First some questions to the title of your question:

[1] What do you exactly mean by ?

[2] What do you exactly mean by ?

First some questions to the title of your question:

[1] What do you exactly mean by ?

[2] What do you exactly mean by ?

Anything that is verifiable and repeatable is likely to be true. If not verifiable and repeatable, then it may well be completely false, or at least partially false.

This holds for much more than just religious beliefs. What about political thought? One perfect example was when President Obama was pushing his ACA (Obamacare). His facile claim was that with medical coverage for all, the costs of health care would go down. Because people would take better care of themselves, avoiding those major medical bills. But that's just a banality, right? Just words that sound good. I'm not saying that morally, universal health care is wrong. I am saying, don't assume something to be true just because it sounds good. (Of course, health care costs went up, not down.)

Is it true that if you get your car washed every week, it will last longer and cost you less in the long run? Of course not. But it sounds good. People will nod their heads in mindless, lazy agreement. You'll have a cleaner car, you will most likely pay more, and it may last less long, depending on any number of factors. Exactly the same as health care.

If you have nothing to deny the truth, then its truth!!

Hello,

One of the basic foundations of epistemology is the truth and/or falsity of the statements which form the bases of knowledge. From a philosophical point of view, establishing the truth of the realities making our world may be approached from two different but complementary directions. Empiricists employ observation and experimentation as the criteria for establishing the truth. Once the truth of a statement is established, it is taken to be absolutely true forever. However, philosophers like Popper take truth to be relative. They believe that a statement is true and remains to be so as long as it is not falsified.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Seek for the likely alternatives to the truth and dig for evidence that may dispute the truth. If none exists, its an indication that what you have may be the truth!

Seek for the likely alternatives to the truth and dig for evidence that may dispute the truth. If none exists, its an indication that what you have may be the truth!

The answer depends on your claim. There are several options, to claim: (A) Obviously there is to state a difference between a phenomenon and its being; we know only the phenomena, but we don't know the being of it, and what we perceive and test is only the surface. We percept phenomena by our senses and we test the "rightness" of our sensory impressions by critical testing them with reason, consciousness, mind. In this way works empirical research and natural science. To know something about the being of things, we perceive only as phenomenon, we can use our ability of reflection, consideration, speculation, this is the subject of metaphysics, theology, future sciences etc. This is the key assumption of Immanuel Kant's philosophy of "pure reason" (1771;1778 second edition). - (B 1) Another claim would be: I state that evolution has shaped our system of recognition, regarding senses and reason, so that it is exactly appropriate to "reality" of the biological purpose to overcome and to proliferate by descendents; this is the view of modern evolutionary philosophy (G. Vollmer et others);

(b 2) our everyday assumptions of naive theory of recognition works similarly; (b3) the modern idealistic philosophy (Fichte, Hegel, Schelling et others) claimed: Your mind (ICH = english: I) determines reality (not vice versa), so the view of G. Fichte at the beginning of 19th century. Hegel's "Philosophy of Mind" said that our mind perceives instantly the phenomena, but there exists a movement of the mind and its achievements, so a lager distance grows between our mind and the world; the main representative of modern phenomenological philosophy has been Edmund Husserl: He said, the phenomena are the truth, our mind has the ability for an immediate intention to "grasp" the phenomenal world, truth discloses itself in the immediacy of grasping phenomena by the mind. - (C) Another way went American pragmatism, the founders of this genuine American philosophy were upset by Kant' philosophy (which its dichotomy between phenomenon and being) and the German Idealism, the early pragmatist were criticizing them (Peirce, W. James, J. Dewey), the latter said: There is no difference between phenomenon and being, we define truth as that method and result which seems to be the best solution of our problem. - Everything okay?

Try to confirm from different sources to be sure it is actually true.

Epistemology is about understanding how we come to know that something is the case, whether it be a matter of fact such as “the Earth is warming” or a matter of value such as “people should not just be treated as means to particular ends”.

http://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884

At times even the false statement will also act as truth and truth needs some evidence to prove it is truth. This is today's world.

Truth is as weak, but it needs evidence and evidence to strengthen it and make it believable

regards

Make a thorough investigation or due diligence the truth will appear

Dear said that the devil reaches all the reservoirs of the human body but the heart can not be so and the heart of the certainty of each believer is a guide to every true. It has been said in advance, ask your heart if there is no answer

In fact, we will never know.

I it appears to you true so its true.

HA!

Politicians all over the world tell many TRUE daily. All these perhaps appears to be true to them.

Do you think all those as TRUE?

..

Truth is like the sun which is obvious and it is burning if we stay long time under the sun, we will test it and feel it . The same could be applied for the other facts in our life, we may test it and feel it, if it is true or not.

From http://www.bolshoyvopros.ru/questions/443528-pravd-mnogo-a-istina-odna-eto-tak.html

Правд много, а истина одна. Это так?

There are many truths, but the truth is one. Is it right?

"Truth is the absence of intentional deception. The truth may well be a mistake. Truth is the complete correspondence of reality. Strictly speaking, unattainable.   In this sense, there is no truth in reality, and only better or worse approximations are possible. Therefore, by the way, science does not deal with the truth (well, except in mathematics, where strict formal proofs are possible). And religion, when something declares the truth - is lying".

From my point of view, the truth (as absolute truth) lies in the archives, but the truths (as relative truths) are interpretations of the absolute truth in every historical period.

Great question.

Observation can never get us to absolute truth, since our organs (or any instrument we can devise) of perception are already flawed. As a simple example: A solid appears to us to be solid, yet we know that in reality the space between and within an atom is far greater than the actual matter which makes up the atom. Therefore even a solid is mostly empty space, despite what our senses tell us. Another example is sound and light which appear to our senses (and the measuring devices we have developed) to be two very different things, yet both are just wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum which our sense organs and brain interpret as radically different.

An interesting corollary to this question is that one can argue that it is much easier, and in fact quite feasible to determine what is actually false, than to determine what is actually true. However, just because something cannot readily be determined to be false does not mean that it is actually true. An idea, belief, or observation that does not work or produce the result one claims for it is false, but just because it might produce the expected result over a series of observations does not necessarily mean that it is true. An example: I can determine the reliability of my gas gauge by noting how accurately it predicts the gas remaining in the tank. If the gauge says I have twenty mile worth of gas remaining and the engine stops due to lack of gas in eighteen miles I can readily say the gauge is not accurate (or true). However, just because the engine stops due to lack of gas in twenty miles does not allow me to state that the gauge is accurate. Even if the gauge accurately predicts the amount of gas left in the tank ninety nine times, I can still never be certain that it will be correct the following time. One failure to accurately predict correctly makes the gauge inaccurate (false) by definition, but the ability to predict accurately (true) a number of times does not guarantee accuracy for the next time.

Truth is usually assessed by comparing a statement to a norm. Imagine a group of people in Apia. You ask each of them how many people there are in the group and most of them will reply ‘ten’. One of them however is a visitor from New Zealand, he will reply ‘eleven’ if he is unaware that in Samoa it is impolite to include oneself in the count.

In most cases a reality check involves comparing the consistency of a statement with a model which purports to describe the corresponding reality. In the social sciences in particular, if they do not match one can claim that adventitious factors have interfered with the smooth functioning of the model. If this happens so often that the model becomes cluttered with exceptions and cumbersome ad hoc repairs, there comes a point when it is worth considering whether it would not be more convenient to replace the model by another one.

It may be difficult to reach consensus on the matter. Two incompatible models of the economy have coexisted for a long time. One, based on an assumption of unstable equilibrium, is summed up in the dictum “to those who have shall be given while from those who have not will be taken away even that which they have”, was graphically described in the Bible two millennia ago but was still considered modern enough to win Gunnar Myrdal the Nobel prize in economics in 1974. That model stands in contradiction to the one popular among teachers of economics in anglo-saxon universities according to which the economy is ideally in a state of stable equilibrium; if disturbed it will tend to return spontaneously to that state.

This dispute between views of reality or truth is more fully explored in my “A Peaceable Economy” (Geneva, 2014), esp. pp. 22-28, “Models of reality”.

Suggestion: take a look at the 'locus classics' for a def. of truth in Aristotle's Metaphysics ( Book IX. [theta], 10 (1051b3-5), there he states: "As for being in the sense of truth, and not-being in the sense of falsity, a unity is true if the terms are combined, and if they are not combined it is false. Again, if the unity exists, it exists in a particular way, and if it does not exist in that way, it does not exist at all." By 'unity' he means for example the statement that something (like an apple) has a property (like a color), i.e. the color belongs to or is 'united with' the object. then you may say: "This apple is red" — And when the apple appears to be red (and not green or yellow) then the statement is true. Quote taken from: Aristotle. Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vols.17, 18, translated by Hugh Tredennick. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1933, 1989.

Kind regards

Wolfgang

I know not truth. However, if i am open to it, it (truth) will find me.

There are many theories, as several people have already written in this topic.

But the human senses are imperfect, the mind is imperfect, and the concept of truth is an abstract idea.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear all.

Many good answers here.

I would say, that to check on the appearances vs. the truth, you simply keep on investigating, comparing accounts, looking for evidence, checking, testing in new ways and rechecking.

Look first at the outstanding anomalies in what otherwise appears true. They will often be suggestive of alternatives.

H.G.Callaway

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Salustri & readers,

I doubt that philosophical variations on the meaning of "to know," will make much difference to the present question. They might always be explored, of course; but the absence in this thread of an explicit definition has not been shown to be a problem for it.

I think you owe us an argument. Where exactly has the lack of explicit definition or agreement produced any discernible problem in the discussion and exchanges? If, on the other hand, you can't point to a specific problem, then, our attitude might properly be "No remark without remarkability." Right?

H.G. Callaway

There is no truth without history.

Is there a history without truth?

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Salustri & readers,

Disagreeing about which statements or claims are known, does not amount to a disagreement about the meaning of "to know;" a definition of knowledge is not the same thing as an effective criterion for deciding which things are known and which not known. Moreover, there cannot be an effective criterion in a definition. That would make all ordinary inquiry superfluous.

It comes down to cases; and you are yet to identify any dispute here that might turn on the definition of "to know." Instead you point to possible disputes. But I do not see that you have demonstrated their relevancy to the thread. You seem to distract from the question?

People disagree about many things, I think that goes without saying. That alone does not demonstrate that they disagree about the meaning of "to know." Consider, e.g., Einstein and Bohr on the incompleteness of QM. Their disagreement in physics did not show that they also disagreed about the meaning of "to know."

H.G. Callaway

There's some very good answers here, so mine is a niche angle - 'truth' can also depend on how old and committed you are to a concept or ideology. If you have maintained and studied a 'truth' your whole life, then you are shown it's wrong, you will likely stick to your 'truth' because it is a core belief. Deeply embedded core beliefs are very hard to discard - it's like you've wasted your life believing this 'truth'. Younger people are generally less afflicted.

"How do we know if what appears to be true is true?

This is a key question in epistemology."

My concise answer: If something is true for me it possesses the virtue of epistemic certainty, or warrant, i.e. it belongs to that category of beliefs that may be called "knowledge." This is different from mere true belief, which is a firmly held belief in the absence of warrant.

Given human fallibilism, we have to be critical of our own perceptions and not take them for granted. Therefore to minimize deception, we need to apply all the three theories of truth as tests for the claim.

Let's suppose the claim is :"It appears to be raining."

First, applying the Correspondence Theory of Truth(CTT), we need to ask if there is anything that corresponds in reality to the claim that X is real.

If we look outside and see rain drops falling from the sky and wetting the grounds, we have good reason to believe that it is raining based on our CTT

Second, applying the Coherence Theory of Truth, we need to ask if the claim is consistent with other things we know to be true and not inconsistent with them or self-contradictory. So for example if we look outside and see clouds, people using umbrellas, or covering their heads, etc. they are consistent with our claim that it's raining. But if on the contrary there is no such evidence, and with normal eyes we cannot see the rain, and the ground is not wet then such observations contradict the claim that it's raining based on our Coherence Theory of Truth.

Finally, applying the Pragmatic Theory of Truth, (PGT)we have to device a hypthesis and test the consequence using the deductive model of Modus Tollens (MT) : If it's raining, then when I stand outside with an uncovered head for a minimum of two minutes, my head will be wet. But after standing outside for two minutes or more, my head it not wet.Therefore, it's not raining. This represents a deductive proof that it's not raining based on our (PTT), However if my head gets wet, the evidence cannot prove that its raining ( since my hair could have been wet beforehand or by other means), it is at least consistent with the claim that it's raining.

So , if our claim passes all three tests of truth, we have good reason to believe that the claim is true or that it's indeed raining. Conversely, if it fails any of the tests we have reason to believe that it's probably not raining or remain skeptical of the claim. All the same, as humans we must claim this truth only tentatively, leaving room for the possibility that a better critical test could demonstrate our wrongness.

(Those interested in this approach to knowledge are encouraged to read Karl Popper's 'Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge' in his Objective Knowledge, (1984).

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Osei & readers,

Good summary statement!

Still, none of our methods are sure-fire; and since we keep improving them, that is evidence that they are sometimes found wanting. That is just to say, again, that there is no effective definition of "to know."

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.

H.G. Callaway

To establish truth requires a number of parameters on truth and truthfulness. Hein's ideas are correct but show us more about phenomena rather than truth itself or what is-that is how we acknowledge it. The question itself assumes a distinction between experience and understanding experience, as Hein has noted, but also I suspect between statements of truth and attempts to avoid focus on perceived and recorded truth. If a statement believed or assumed to be a truth can be expressed as an untruth, re. Trump, then the nature of truth is between whoever makes a statement and who receives it. It comes closer to belief.

the bodily experience is the first stone of all truth.

From there on truth is a social and a logical thing.

"If-then" is powerful to produce thrust, but thinking is not always right.

Love is all truth (the poet would say, even the philosopher)

And what could truth be without love or resistance?

So; truth can be only within a given context, a language, a history, a passion, a hope, a believe, a love.

The search for truth is itself suspect. Why do you want anything to be true? Why do you need certainty?

In science, we have no truth. We simply try to quantify our uncertainty.

To rephrase a philosopher: to a hammer everything either has or does not have the appearance of a nail. Can a disinterested observer perceive anything, that is, conceptually?

Osei gave the three complementary conceptions of truth; the fourth and unifying criterium, I would suggest, is utilitarian: how or why does it matter (that it corresponds, is coherent, works)?

Whatever appears to a layman or to the expert to be the case usually suffices to satisfy their needs, i.e. is true enough by their lights, regardless of the deeper reality behind it. Reality may not have any semantic structure before it’s carved up by concepts, thus truth reaches only so deep.

This doesn’t really answer Kirk’s question but rather redirects it toward asking if and when it matters.

it would require an empirical definition of truth in order to enable conformation to that definition.

If we want to know about how do we know the truth, we should consider on the level of truth firstly, then determine in which level of truth that you are trying to search. They are as follows:

1. The level of sense truth is the simplest and the first level that human beings experience.

2. The scientific level, the experiences based besides the senses, are treated with ratios.

3. The philosophical level, the ratio and the pure thought, the profound meditations of processing the truth, the higher the value.

4. Religious level, the absolute truth that comes from God Almighty and is lived by personality with integrity with faith and trust.

When the reality of the assumed truth is brought to focus

As an undergraduate I was told that if it hurts when it falls on your head, it's likely to be real. If I'm honest, I still find that a good rough guide, at least in the first instance.

Christopher NOCK

So sorry, I thought it was about "reality" not "truth". A consequence of my current health.

Truth is far more complicated, of course!

NOCK

To make up for yesterday's misunderstanding, I offer some thoughts on truth.

On this, when I was an undergraduate, the best the philosophers could manage was that "truth" is found in a JTB, a "justified true belief." It struck me, in a particularly bored undergraduate manner, that you could dump the "justified" and the "belief" because they carried none of the real burden. What was offer was self-fulfilling nonsense. That decided the matter, I should utilise my talents-if in fact I had any-elsewhere. So, I entered the realm of political philosophy. And, of course, as a young buck, I entered as a truth seeker!

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle showed some wonderful hints of pathways to the holy grail. How to get closer to the truth, and a better society. But theirs also seemed long, torturous routes, requiring just too much good will from the non-believer. On and on I travelled into modernity via The Prince, then onto liberalism, Marxism, utilitarianism, the New Liberalism, liberal-democracy, consent theory, libertarianism and none of them seemed to have much truth value. If the Marxists will forgive me, maybe be some use-value in understanding how certain things work, or might be explained.

The biggest nonsense I came across in all of this was one of the things I had put some real store by: the consent theory of political obligation. It seemed to have much truth value. Based on sensible principles of freedom and equality. Government by consent seemed worthy and attainable. And so on....

The problem turned out to be that none of these things are actually true. We're not equal. We don't consent. We're not equally free. There's vast inequalities in wealth everywhere. We're not of equal moral worth. Why would anyone believe, let alone act on such utter nonsense? Enter "the dissent theory of political obligation."

What people most likely desire is the best chance of a relatively peaceful and prosperous life. If they do, they should abide by liberal principles as if they're true, although they are not! They are CONVENIENT FICTIONS. You must abide by them even though they're untrue, and even if you don't believe them! Boy, did that revelation change my world?!! Our whole society is based on lies which we're best to believe. And we'll be forced to act as if they're true whenever we don't.

And that's how I've come to regard truth in general. It's a futile search on the whole. It's what works that counts. If only Blair had understood the truth in that! Call me an old Utilitarian, but I'd much prefer"dissent theorist." Thank you!

Christopher NOCK

Dear Christopher,

congrats! Then - in the end - you've found at least one truth: That all truths are convenient fictions or untrue. That's a start.

But then, the ALL in your statement ("All truths are convenient fictions") is not true as well, since there is ONE truth.

Now we are playing another game, since the only valid statement can be: Most statements are false, but some - at least one - are/is true.

Kind Regards

Wolfgang

Thanks for the clarity Wolfgang! But as I start by saying, it's just "some thoughts." Like poor old Rousseau, everything I say is consistent, I just can't say it all at once.

But does consistency really matter in a world of only one, or no, truth?

NOCK

And I should have added the possibility that the notion of a "convenient fiction" might itself be one.

And that would explain just why no one should be a truth seeker!

NOCK

You've got it quite right, Christopher! In the world of politics - and our private lives as well - consistency is not always the best option.

However, as far as logical reasoning is concerned, consistency is mandatory. Otherwise you give up logical validity. But then again, the search for truth would make no sense at all anymore.

If we hold on to consistency, we might say: since we have found at least one truth, we may find even more truths, as the statement 'All statements are untrue' has just crumbled to dust. In other words: consistency matters - as does truth!

Accordingly the search for truth you've described in your thoughts, makes perfect sense to me. I can recognize myself in it.

Best

Wolfgang

Very good, but be sure, I for one will be heading nowhere that demands consistency!

I started out as a contractarian. I then realized I was a contracted contractarian, ending up a contrarian! And damn proud of it too....

Best wishes

NOCK

Humankind's basic problem is,

that we are able to think and to do,

whatever we want to think or do.

We can ask questions, which

do not make any sense, such as:

"How do we know xyz is true?"

Dear Kirk MacGregor, Dear Researchers,

as long as each of us does not find out by himself

HOW it is possible to answer this question

or

WHY it is not possible to answer this question

it does not make sense to answer any question.

AS ...? We have not yet found out, what the basics are.

We do not have an answer to

1. what 'sensible' means / ...

2. what 'true' means / ...

3. how to put up a meaning / concept / notion /...

As long as we cannot answer these questions,

it is does not make sense to answer any question.

True? Sensible? ... ?

Hans-Josef Heck - Wissenschaffen und Handeln

Dear Kirk,

you state:

"I am a historian of religion, theologian, and philosopher of religion."

My answer of today may upset you. Sorry.

But Researchgate is meant to be for provable statements, I think.

As I stated:

"We humans are able to think and to do,

whatever we want to think or do."

We can believe in something and state that this were "true".

But such a statement, which is not provable, is not science.

Of course, we still have to find out, what "provable" means.

But that's what your question is provoking:

Let's get to the basics first.

Hans-Josef Heck - Wissenschaffen und Handeln

Ask Descartes , he knew! - I mean - He knew that he didn't knew - But because he knew this, he at least new something, he knew that he was! (I think therefore I am -Meditations-), and that was his only certainty, he thought...may be we are all some "malin genies", a digital lifeform swarming on the web, making some signs on Researchgate- posts, and you're in fact the only one here now watching your screen.

Ever saw the film "Matrix"? Or "the 13th flour" ? It's all about that, tells everything.

Even your sense can be mislead (optical judgement experiments)

The continual bodily experience is the only, ultimo doorway into reality, from there on it's all scaffolding, as far as your eyes can see...

What is not true is false, therefore, it should follow that what is not false is true. To find the truth seek falsity.

One can never be certain of a truth as being true (with the exception of knowledge of self-existence - Descartes).

But for the preservation of sanity, and stability of the human psyche, one should assume that universally agreed 'truths' or so-called scientific 'facts' are true, until they are falsified - in which case such falsification should be backed by thoroughly scrutinised and sound evidence.

La verdad siempre tiene algún porcentaje de mentira. La verdad es el ser ontológico.

La mentira se define como miedo a decir la verdad

En ciencia se habla de realidad.

De acuerdo a los evangelios católicos romanos a Jesucristo le preguntó Poncio Pilatos Qué es la verdad? Y Jesucristo no contestó. Sugiere que la verdad no se puede abordar con palabras en el mundo de la espiritualidad.

A clear distinction must be made between TRUTH and FACT.

The modern mistake has been to conflate the two and to use the two terms as if they were interchangeable.

If we recognize that FACTS are objects of the senses and of logic, then FACTS are about things independent of us and are "independently verifiable" by others.

Facts consist of things like: a house, a fire, the sun, the ocean. These things are knowable to me and others through the senses, and even to mosquitoes and bears. Their existence is verifiable independently of me.

I distinguish these things from: I love pizza or I hate pickles or I am hungry, which are things known to only me and are INTERNALLY verifiable by looking inward, these things are TRUTHS.

You do not sense these things and only know of them if I tell them to you of you somehow deduce them in a second handed way.

In a more abstract understanding THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is not a FACT it is a TRUTH.

The USA is an agreed upon social-abstraction.

It is a shared TRUTH. The United States does not exist in fact, though we "people" act as if it did.

So the question "How do we know if what appears to be true, is true? May actually be meant to be referring to FACTS and not to truths at all.

Unless we observe things like a women petting her dog, and grooming it and kissing it and so we conclude: THAT WOMAN LOVES HER DOG.

We assume the TRUTH of her love through the FACTS of her verifiable actions.

But still, in this case, the TRUTH is assumed by us as it is not experienced by us as an internal feeling.

Stephen Martin Fritz

Your logical constructions do not seem perfect to me. First of all, because the separation of the concepts of FACT and TRUTH is artificial. It seems to me that this is done on the basis of provability: everything that is “obvious” you declare as a FACT, everything that requires proof (and therefore depends on the subject and his views) as TRUTH. In this case, the TRUTH is different for everyone (I already wrote about this for a different reason, but you did not answer me).

Stephen Martin Fritz

RE: THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is not a FACT it is a TRUTH.

The USA is neither a fact nor a truth, it is a country. However it is a fact that the USA is a country; and it is true that the USA is a country. Note the that-clauses (that-P, where P is a proposition) that are used for creating a referring expression for facts and truths. A similar but nowadays less commonly used style would be to begin with a that-clause, e.g.: "That the USA is a country is a commonly known fact."

Both facts and truths can be the result of an agreed-upon abstraction or convention. The verification conditions of an alleged fact or truth can likewise be expressed in terms of an observed fact or truth.

Some truths or facts can be directly known to be true, or to be a fact, or to be factual. If I am a competent speaker of English and sincerely report that I am feeling a pain, then there is no gap between appearance and reality. Also, when observation is cited in support of an allegation of fact or truth, the statement of what is observed is generally taken to have the status of knowledge (i.e. of truth or fact) because the observation is direct.

Idioms like "true love", "true grit", "true measure", "twelve good men and true", are tropes and should not be assimilated to "true" or "factual' as applied to propositions. Such uses might be replaced by "real" or "genuine", which wouldn't apply to propositions in a similar way; e.g. a real proposition can still be used to express a falsehood.

Karl Pfeifer Facts do not cease to exist when the observer ceases to exist.

The existence of a land area is a FACT you and I know it and a bird knows it.

That you and I call this land area The United States is a TRUTH as an agreed upon abstraction.

When the people who share this abstraction cease to exist the abstraction ceases to exist.

The FACT of the land area remains. That it is the United States is not longer TRUE.

Stephen Martin Fritz

The USA may cease to exist and you don't need to wait for all the people who recognize that political abstraction to die. A revolution or civil war could accomplish the same thing, after which it would be true that the USA once existed (past tense) and it would also be a fact that the USA once existed. Many truths and facts are implicitly indexed as to time, place, or observer's vantage point; we don't usually bother to make such qualifications explicitly but can if need be. Also, we can change tenses to accommodate the passage of time. Moreover, some truths or facts never get stated: there are just too many of them, we are not smart enough to discover them, and so forth....

Vadim S. Gorshkov and Karl Pfeifer: The debate between you and Stephen Martin Fritz is largely semantic, due to the inherent ambiguity of the word "truth." In natural language, "truth" has both an "objective" sense, in which it means "factual" or "accurate" (the opposite of "false"), and a "subjective" sense, in which it refers to long-held beliefs, such as proverbs or statements of value. In epistemology, it is the first sense that is utilized, the same sense in which students are asked on a standardized test to indicate whether or not a factual statement is "true or false." In logic and epistemology, philosophers talk a lot about the "truth value" of propositions, and by this they always mean "conformity with the facts."

Stephen is using the second sense of the word "truth" -- i.e. to refer to a subjective belief. This is the same way the American Declaration uses the word: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights ..." That all men are created equal and that they all have inalienable rights are not "facts" about the world that can be confirmed by observation and scientific investigation. They are deeply held beliefs or commitments that are shared by individuals in a society and constitute the foundation of social cohesion.

Denise Morel I would not go so far as to identify facts about the world with facts tout court; after all, there are those who believe in moral facts (as well as moral truths, of course) and there are also mathematical facts and facts about fictional or mythical entities (Sherlock Holmes smoked a pipe, Pegasus was a winged horse). But I digress. My question is, on what basis are the American Declaration truths regarded as self-evident? They are not true by definition, so it's not just a matter of word meaning (like "bachelors are male"). And if as you claim it's not a fact about the observable world*, what's left? The signatories to the Declaration surely weren't merely reporting a subjective state. "Holding something to be true" is just another way of saying that one believes it, but when one adds that what one holds to be true is also self-evident one is saying that it's not merely a matter of belief.

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*I think it's actually a complex relational fact that involves some observable features of the world (i.e. I'd plump for what's called a response-dependence or ideal observer account), but that's a story for another day.

You mean apparently it appears to be true. True in your knowledge may not be necessarily true from others point of view. It is only our conscience will decide what is true in true sense from our own point of view.

Karl Pfeifer Yes, but the fact that someone claims that a statement is self-evident does not necessarily make it so. You are right that it is not simply a matter of definition (although Anselm's ontological argument tried to use that approach to deduce the existence of God from the definition of "God"). I think that the "self-evidence" that the Founding Fathers were talking about corresponds pretty closely to what Jonathan Haidt refers to as "intuition." Haidt argues that our moral judgments are based on intuitions, which are emotionally-charged and non-inferential, with reason playing only a secondary role by providing a kind of post hoc justification of our decisions (confirmation bias).

It is also true (accurate) that, at the psychological level, our claims about the existence of God or the equality of all men appear to be of the same nature as our claim that the earth revolves around the sun. I am not a scientist or an astronomer, so I do not personally "know" that "the earth revolves around the sun," so for me, it's a belief, and seems to be no different from my belief that all men are created equal. At the individual, psychological level, we are limited in what we know as "facts" about the external world. But the fact that we are sometimes psychologically confused does not entail the collapse of the logical distinction between truths and facts.

Logically, we can distinguish factual statements from value-based statements by how we can confirm them. Only the former are falsifiable "in principle." "All men are created equal" cannot be proved or disproved by pointing to any "facts" about the world. For example, we all admit that people vary in levels of intelligence, physical fitness, physical attractiveness, personality, and so on. So, in what way were they created "equal"? The fact that we are all members of the same species does not imply anything about rights, duties or privileges. And of course, there have been many throughout history who have not held that all men are created equal, so this so-called "self-evident" truth of the Founding Fathers was not universally self-evident, and served as a mutually agreed-upon commitment to a truth that would be acted upon, rather than as a statement of fact.

Denise Morel The religious idiom of equal creation is an unfortunate obfuscation here. Verification is indeed an issue with value statements, but I think it can be had in some form, in the context of inference to the best explanation. I also think that intuition, suitably constrained, can be a means to knowledge (that's why we take the hunches of experts more seriously than those of just any old person).

Please have a look at this underappreciated and easy-to-read classic by Peter Glassen. The formulation Glassen ends up with involves conditions that can in principle be verified (although typically not easily; however, many empirical statements are in the same boat):

http://en.bookfi.net/s/?q=are+there+unresolvable+moral+disputes&e=1&t=0

Karl Pfeifer This is a well thought out and clearly written article that I cannot do justice to in a comment. I will try to highlight what I feel to be some of its weaknesses.

One weakness I see is a failure to distinguish means from ends. The examples he offers of objects of approval or disapproval -- the war, the civic centre, communism, educating the poor, etc. -- are part of a chain of causal reasoning that links means and ends. And at the end of that chain is a subjective "truth" -- a feeling, a desire, a sentiment, an inclination -- that itself has no objective basis in knowledge about the world. Indeed, a purely "objective," dispassionate observation of the facts about the world leaves us cold and indifferent; by itself, it does not motivate us to act in one way rather than another, or to approve or disapprove of anything.

I think he undermines his whole argument in his analysis on p. 40, where he attempts to show that moral approval has both an objective and a subjective basis. He is right in one way, but he fails to consider the significant difference between the two bases. If we take the civic centre as an example, the "objective" basis for a person's approval -- his belief that it will stimulate the civic life of the city -- is not a motivating factor unless he feels that stimulating the civic life of the city is desirable. And of course, he has to know (or believe) that a new civic auditorium will, in fact, stimulate the civic life of the city; that is, that it is an effective means of achieving his end.

This is in fact Fritz's analysis. We have subjective goals and desires ("truths") that we would like to fulfill (e.g. a vibrant city life), which constitute our motivations to act, and we use our knowledge about the facts of the world and how they are causally related to determine the best means of achieving those goals (e.g. build a new civic centre). But the goal (what we desire) is always logically prior to the means (how to achieve it).

I also disagree with his attempt to maintain a strict qualitative distinction between moral judgments and either prudential or aesthetic judgments. The three, in fact, often tend to shade into one another, and all three lend themselves to the same basic means-end analysis. His rigid distinction leads him, for example, to reject egoism as a moral position and to relegate it to some other type of evaluation. But egoism is a recognized moral position that can be traced back to the ancient hedonists and finds its modern expression in thinkers like Hobges, Sidgwick and Rand.

His narrow definition of what constitutes moral approval (as opposed to prudential or aesthetic approval) leads him to conclude that there must be a single "special sort" of subjective basis for moral judgments, and he offers the hypothesis (advanced by the moral sense school) that the origin or foundation of morality is probably something like "benevolence" or "sympathy" or "the sentiment of humanity" (Evan Thompson proposes "empathy"). Of course, this is a very limited, one-sided claim that is peculiar to a "liberal" orientation to morality based on notions of equality and human rights; but it does not cover the entire moral spectrum, and cannot account for alternative hypotheses, such as the principle of duty (deontological approaches) or character formation (virtue ethics). As a foundational moral principle, benevolence is unlikely to gain the kind of universal acceptance that would make all moral disputes resolvable in principle.

I think Denise Morel has a clear picture of the issue at hand.

What is needed is a distinction between the terms TRUTH and FACT that allows us to tease out how we are coming to the conclusion that what we are talking about is one thing or the other.

In casual conversation these terms are conflated but when we try to discern things like the existence of Love or of God or of The United States or of number or or goodness or virtue or value or the things most philosophers occupy their times with, the distinction becomes important.

Science deals with facts

Spirituality deals in truths

Philosophy is the realm where truth meets facts and tries to discern the value of things and the meaning of objects and actions.

But we have to begin with a clear distinction between truths and facts.

Thank you for your detailed answer, Denise Morel . Let me make some quick observations at this time, that I may also follow up later.

Glassen is giving an account of the kinds of considerations that enter into our practice of moral discourse, esp. reason-giving. The subjective-basis reasons and the objective-basis reasons are individually incomplete; they are intertwined -- desires need beliefs to be intelligible and beliefs need desires to be motivating.

Glassen is making a conceptual distinction between moral judgments qua moral judgements and either prudential or aesthetic judgments. It still allows that particular judgements can fall under more than one concept (more than one qua, so to speak). And, e.g., in a particular situation the moral pt of view may dictate the judgement that one ought to proceed from a prudential point of view. Nor is it denied that the aesthetic might have a moral element.

Egoism is also not ruled out, although perhaps the entailments of certain forms of egoism might, like solipsism, serve a constraint on plausible theories.

Glassen is arguing that, given various features of our practices of moral discourse, the best explanation is that moral judgements have a certain logical structure. That structure is compatible with a vast range of particular moral judgements. So the issue now is spelling out the details of the empirical components of his analysis and the epistemological problem of determining whether those empirical conditions are satisfied. Not an easy task, to be sure.

Cheers.

"A fact is, traditionally, the worldly correlate of a true proposition, a state of affairs whose obtaining makes that proposition true." – Fact in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

If you are an empiricist of the Logical Positivist sort (a.k.a. Logical Empiricist) you might claim that there is a fact/value distinction that precludes value statements from being factual. However, a believer in moral facts or truths can just regard the fact/value distinction as between genus and species. Logical Positivists also claimed value statements (and statements about God etc.) were pseudo-propositions because they had no verification conditions and therefore didn't express truths or falsehoods at all. Logical Positivists typically identified or correlated synthetic (i.e. empirical) truths with facts; nevertheless sometimes analytic truths (math, logic) were also spoken of as facts that could be discovered or verified by calculation and proof procedures.

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