The only other candidates for absolutes would seem to be nature and humanity. Can they also be counted as divinities, worthy of our reverence? Reverence for all of nature, including humanity, would seem to be the most useful influence I can imagine right now, given the current looming convergence of crises that have resulted precisely because of a general lack of this kind of reverence. — Janus

I'm pretty dubious that the concept of having reverence can obtain (or not be a lie to oneself) without a concept beyond the given (nature) or the personal/relational (humanity).

I think the absolute truth must usually look toward the preservation of life as one of the highest values in judgement. So, in order for the predator era to shift to the prey era (interesting concepts btw!), the absolute truth would need to have a way for predators to sustain their life without slaying the prey (this is not new knowledge: Isaiah 11:6-9). Until that happens, there's always an argument from the lion "what else can I do?", that, presuming the lion was not sinning (for instance by greed, pride or wrath), prevents a righteous judge from giving preference to the prey's views to condemn the predator.

I don't see why not. I mean what you say may be so for yourself, but are you entitled to extrapolate that it must therefore be so for others?

Besides the idea of nature is not necessarily confined to phenomena (See Spinoza).

I mean what you say may be so for yourself, but are you entitled to extrapolate that it must therefore be so for others? — Janus

I don't see how this is an argument because i can turn the reverse around on you, no? Can you extrapolate that it must therefore be so for others "for yourself", within your view?

But, as a quick argument for my position... I would say that "reverence" is a concept that originally obtained within a religious context. Reverence suggests something "holy", something "set apart". You can make an argument that "nature" or "humanity" fill the role of something "set apart", maybe, but you're still indebted to the original religious context, and so, at the least, you're required to show how the old religious context of this concept is out dated, and how your new context of understanding this concept holds new water. If that makes sense.

Besides the idea of nature is not necessarily confined to phenomena (See Spinoza). — Janus

Was just using your language there.

Absolutely, but if it's an exercise in risk management, then the measure of the 'power' of any belief is no longer truth is it? Its the valuation resulting from your risk assessment. The most 'powerful' belief is the one with the greatest payoff for the least risk, which may or may not turn out to be true (where 'true' is corresponding with reality). That's the point I was making. — Isaac

I think we mostly agree here, I am just using "power" a bit differently. Not as instrumental value but as inevitability. Truth seems to be inevitable in a way that fiction isn't. Perhaps, quite apart from any theories of what truth refers to in a specific field, inevitability is the overall characteristic of truth. But I admit this is a bit of whimsical speculation.

Newton's theories (to my limited knowledge) were not just less detailed. They were completely wrong, totally not the way things actually are, a fiction. Just a very useful one. — Isaac

Right. I am not well versed in the particulars. But I think it could be said that, as long as we only want a certain degree of accuracy, like when we are controlling a thruster, we aren't using fiction. We're still interested in getting a true result, within the parameters. That's difference from claiming our calculations are actually correct for all parameters.

I don't see how this is an argument because i can turn the reverse around on you, no? Can you extrapolate that it must therefore be so for others "for yourself", within your view? — Noble Dust

Well. I know it is so for me, and I have not claimed it is necessarily, but merely possibly, so for others.

But, as a quick argument for my position... I would say that "reverence" is a concept that originally obtained within a religious context. Reverence suggests something "holy", something "set apart". You can make an argument that "nature" or "humanity" fill the role of something "set apart", maybe, but you're still indebted to the original religious context, and so, at the least, you're required to show how the old religious context of this concept is out dated, and how your new context of understanding this concept holds new water. If that makes sense. — Noble Dust

From what I have read about hunter/ gatherers they characteristically have dispositions of reverence for nature; it is not that particular things are holy, but the whole of the land (although some places may be special places; of ceremony or ritual, for example). So the sense of the holy and the feeling of reverence have arguably a much more ancient lineage than that of any of the axial religions.

Besides the idea of nature is not necessarily confined to phenomena (See Spinoza). — Janus


Was just using your language there. — Noble Dust

Spinoza distinguishes between two senses of nature and equates God, as substance, with one of them, and as mode, with the other. You could think of them as natural law and phenomena respectively.

Are you thinking of truth in the propositional or empirical sense or truth in a "spiritual" sense? — Janus

I don't see that this distinction can be made to work. But if you want to try, go ahead. Then show how it helps with the topic.

So, leaving aside tautologies, you believe the only truths are empirical truths then? What about moral truths, are they a thing for you?

We can draw a distinction between what is true per se, and what is true relative to some context or other. Examples of the latter would be empirical truths, psychological truths. poetical truths. moral truths and so on. — Janus

You can do all that, if you like. Just keep an eye on what you do, so as to not confuse your new creations one with the other. So, for instance:

But absolute (in this context cross-cultural) truths ... — Janus

If you mean cross-cultural truths - things that are true for more than one culture - then why not say that, instead of using the ambiguous term absolute.

Because the commonest error is to suppose that truths (all of them) are relative to cultures; a notion that can quickly lead to one denying what you have called absolute truths, and hence to all sorts of poor thinking.

So, leaving aside tautologies, you believe the only truths are empirical truths then? — Janus

Not at all.

What about moral truths, are they a thing for you?

Yep.

Re-writing the OP, so that it makes sense to me:

"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation is believed at a given time is a function of power and not truth."

Frank observes that we can only reside in fiction for so long, then ponders if truth, then, exerts some power of its own. Hence, to what extent does truth have power?

And the answer is that truth has power, because regardless of your interpretation, regardless of your beliefs, some things will be true, some false.

That's all.

I don't think you rewrote the OP. You just answered my question with "yes" without reflecting on how that commits you to a non-redundant truth.

OK - so how does it commit me to a non-redundant truth?

"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." — frank

Not true.

But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right? — frank

Right.

Or not? Maybe we're always in a fictional world even when the shit hits the fan. — frank

I don't think so.

To what extent does truth have power? — frank

To the extent that it's convincing or otherwise compelling. There's that old saying that knowledge is power.

To the extent that it's convincing or otherwise compelling. — S

I hope it is clear from my last that I think this is the wrong answer.

OK - so how does it commit me to a non-redundant truth — Banno

Redundancy means that truth is an aspect of the act of assertion. This is what I assumed you believe since you handed me the T-sentence as if it says something significant.

You can't hold to redundancy and also say that truth is independent of what anyone believes.

think the absolute truth must usually look toward the preservation of life as one of the highest values in judgement. — Serving Zion

You mean morally?

I hope it is clear from my last that I think this is the wrong answer. — Banno

You shouldn't think that, because we're both right. I certainly didn't mean to rule out your answer, which I took for granted. I was thinking about the power of truth beyond it's most basic function.

Yes, I do think that the absolute truth is intrinsically constrained by morality, and that morality is what gives truth it's power. Therefore truth only has power where an authority is judging righteously.

I'm also coming around to the idea that morality and power are inextricably linked.

I think power is ultimately morally accountable, but only when there is a greater power that would hold them accountable. Thus, arrogance thrives in absence of justice.

What's the greater power and how does it hold people accountable?

"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." -- Somebody other than Nietzsche

But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right?

Or not? Maybe we're always in a fictional world even when the shit hits the fan.

To what extent does truth have power? — frank

Are we using "truth" as another term for "states of affairs" ("the way things are") here?

And how are we defining "power"? "Power" talk, outside of physics contexts, always seems very fuzzy to me.

"the quality of being in accordance with experience, facts, or reality; conformity with fact". — Serving Zion

No, I don't see any problems with the definition. — Serving Zion

As a practical matter, none, until someone disagrees, and, facts are always historical facts, and those depend on who's telling the story. But for the purpose, it's good enough, and it's good to have one to work with. Or, if you think truth is simple, go here to see how simple it is.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

Are we using "truth" as another term for "states of affairs" ("the way things are") here? — Terrapin Station

Per Russell, a proposition is a state of affairs. Propositions are truth-apt, states of affairs either obtain or don't.

Historically, kings were closely allied to religious authority (in many cases they were the same person). So obviously, the cultural worldview, as preserved by priests, was a reflection of the king's worldview.

Imagine that the same is true today. Our prevailing morality is a reflection of a power structure. Do you agree with? Or disagree?

Power" talk, outside of physics contexts, always seems very fuzzy to me. — Terrapin Station

Like a poodle?

I don't know if you were answering yes or no to the first question. Per Russell, who was one of the primary influences of this being the standard view in analytic philosophy, truth and facts (facts being states of affairs) are definitely NOT the same thing.

The standard view gets weird (for us nominalists) re positing real abstracts, or at least seeming to without wanting to directly confront it, when it comes to propositions, truth, etc., but that's a different issue.

The reason I was asking was because a lot of people (colloquially especially, which carries over to boards like this) seem to use "truth" so it's the same as "states of affairs." (I don't want to say "the same as facts," because it's common to colloquially use "fact" oddly, too.) If we use "truth" in its standard analytic phil sense where it's a property of propositions, I'm not sure the question asked in the first post of the thread makes sense.

The debate seems to me to be sterile since so far none of the participants define the meaning of Truth.

Per Russell, who was one of the primary influences of this being the standard view in analytic philosophy, truth and facts (facts being states of affairs) are definitely NOT the same thing. — Terrapin Station

Yes he did. Look up states of affairs in the SEP.

The debate seems to me to be sterile since so far none of the participants define the meaning of Truth. — Jacob-B

There are two uses of the word in play. One is about what we take to be true. The other is akin to absolute truth.

The focus should be on the conflicts that arise due to these two uses, not annointing one to be correct usage and the other incorrect.

To what extent does truth have power? — frank

The truth has power to the extent it is unknowable. Unknown, unforeseeable apparitions of truth always have and always will shuffle the deck of the planetary biosphere along with everything on it. Homo narcissus has stayed with its science and tech. determinism for long enough now, men have convinced themselves they are the guardians of truth. Funny. Men are subject to truth in exactly the same way as other animals on earth.

Truth is an ontological force compassing not only the physical, but also mental. Epistemology can't take us to the truth. It's important then to understand truth goes where science or any human organization can't go. Science, as it's become the most dogmatic and exoteric (heavily socially determined as in peer-review and crowdsourcing), thoughtless organization ever known to man (seeming to exist to destroy the truth of mind) is ignorant of incomplete information which is a part of every experiment or decision. Truth=incomplete information. There are unknown ways (truth there may be an unlimited ways) this planet could meet its dissolution unpredictable to scientists. Once there's no planet left, there can be no more supercilious beings who have believe they have truth confined to their bailiwick of power or influence.

It makes no sense to say truths (plural), maybe facts can be plural...facts are always partial and obfuscate truth; facts are propaganda. The very nature of experience bars truth. Once you have had an experience, you live through conditioned responses...like glasses which polarize light, so is truth polarized by experience.