Truth And

Philosophy
 Philosophy as a discipline will not
claim to be the sole bearer of truth. It
is not so much “the Truth” that
concerns philosophy, but rather the
way or process by which we can
distinguish claims that are true from
those that are false.
What is truth?
What do you mean
when we say that
something is true?
 Life in this world would be a lot simpler
if truth only meant one thing. Life would
have been a matter of simply answering
the question whether the things we say,
read about, and discuss are true or false.
 Debate:
Believers
Only those who believe in things that can be
verified are rational.
Scientists
Only those who believe in scientific truths are
rational.
 If we agree with this line of reasoning, then we
also should agree that almost everyone of us is
irrational, because many parts of our lives rest on
things that we consider as true even if they are
not scientifically proven.
We believe that laws are written for the
common good, even if there is no scientific way of
defining what is good from what is evil.
Domains
of Truth
 Jurgen Habermas argues, in his universal
pragmatics, or the study of the structure
of communicative language as we use it
everyday, that part from the scientific
truths, there are other domains in life in
which we understand truth
differently.
 Objective Domains
This pertains to the natural world that
maintains a relative independence from
the perspective and attitude of human
beings that perceive them.
 Social Domain
“truth” is analogous with (not the exact equivalent) of a general
agreement or consensus on what is right as opposed to what is
wrong.
We understand that some things are “true” or good in a particular
context, while they are “false” or wrong in another context.
The truths in the social domain are mostly products of an
“agreement” in society that has been established overtime. It is in this
way that norms or values appear as truths.
 Personal Domain
Where truth is analogous with sincerity.
This is a precarious domain of truth because no one can have
access to our minds and our thoughts except our selves.
The truths that we claim in this domain need corresponding
actions that will establish trust. A person who proves to be
consistent with what he declares about himself is regarded as
authentic and can therefore be trusted or trustworthy.
 Truth and
Justification
 Richard Rorty offers a simple way of
defining truth: truth can be understood as
what has passed “procedures of
justification”.
Justification means the process of
proving the truth or validity of a
statement.
 Each domain of truth has a corresponding justification or has
different criteria for truth.
Scientific/objective Domain – truths are tested against
empirical evidence.
Social Domain – truths are tested against their
acceptability to a particular group in a particular time
in history.
Personal Domain – truth are tested against the
consistency and authenticity of the person who claims it.
 The justification of social norms takes longer
than scientific truths. This is the reason why
social norms take time before they are turned
into hard laws. Furthermore, even if they do
become laws, there is always the impending
possibility of them being revoked or changed.
This is because norms that have become laws
for a particular generation may no longer be
true for another generation.
 The justification of personal truths is probably the
longest to complete among the three. This is
because personal truths take a whole lifetime of
consistency in the actions and decisions of a person
who makes a claim about himself.

True love, as the adage goes, is tested by time.

Believing on someone’s sincerity takes years of hard
work.
 Assignment:
To which domain of truth does each of the
following statements fall? Explain.
A.“In sickness and in health, ‘til death do us
part.”
B.Reptiles are cold-blooded.