- #1
ImmanuelKant
- 20
- 0
I think we can do without the whole notion of truth and reality.The traditional notion of truth is that a statement is true iff there some "correspondences" between the statement in question and reality. An attack on this conception of truth is a either/and attack on:
1) The notion of correspondences.
2) The notion of reality.
The notion of "correspondence" is philosophically vague. There is no possible explanation for it without add more fuzziness to this already confusing notion. This becomes the list of things that we know in our gut, but we don t know why. We know in our gut what A corresponds to B( where A is a statement, and B is reality) mean, but we don` t know why it is so. "correspondence" is just an undefined primitive. Why do we have this this undefined primitive? Because it is useful for our ancestors to think in this certain way.
The notion of reality is even more vague. My criticism of reality is similar to my criticism of metaphysics/ ontology in general. There is the platonist or rationalist conception that reality is more than the sum of all spatial-temporal itentities. The empiricalist conception that reality is only the sum of all spatial-temporal entities. The underlying assumption is that one of the above conception is the right one. These are all a priori, fancy speculation when we claim that reality has to be this way or that way( As if there is only two choice). Ultimately, no one knows what reality is suppose to be or else there would be some meta-criterion that would help us decide between the two conception. Let say the empiricalist conception is the right one. That reality is the sum of all spatial-temporal entities. It still does not mean we know what "all" these spatial-temporal entities "is". If we don t know what all these spatial-temporal entities "is", then there is really no way for us to know if our statement really corresponds to one of these entities. We encounter extra problem if reality is the union of more than one physical reality( Ex: disjointed space-time universes). How would we form a correspondence between our statement and a universe where gravity g is such that g=(1.234)Mm/r^2? The question of these other "universes" would be questionable, because we simply do not know.
My conclusion is that notions like truth and reality are really complete fictions. They are undefined primitive that we know in our gut, but don t know why. The best explanation i can come up with is that these undefined primitive is there because it is useful to think they are there for our ancient ancestors, and by extention us. They come out of use in our language, because it aid the survival of our ancestors.
1) The notion of correspondences.
2) The notion of reality.
The notion of "correspondence" is philosophically vague. There is no possible explanation for it without add more fuzziness to this already confusing notion. This becomes the list of things that we know in our gut, but we don t know why. We know in our gut what A corresponds to B( where A is a statement, and B is reality) mean, but we don` t know why it is so. "correspondence" is just an undefined primitive. Why do we have this this undefined primitive? Because it is useful for our ancestors to think in this certain way.
The notion of reality is even more vague. My criticism of reality is similar to my criticism of metaphysics/ ontology in general. There is the platonist or rationalist conception that reality is more than the sum of all spatial-temporal itentities. The empiricalist conception that reality is only the sum of all spatial-temporal entities. The underlying assumption is that one of the above conception is the right one. These are all a priori, fancy speculation when we claim that reality has to be this way or that way( As if there is only two choice). Ultimately, no one knows what reality is suppose to be or else there would be some meta-criterion that would help us decide between the two conception. Let say the empiricalist conception is the right one. That reality is the sum of all spatial-temporal entities. It still does not mean we know what "all" these spatial-temporal entities "is". If we don t know what all these spatial-temporal entities "is", then there is really no way for us to know if our statement really corresponds to one of these entities. We encounter extra problem if reality is the union of more than one physical reality( Ex: disjointed space-time universes). How would we form a correspondence between our statement and a universe where gravity g is such that g=(1.234)Mm/r^2? The question of these other "universes" would be questionable, because we simply do not know.
My conclusion is that notions like truth and reality are really complete fictions. They are undefined primitive that we know in our gut, but don t know why. The best explanation i can come up with is that these undefined primitive is there because it is useful to think they are there for our ancient ancestors, and by extention us. They come out of use in our language, because it aid the survival of our ancestors.