truth or falsity? According to the correspondence theory of truth, the answer can be captured in one word: REALITY! What makes an assertion to be true or false is the way reality is, or “the way things are” (or the way things were or will be, depending on the tense of the verb), An assertion is always about the way realty is in some respect ~ using “reality” to include not ‘only the physical universe but all else chat there might be, such as angels and numbers. Therefore, if reality is the way an assertion states that itis, then reality makes that assertion true. If reality is not the way an assertion says itis, chen reality makes that assertion false. Aristotle made this point in Book IV of his ‘Metaphysics when he said that a statement is true when it says of what is that itis and of what is not that itis not, and is false when it says of what is that itis not and of what is not that itis. Bertrand Russell, one of the great twentieth-century philosophers, said that “beliefs (a) depend on minds for their existence, (b) do not ‘depend on minds for their ¢ruth”; “a belief is true when there is a corresponding fact, and is false when there is no corresponding fact.”" Some people react negatively to this depiction of truth as hard fact. They object, “But how do you Enow what reality is like?” That is an important ques- tion, We will focus on it soon, For now, however, notice that whether we know for certain what realty is like is usually irelecant to whether an assertion is true fr false, What makes an assertion true is not whether we think itis true. For ‘example, the truth of the proposition, “Pi is an irrational number,” does not depend on what I think; it doesn’t even depend on whether I've ever heard of pi. (Exceptions occur, of course, in those instances in which our assertions are claims95 Epistemology that we believe something. IF I say, “I believe I am funny,” my claim is nor a claim about what other people think about me; itis a claim about what 1 think about myself. Therefore, whether my claim is true or false is determined not by ‘whether I really am funny; itis determined by whether I really think Iam funny for whether I have misspoken or am lying.) In some instances, then, it isthe reality of what we think or do not think chat ‘makes our claims true or false. Most often, though, our claims are about things fother than ourselves and our states of mind. For example, some people think there is intelligent life on other planets; other people think there is no intelligent life on other planets. Because these two groups contradict one another, one group has to be right; the other group has to be wrong. We do not know now which group is right, but one group is, and itis the way reality is thet makes that group right — even though we do not know now which group is correct "| ‘Think also about this. The pursuit of truth, such as science is engaged in, ‘would nor make sense if it were not true that reality is one way rather than another before we find out how it is. A scientific hypothesis is a scientist's best ‘guess as to how reality isin some specific respect. Scientific research consists of taking steps to discover whether an hypothesis is true or false — but the hypoth sis is either true or false Before scientists find out which ic is. Before the research begins, reality either is or is not like the hypothesis asserts that itis. If that were not the case, scientists could not discover how things are, as things would not be a certain way, and so there would be nothing to discover. But sciemtsts do discover various facts about reality, so reality must be that way before they discover it, Competing conceptions of truth i ‘The preceding conception of truth is called a “correspondence” conception of truth because it says that a belief is true when it corresponds to the way reality is. Some thinkers reject the correspondence theory of truth because, they say, it is unverifiable, We cannot, they say, check whether a belief is true by ooking to see whether reality really is the we could do that would be to assume that reality is the way we experience it to be, but how could we ever know that reality apart from us is the way we think it is? To be sure, we can check one experience against another experience (as, when we move closer to something to see if it still looks the way it looks when wwe are farther away, or as when we feel something to see if it feels the way it looks). We cannot, however, get outside of experience to see whether reality ‘really is the way our experience leads us to think it is. Hence, to say that a trueWhatis Truth? 97 belie is one that corresponds to the way reality really is is a useless conception of truth, ‘The progmatic theory of truth seizes on the fact that our beliefs guide our actions and our actions have consequences. Pragmatiss, such as the American philoso- phers William James and John Dewey, say that what it means for a belief to be true is that it works or that it guides us successfully when we act on it. A false belief is one that docs not turn out the way we expect it to when we act on it ‘That much, say pragmatists, we can know through experience, and that is all we ‘need fo mean or can yerify when we say that a proposition is true. Whether our beliefs correspond to realty as it “really” isis something we cannot know, and so it must not be what we mean when we say that a belief is true. Defenders of the correspondence conception of truth reply that the pragmatic conception of truth has fatal law: A false belief can work. Physicians, for example, use placebos because sometimes false beliefs work. A patient's false belief that a placebo is real medicine which will help him can cause him to get better. Hence, we need to make a distinction between a true belief and 2 belief that works, To be sure, the correspondence theorist agrees that a true belief will work, but it works because itis true; itis not true because it works. Tt is true because reality is the way it says it i, and that is what it means for a statement 10 be true ‘Other thinkers who are dissatisfied with both the correspondence theory of ‘ruth and the pragmatic cheory of truth argue that truth consists of a certain kind ‘of coherence of a belief with other beliefS. That is, what it means for a belief t0 be true (and what makes a belief true) is that it fits coherently with other beliefs that are solidly established, whereas a false belief is one that does not cohere with other beliefS that aze well-established. For example, the claim that [am ten thousand years old is false because it docs not cohere with the testimony of my parents, or with the date on my birth certificate, or with what we know of the life-span of humans, etc. By contrast, the claim that I was born on July 8, 1940, is true because it coheres with what my parents say, what their friends say, what the attending physician says, what the hospital records say, what my birth certifi cate says, ete, As was mentioned earlier, we cannot get outside our experience to see whether I was “really” born on 7/8/40, We can only check whether a belief ccoheres with other well-established beliefS; when it does, itis true. “The most serious problem with the coherence theory of truth, according to its critics, is that truth, as conceived by the coherence theorist, seems to have no connection to realty. Its only connection is to others’ beliefs, and itis conceivable that a large system of beliefs that cohere with one another could be an illusion. For example, although most of our beliefs about living in a world of people and animals, trees and flowers, etc., fit quite nicely with one another, it could be that98 Epistemology they don’t correspond to reality. Pethaps most of our beliefs are false because we are really nothing but humps of matter Hating in space and our experiences are being caused by gaseous beings who, for their own entertainment, are bombard- ing us with streams of photons, er some such thing “To be sure, says the correspondence theorist, a true belief will cohere with other true beliefs, and it will “work” when we act on it. Moreover, if a belief works when we act on it and if it coheres with other beliefs which we have good reason to think are true, then that is evidence in favor of the truth of that belief However, what makes a belief true, and what it means fora belief to be true is not that it works or coheres with other true beliefs. What makes it true is that reality is the way it says iti, In the final analysis, says the correspondence theorist, the notion that what it means fora belief to be true is tha it corresponds realty is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to get avay from. Why truth is important Having examined what truth is and what it is a property of, now let’s ask, “Is truth important?” Most people seem to think it is. Scientists, mathematicians, historians, and journalists, among others, are constantly working to get at the truth, In light of the preceding paragraphs, now we can understand why truth is considered to be so important. Truth in our belifs is important because it means that our beliefs are in line with realty; it means that reality is the way we think it is. That is important because our actions are guided by our beliefs. When we act ‘on true beliefs, we get the results we expect; when we act on false beliefs, we do not. Many a parent has given aspirin to his or her feverish teenage child because the parent believed it would help relieve the child’s fever and wouldn't hurt even if it didn’t help. We now know reality isn’t that way. There is such a thing 2s Reyes Syndrome, which is a serious affliction that can be triggered in teenagers by aspirin, Tragically, some teens have died and others have been seriously harmed because their parents’ beliefS about reality were not true ‘True beliefs enable us to take better advantage of the beneficial features of reality and do a better job of avoiding its harmful features. False beliefs put us on 1 blind collision course with reality, and in a head-on collision with realty, i is clear who is going to lose, Perhaps that is why Marilyn vos Savant, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under “Highest 1Q.” answered as she did in her ‘column, “Ask Marilyn”. When Larry Cates asked her, “What is the most power- ful concept, and what makes it powerful, her answer was: “Truth. The reason it’s s0 powerful is that, whether we like it or not, there isn’t a darned thing we can do about itWhatis Truth? 99 In addition to the practical importance of true beliefs, we noted earlier (in the section on courage in chapter 8) that self-respect is an important ingredient of a deeply satisfying life, and intellectual honesty is an important ingredient of self respect. We may not always be happy with what we discover the truth to be, or with what it seems probably to be according to the best evidence we can find, but we can always be happy with the integrity we show by seeking the truth with firm resolve and acknowledging what we find. Furthermore, once we know what the truth is, if we do not like what it is but it can be changed, we are in a better position to improve what it will be, Reinhold Niebuhr, a twentieth-century theo logian, incorporated some of these points into a popular prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, ‘The courage to change the things Tea And the wisdom to know the difference. Three laws of thought Now let's examine three laws or rules of thought that we must follow or else fal! into confusion regarding truth and falsity, First there is the Law of Identity. This law is deceptively simple. It states, “If an assertion is true, then itis true.” You might be thinking, “Well of course it is! Why even say so!” But trust me ~ this principle is violated much more than you might think. People contradict them= selves unintentionally more frequently than they realize. (‘Sometimes they contra dict themselves intentionally ~ usually in order to deceive someone.) art of the practical significance of the Law of Identity is that if someone says. shat something is true, then they should conéinue to say that it is true. For that reason the Law of Identity is at the heart of the process of cross-examination in 4 ial, In the crossexamination procedure in a trial, what is the prosecuting. lawyer trying to do? Sho is trying co see if she cam catch the defendant (or a witness) in a self-contradiction or in a contradiction of the testimony of some other witness. Such contradictions are important because they suggest that the defendant (or a witness) is lying or does not remember the events as well 2s she originally claimed. For the same reasons, contradictions between the testimonies of witnesses other than the defendant are also important. Here is where the second law, the Law of Non-Contradiction, comes in. It states: “An assertion cannot be both true and false.” This goes beyond the Law of density. The defendant who contradicts himself at a trial might try to defend himself by saying, “Yes, earlier I said I was nor at the scene of the crime, and 1 wasn't, but [also was.” The Law of Non-Contradiction says that such a thing is100 Epistemology impossible. The truth cannot contradict itself. If an assertion is true, then it is true and only true; it cannot also be false. After all, part of what it means to say ‘hat an assertion is true is that it is noe fare ~ just a5 to say that an assertion is false is to say that itis mot true. Hence, it cannot be the case that the defendant both was at the scene of the crime and was not Our defendant might now ty to wiggle out of his sel-contradiction by saying, “Actually, T was confused in what I ssid earlier. You see, it’s not true that I was at the scene of the crime, but it's also not false that I was at the scene of the crime. The truth is a third possiblity. After all, just because a car isn’t red doesn’t mean it has to be blue; there are other possibilities. Similarly, just because it's not true that T was not atthe seene of the crime does not mean that it has to be true chat T was at the scene of the crime.” Now, however, the defendant has violated our third and last law of thought, the Law of Excluded Middle, ‘This Law states: “An assertion must be true oF false.” The point of this law is that for an assertion here is no third alternative between being true or false. Yes, there are colors other than red and blue for cars, but there ate no epistemological properties other than true and false for proposi= tions. ‘The possibility of a middle ground between true and false is excluded by the fact that either reality is oF is not the way an assertion says itis. Hence, an assertion cannot be neither true nor false, It must be one or the other (Law of Excluded Middle); it cannot be both (Law of Non-Contradiction); and whichever iris, that is what it is, and not anything else (Law of Identity). ‘Assertions can, of course, be vague rather than clear, suggestive rather than cxplict, indirect rather than direct, subjective rather than objective, and complex rather than simple, making ic difficult and sometimes impossible to understend and evaluate with confidence what has been said. For example, “He is rat handsome” or “My love is like a summer’s day.” Moreover, if what is uttered or writen is meaningless, it is neither true nor false because it does not assert anything; it is not a genuine assertion; for example, “The glibble is petch.” (Philosophy of language gives extensive attention to linguistic meaning, vague~ ness, analogy, and metaphor.) Six sources of truth Now that we have a sense of what truth is and why itis important, let's ask how we can find it, What are the sources of truth that are available to us? There seem to be numerous sources of truth, including sensation, intuition, introspection, reason, dreams, and revelation, Let's consider cach of these sources, though not necessarily in their order of importance.Whatis Truth? 101 First, if friend says there is mill in the refigerator, but we think there is not, wwe can use sensation to find out the truth of the matter; we can look inside the “fridge — or if we are blind, we can (eel and smell or taste. ‘A second source of truth is introspection, In the midst of a very busy day someone might say, “L have a mild headache. What about you?” You won't find cout whether you have a headache by looking into a mirror or listening to your heart with a stethoscope or sniffing your foot: You will pause and do what we call “ntrospecting”; that is, you will attend to what you are experiencing inwardly ~ ‘and you may discover that you had been so busy that you had not noticed that, like your friend, you, t00, have a mild headache, Reason isa third source of truth, By means of reason we discover, for example, geomeirical truths, such as that the internal angles of a plane wiangle must add ‘up to exactly 180 degeees, and that the circumference of a circle must be more than three times as long as its diameter. We can, of course, empirically measure the angles of numerous triangles and see that in each case they equal 180 degrees. However, we cannot empirically measure the internal angles of every possible triangle; they are infinite in number, so itis only by means of reason that we ‘can understand that the internal angies of every plane triangle must equal 180 degrees. ‘A fourth source of truth is intuition. Sometimes the truth comes to a person ‘unexpectedly and apart from any conscious reasoning process. Nearly all of us seem to have true intuitions; a few people seem to have an unusual number of true intuitions. How intuition works isnot clea. Perhaps itis a reasoning process ‘that goes on unconsciously and then flashes an answer on the seren of conscious- ness; perhaps itis a result of extrasensory perception; perhaps it works different ‘ways at different times. However it is caused, the person who experiences it feels that his or her intuition is true Wilfred Benitez, an outstanding boxer, fought for years, became champion of the welterweight division, and was undefeated until he fought Sugar Ray Leonard, ‘who stopped him by a technical knockout in the 15th end last round of a close, exciting fight. After that agonizing loss, Benitez beat his next opponent impres- sively and called for a rematch with Leonard. Anticipating the rematch, Benitez said, “I know I'm going to knock him out. That's safe to say because that's the truth.” IF it was the uth, it was certainly safe to say. Unfortunately, the rematch never happened, but Beniter’s pronouncement illustrates well the confidence of intuition. Dreams are a fifth source of truth. T read about an unemployed California carpenter who dreame that he was going to “hit it big.” ‘The dream was so powerful that he woke up in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep. Early in the morning he packed and traveled to Reno, Nevada. He went 10102 Epistemology casino, couldn't play the dollar slot machine that he wanted to play (someone ‘else was playing it), so he started playing a quarter machine. After about only $30, he hit the jackpot for $67,261! Note: {read this in an Associated Press report, not in a supermarket tabloid! Besides, itis well known that one of the most important chemical discoveries of the «wentieth century, the shape of the benzene ring, ‘came to its discoverer in a dream, Finally, though my list is surely not exhaustive, revelation is'a sixth source of truth. I may have no way of finding out what you did on your sixth birthday, but if you remember, you can reveal it to me, And surely T have no way of knowing: ‘what you dreamed last night ~ unless you reveal it to me or someone else. Indeed, there are many truths that we cannot know about a person’s inner life unless she reveals them (0 us. When [ mentioned “revelation” as a source of truth, you may have thought 1 meant “divine revelation,” so let me say something about that. If there is a God, then surely God can reveal to us truths that we could not find out otherwise. Hence, if there is a God, then divine revelation is a possible source of truth. Tt scems, then, we are rich with sources of truth. Consequently, our minds should be overflowing with truths! And perhaps they are, But a2 obvious prob~ Jem is that all of these sources produce false beliefs as well as true ones. Illusions of sensation are common: the partially submerged stick that looks bent but isn’t; the speeding locomotive whistle that seems to change pitch but doesn’t; the steel that feels hot but is cold. There is also the answer that we reason out and are confident of but mistaken about, Even introspection can mislead us. I had a friend who suddenly experienced sharp pains in his chest. He believed he was having a heart attack, so he had someone rush him to an emergency room. At Ceumincon een that his heats ing, the pole was fs ack. He a back problem that caused radiating pains which felt as though they originated in his chest “Then, too, many a dream has not come true, I am especially fond of the following story. An NBC sports producer, Peter Rolfe, said that before the 1984 boxing match between heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and Marvis Frazier (son of another great heavyweight champion, Joe Frazier) a friend who was an editor of a major boxing magazine phoned Rolfe and said that he had dream¢ that Marvis beat Holmes by a decision, Because of the dream, Rolfe’s friend was ‘emphatic: “I fnom that Marvis is going to win,” he said. What happened? Marvis, ‘was crushed in the first round. Let’s hope Rolfe's friend didn’t ber his home on his dream.’ Finally, there are problems with revelation, First, when a person is mistaken about his or her own past or inner life (as, for example, my friend was when he ‘mistook his back problem for a heart problem), then when we accept what he orWhatis Trah? 103, she reveals to us, we, t00, will be mistaken. Further, when people do know the truth about these kinds of things, they can easily deceive us when they want 10 — as every good liar knows. As to divine revelation, assuming that we are speaking of a God who knows all truths and is perfectly good, if God reveals something to us, then it will be the truth and we can trust it God won't be wrong and won’t deceive us. The problem here is knowing whether something that seems co be a revelation from God is a revelation from God, rather than a trick by the devil ora figment of our imagination or a trick that someone is trying to play on us, Recall from chapter + ‘statement by Thomas Hobbes: “If someone says that God spoke to him in a dream, he has said nothing more than that he dreamt that God spoke to him.” ‘That is a delicious turn of phrase. Ponder it carefully, If there is no God, then certainly Hobbes is correct. If there is a God, then Hobbes may be correct or he ray be incorrect, for if there is a God, then surely God can communicate truths to us through our dreams. However, that fact doesn’t relieve us of the responsi bility and difficulty of deciding whether the message in a dream is truly from God - and whatever we decide, we might be mistaken Le seems, then, that all six of these means can lead us to truth, but each can also lead us into error. Because of that unhappy fact, we want more than just to have the truth; we want to have it in a special way. We want to have it in such a way that we know that we have it, We want knowledge of the truth — and that leads us to ask next: “What is knowledge?” Notes 1 Bertrand Russell, The Prolomt of Piorophy (NY: Oxford University Pres, 195%), 128, Originally published 1912. 2 Parade Magazine, October 18, 1987, p.9. 4 The Ithaca Colege Ness, 6, 15 (April 25,198, p 2. Reading Further Brand Blanshard, Chapters XXVI and XXVIL, The Nature of Thought, volume 2. William James, “Pragmatism’s Conception of Truth,” in Pragmation and Other E'says “Preface,” The Meaning of Trth Bertrand Russell, The Pratiem: of Philosophy, Chapter X11, “Truth and Falsehood.”