• Isaac
    10.3k
    How one discriminates is not really crucial to understanding my OPJudaka

    But you said...

    Thus the question becomes, how do I judge a good conclusion from a bad one.Judaka

    It seemed (not unreasonably) that the question of how one discriminates was exactly crucial to your OP.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    It is crucial to my OP but it is not crucial to understanding my OP. You asked why and I answered.

    It really depends on the context, what you are trying to achieve and for me, that's true as well. For instance, my refutation of white privilege is due to how it conceptualises economic issues as race issues, it emphasises the importance of race, it turns people away from caring about important issues due to superficial disagreements. So all of that, it's based on a set of complicated desires from me. I am looking to maximise outcomes that I see merit in and if we moved to a new context then I would have to ask myself what outcomes I want and I'd evaluate the effectiveness of the arrangement at delivering those outcomes.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    For instance, my refutation of white privilege is due to how it conceptualises economic issues as race issues, it emphasises the importance of race, it turns people away from caring about important issues due to superficial disagreements. So all of that, it's based on a set of complicated desires from me. I am looking to maximise outcomes that I see merit in and if we moved to a new context then I would have to ask myself what outcomes I want and I'd evaluate the effectiveness of the arrangement at delivering those outcomes.Judaka

    And some of those outcomes are truth evaluable themselves, yes? For example "it turns people away from caring about important issues due to superficial disagreements". It may or may not do so, the fact of the matter is something over which any disagreement would be empirically resolveable.

    The principle that facts are selected, arranged and presented in such a way as to serve some purpose outside of the mere promulgation of said facts is, I think, not disputed by anyone.

    What seems to be in dispute is whether some arrangements are 'better' than others.

    You've given a mixed bag of reasons why you prefer your arrangement of the facts about racism. Some appear themselves to be facts (x causes y). If the selection of a preferred arrangement really does boil down the the truth of just more facts, then we're not really playing any different a game by admitting the effect of this 'arrangement'.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    My OP is actually very simple, I consider it to be stating the obvious. So if it seems for you to be simple and stating the obvious then don't think you need to do more. The "effect" of the arrangement I've described as an unavoidable consequence of intelligence, I am not trying to avoid it, I'm resigned to it.

    That being said, I distinguish between the "truth" of the arrangement, it's bearing on the truth of the conclusion and the relevant truths important to how I've chosen to evaluate the arrangement. The difference is that if the arrangement is a truth because it includes the truth then we can only really debate its true/false value. Whereas if we are debating my evaluation, you are free to disagree with it without having to deal with the "truth" of whether the superficial disagreements turn people away. If you choose to deal with it then you can, if not then that's fine too.

    The truth of the arrangement is a yes/no, my evaluation is just one way of many possible ways to evaluate the arrangement.

    If the arrangement is true then we accept it regardless of the consequences, if we acknowledge the choices that were made and evaluate them in a different way then at least there's a chance to negate the negative consequences we'd otherwise have to accept.

    Moreover, I think these truths function differently and the "truth" of the arrangement is illegitimate while my usage of truth in evaluation is within the rules of how to reasonably use the truth in argumentation.
  • creativesoul
    12k
    If white privilege is an arrangement of truth...Judaka

    That's where you go off the rails...

    We agree that systemic racism exists. White privilege is an inevitable consequence of systemic racism(implemented by racist whites against non-whites).
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    if we are debating my evaluation, you are free to disagree with it without having to deal with the "truth" of whether the superficial disagreements turn people away. If you choose to deal with it then you can, if not then that's fine too.Judaka

    I'm not sure how. If your evaluation of your arrangement relies (even in part) on "it turns people away from caring about important issues due to superficial disagreements", then I don't see how we can deal with the evaluation of arrangements without addressing that.

    If your evaluation contained nothing but value judgements "I prefer to look at things this way", then there's really nothing further to say, but the moment they contain empirical claims about the consequences of certain arrangements, then their truth value can be called into question.
  • creativesoul
    12k
    Should we ask if it is true? Should we ask if it is reasonable?Judaka

    It makes no sense to ask these sorts of questions about white privilege. "White privilege" is all of the different benefits and/or privileges that whites have in the United States simply because they are white.

    We both know that systemic racism exists.

    Ask enough non whites about their own personal experiences regarding systemic racism. Ask them how racism has affected/effected them personally. Listen to all the stories, and then ask yourself if you have ever been treated in those ways simply for being white? If the answer is "no", then you've just learned a bit about your own white privilege.

    It's not that hard to comprehend.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    That truth is only important because I have decided it is important, this is something you could dispute.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    That truth is only important because I have decided it is important, this is something you could dispute.Judaka

    But I couldn't dispute whether it's true?
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    EDIT: Actually can you clarify what is "it" here?
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    I have been waiting for the response you said you were working on in the privilege thread, respond there if you wish to continue talking about the white privilege framing. I have already extensively argued against white privilege there and this thread isn't about white privilege.
  • creativesoul
    12k


    What's wrong with taking the conversation out of the complete abstract and adding some actual substance? You've already agreed that it's a real life scenario that fits the abstract ideas being put forth in the OP.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    Because you have said that the questions I asked were nonsense and complained about why I can't comprehend white privilege. Which pretty much is the antithesis of OP, you are back to arguing a rejection of white privilege as an arrangement of truth and just asserting that it is a truth and one that I'm ignorant of.

    Therefore the conversation is back to "is white privilege a truth" and that is really a conversation about white privilege than arrangements in general.

    EDIT: Btw, I have already been talking about the issue of arrangements/framing in the privilege thread. I've made my arguments and don't wish to rehash them all here. I am just saying, you haven't even addressed the arguments over there, I have little more to say on the matter.
  • creativesoul
    12k
    I'm asking you how you can agree that systemic racism exists, but reject that white privilege does. I'm doing so by incorporating, as best I can, the framework you've been employing.

    There is a real life example of you and I agreeing on an arrangement of true statements about American history, particularly those regarding systemic racism, but disagreeing upon how to best further arrange those true statements as a means to resolve the problem of systemic racism.

    I'm saying that one arrangement results in looking at the consequences of systemic racism, with a particular focus upon what white people do not have to deal with on a daily basis, but non whites do.

    That is exactly the sort of hypothetical scenario you've been talking about, except it's not so abstract anymore. Rather, it's an actual real life everyday example.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    ↪Isaac

    EDIT: Actually can you clarify what is "it" here?
    Judaka

    Sure, I mean to ask if one's arrangement can be assessed or evaluated on the same basis as the truths it arranges. It seems that arrangements are generally for a purpose (not just a random selection of facts or presentation method), if that's right, then whether they'll achieve that purpose is more or less an empirical fact and therefore truth evaluable in the same way the facts it constituted were.

    So taking white privilege as an example, you could say the 'facts' of racism have been presented by the left in such a way as to sow harmful division. But the left haven't presented them in that way deliberately to sow harmful division have they? So if you're right, then this would give you, and they, some mutual ground for evaluating arrangements.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    The grounds for my disdain for the white privilege conceptualisation are not on the basis of truth. I am not rejecting the evidence used by those who argue for white privilege. My rejection is on the basis that when I examine "white privilege" as a label, as a concept, as a framing all I see are net negative consequences. When you divorce "white privilege" from the facts it characterises then all you're left with is a shallow, divisive, racist term. Defend white privilege as an arrangement, as a characterisation rather than reiterating the facts that you're arranging or characterising.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    Sure, I mean to ask if one's arrangement can be assessed or evaluated on the same basis as the truths it arranges. It seems that arrangements are generally for a purpose (not just a random selection of facts or presentation method), if that's right, then whether they'll achieve that purpose is more or less an empirical fact and therefore truth evaluable in the same way the facts it constituted were.Isaac

    I agree, we can certainly try to evaluate the effectiveness of the arrangement using empirical evidence although how successful that will be could vary across different contexts.

    So taking white privilege as an example, you could the 'facts' of racism have been presented by the left in such a way as to sow harmful division. But the left haven't presented them in that way deliberately to sow harmful division have they? So if you're right, then this would give you, and they, some mutual ground for evaluating arrangements.Isaac

    I think the same way, I've been trying to have this kind of conversation but to no avail.
  • Number2018
    560
    I don't wish to accept social facts which make claims that are guiding people towards ways of thinking which lead to misfortune or negative social effects. Social facts seem to be an umbrella to a great many different kinds of claims.Judaka

    How could one distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' social facts? Generally, there is a tendency
    of unconsciously accepting a social fact without realizing all hidden presuppositions and effects. When I recognize this piece of paper as a five-dollar bill, there has to be the institution of money, maintaining my belief's naturalness. I may not like the tremendous complexity of the contemporary globalized financial system, but I do not think of it any time when I spend my bill. Usually, social facts disguise themselves as mere facts or brute facts. To understand it, one should endeavour the process of deconstruction, and the disclosure of the arrangement of truth could be one of the possible strategies. Recent discussions about systemic racism and white privilege could provide us with examples of the mobilization and function of particular dispositions of truth. Also, they can exhibit the cyclic process of transforming brute facts into complex social facts and then back into the mere facts.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    How could one distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' social facts?Number2018

    Well, I haven't understood social facts to function differently in how truth is arranged, I was just searching for a boundary with regards to how social facts can range from benign to having potentially significant implications. The method would depend on the individual I suppose, for better or worse.

    Usually, social facts disguise themselves as mere facts or brute facts. To understand it, one should endeavour the process of deconstruction, and the disclosure of the arrangement of truth could be one of the possible strategies.Number2018

    I believe I can see where you're coming from, this is certainly an interesting way to conceptualise the previously blurred boundary between different kinds of truths. I do think that by recognising how or whether the truth was arranged, we can detect the presence of "human institutions" and how the choices made by people were necessary for the "truth' to exist or function. Which would apply to language also, I certainly prefer to look at it this way as opposed to the objective/subjective conceptualisation.

    Looking into other useful strategies may be of use to me as well.

    Recent discussions about systemic racism and white privilege could provide us with examples of the mobilization and function of particular dispositions of truth. Also, they can exhibit the cyclic process of transforming brute facts into complex social facts and then back into the mere facts.Number2018

    Yes, I agree. I think you have nailed the correct way of conceptualizing the process, it is quite sneaky and while I am happy to hear about this better way of conceptualizing it, somehow, the resulting explanation makes the process appear far more efficient and difficult to handle than I had already believed.
  • creativesoul
    12k
    So taking white privilege as an example, you could the 'facts' of racism have been presented by the left in such a way as to sow harmful division. But the left haven't presented them in that way deliberately to sow harmful division have they? So if you're right, then this would give you, and they, some mutual ground for evaluating arrangements.
    — Isaac

    I think the same way, I've been trying to have this kind of conversation but to no avail.
    Judaka

    We'll see... I've replied to you in the privilege thread.
  • creativesoul
    12k
    I'm sorry, but this thread - particularly the terminological use presented in the OP - hinges upon incoherent use of some key terms. That renders this discussion incoherent at best.

    You're working from an utterly inadequate notion of truth.

    Fact. Truth. Belief. Meaning. Interpretation.

    Five different terms. Five different referents. Your use of them resulted in a word salad.
  • Number2018
    560
    I do think that by recognising how or whether the truth was arranged, we can detect the presence of "human institutions" and how the choices made by people were necessary for the "truth' to exist or function. Which would apply to language also, I certainly prefer to look at it this way as opposed to the objective/subjective conceptualisation.Judaka
    There are probably various kinds of truth, ultimately different from a conventional understanding of this concept. Suppose we agree that social facts are in the cyclic relations with mere facts, and a particular arrangement of truth is crucial for the maintenance of this cycle. In that case, we could consider how different this arrangement could be from what you outlined in your OP. Likely, when individuals are stating social facts, the arrangement of truth works as a momentarily temporary synthesis. Previous critical stages and moments of the process are condensed and compressed; we observe just the final moment of truth. The synthesis is impersonal. Mainly, it works independently from personal intentions. Trump (and so many other politicians) has been often accused of lying, contradicting his previous statements or positions. Yet, if we change our system of reference, we could find that there are culminations of arranging the truth at particular moments, independent of results of previous arrangements. What matters is not a reference to reality or mere facts, but a synchronic particular constellation, ultimately in-forming the resulting outcome. Different regimes (arrangements) of truth or the changes of variables of the same arrangement could lead to logically inconsistent statements of the same individual.

    the resulting explanation makes the process appear far more efficient and difficult to handle than I had already believed.Judaka

    I agree with you. The task is challenging. It is possible to assume that arrangement of truth does not merely govern our discursive practices but is also related to our behavioural patterns. Probably, we deal with productions of subjectivities, and the arrangement of truth is a part of specific socio-economic and semiotic assemblages that produce and reproduce dominant clusters of repetitive impersonal and personal effects. Subjectivities frame, organize, and manage the field of our agency. To what extent do they determine the limits of our choices?
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    Suppose we agree that social facts are in the cyclic relations with mere facts, and a particular arrangement of truth is crucial for the maintenance of this cycle.Number2018

    What I understand is that interpretations, characterisations and the like certainly mesh with facts by being so closely attached to the fact being interpreted or characterised, they become indistinguishable to some. The "angriness" of the man as I said in my OP becomes the angry man but that he is a man is a fact while his angriness is a characterisation of something - his behaviour, tone of voice, whatever else. Seeing as social facts are more of the same but with widespread acceptance, the same rules apply.

    And the process I see you as describing is "the system does x, y, z" (brute facts)--> the system is unfair (social facts) --> what should we do about the unfair system? (mere facts). I do think that it might be sufficient to just say that brute facts + (add subjectivity) + widespread acceptance could = social fact and the social fact is not distinguished from a brute fact. After all, I don't think people often do distinguish between social facts and brute facts, that's not a widespread concept from my experience. So I may have misunderstood something because I wouldn't have said a particular arrangement of truth was crucial for this process.

    The task is challenging. It is possible to assume that arrangement of truth does not merely govern our discursive practices but is also related to our behavioural patternsNumber2018

    Certainly, I think what we describe as culture is in some circumstances an arrangement of truths. Our values dictate how truths are characterised, which truths are emphasised, included or excluded and likewise, an arrangement of truths is surely going to be at the heart of your worldview and to some extent helps to inform your values.

    I talked a while back about a concept I believed in that I called interpretative relevance. Which said essentially that potentially relevant bits of information are weighted by individuals based on how much they're using these pieces of information to formulate their opinions. So if we decided to rate a mutual acquaintance's intelligence, even with the same information, you might rate them lowly due to how you recall them being bad at maths and I might judge them highly because I think they're articulate. Even though I knew that this person was bad at maths, that wasn't something I thought was relevant to their intelligence, so it was excluded from my interpretation.

    So when you combine these two concepts (and undoubtedly more which we aren't talking about), you have your arrangement which is implicitly personal and then your usage of your arrangement to come to conclusions based on what you think is interpretatively relevant in the specific context. I think information goes through such a process to become a functioning opinion or perspective that examining this process becomes more important than anything else. As their opinion, while using their arrangement of truths and based on what they consider to be interpretatively relevant is possibly correct. So whatever impact the opinion or perspective has on their thinking, there is no reason for it to be challenged, regardless of what behaviour becomes logical or justified.

    I am not sure to what extent this understanding should be used to understand the behaviour of others but I believe it should have an impact.
  • Banno
    25.1k


    I'd add Triangulation. This involves subjecting your monologue to critique, both from reality and from other folk.
  • Banno
    25.1k
    ...and the title ought be "Arrangement of Belief".

    Edit: I see multiple others, including @fdrake and @creativesoul, have made much the same point. One might follow your arrangement meticulously and yet not speak the truth.
  • Number2018
    560
    if we decided to rate a mutual acquaintance's intelligence, even with the same information, you might rate them lowly due to how you recall them being bad at maths and I might judge them highly because I think they're articulate. Even though I knew that this person was bad at maths, that wasn't something I thought was relevant to their intelligence, so it was excluded from my interpretation.

    So when you combine these two concepts (and undoubtedly more which we aren't talking about), you have your arrangement which is implicitly personal and then your usage of your arrangement to come to conclusions based on what you think is interpretatively relevant in the specific context. I think information goes through such a process to become a functioning opinion or perspective that examining this process becomes more important than anything else. As their opinion, while using their arrangement of truths and based on what they consider to be interpretatively relevant is possibly correct. So whatever impact the opinion or perspective has on their thinking, there is no reason for it to be challenged, regardless of what behaviour becomes logical or justified.
    Judaka
    I think you completely misunderstood or misinterpreted what I tried to outline. My intention was to prioritize impersonal, collective social processes. In principal, I do not think that the process of formation of one’s opinion functions like processing ‘bits of information’. Bits of information, mere or brute facts, proceeding bits of information, are just virtual concepts, abstractions, isolated pieces of various conceptualizations, taken out of the determinant social contexts.

    What I understand is that interpretations, characterisations and the like certainly mesh with facts by being so closely attached to the fact being interpreted or characterised, they become indistinguishable to some.Judaka
    They are usually indistinguishable in the case of ordinary language. If so, we already deal with a few syntheses, even in the most straightforward everyday speech cases. Though interpretations, characterizations, etc. are quite common discursive devices, they are inseparable from various unintentional operational arrangements.
    The "angriness" of the man as I said in my OP becomes the angry man but that he is a man is a fact while his angriness is a characterisation of something - his behaviour, tone of voice, whatever else.Judaka
    You assume that terms (a man) are primary, and relations (angriness as a relation between a man and his behaviour) is secondary. On the contrary, I think that the terms of the relation are completely undetermined until they enter into a particular relation: a man without emotion is a nonsensical being.
    Further, if we start from a man as an essential fact, we should suppose a man's identity as a matter of an Ideal Essence, which is then somehow instantiated on the worldly plane.
    I do think that it might be sufficient to just say that brute facts + (add subjectivity) + widespread acceptance could = social fact and the social fact is not distinguished from a brute fact. After all, I don't think people often do distinguish between social facts and brute facts, that's not a widespread concept from my experience. So I may have misunderstood something because I wouldn't have said a particular arrangement of truth was crucial for this process.Judaka
    In general, people do not distinguish between social facts and brute facts, but the identification of a complex social fact as a mere fact, and the processes of recognition are impossible without the inscription of the status of truth. When you state a fact, you (most often implicitly) effectuate some system (arrangement) of truth. Even when one states a simple fact, there is no apparent natural truth. I think that unless we deliberately isolate some mathematical, or logical systems, we never start with a set of essential truths, and then develop or deduct consequent truths. In math, the presupposed truth arrangement cannot be separated from essential statements (axioms) or concepts. Arrangement of truth (the reasonable and correct logical ways of deduction and induction, various analytic strategies, etc.), direct and manage one’s thinking essential mathematical facts. For social actor, her worldview dominates over her system of values and beliefs. The worldview cannot be separated from the results of socially determined processes of normative recognition. One lives life as grounded on a set of essential (true) social facts. Yet, any recognition or identification results from operations of socio-political institutions and apparatuses, incorporating and applying various regimes (arrangements) of truth. Louis Althusser called them ideological state apparatuses: “all obviousnesses, including those that make a word 'name a thing' or 'have a meaning’ (therefore including the obviousness of the 'transparency' of language) and that does not cause any problems - is an ideological effect. It is indeed a peculiarity of ideology that it imposes (without appearing to do so, since these are 'obviousnesses') obviousnesses as obviousnesses, which we cannot fail to recognize and before which we have the inevitable and natural reaction of crying out (aloud or in the 'silence of consciousness') : 'That's obvious! That's right! That's true!'” (Louis Althusser ‘Ideology and State Ideological Apparatuses’). Any social fact that we accept and recognize as an accurate and correct is the product of particular arrangements' operations. When you merely start with the facts' truth, you run a risk of the unintentional effectuation of the hidden 'ideological' assemblage.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    I think you completely misunderstood or misinterpreted what I tried to outline. My intention was to prioritize impersonal, collective social processes. In principal, I do not think that the process of formation of one’s opinion functions like processing ‘bits of information’. Bits of information, mere or brute facts, proceeding bits of information, are just virtual concepts, abstractions, isolated pieces of various conceptualizations, taken out of the determinant social contexts.Number2018

    Yes, I would agree that it doesn't really happen like that, I misunderstood, I could see how in some small contexts my response could be applicable but I don't think in general that things should be thought of that way. I didn't really mean to say that we input information and output opinion or anything like that. Since I misunderstood your intent, I will just leave it at that.

    You assume that terms (a man) are primary, and relations (angriness as a relation between a man and his behaviour) is secondary. On the contrary, I think that the terms of the relation are completely undetermined until they enter into a particular relation: a man without emotion is a nonsensical being.
    Further, if we start from a man as an essential fact, we should suppose a man's identity as a matter of an Ideal Essence, which is then somehow instantiated on the worldly plane.
    Number2018

    True, a man without emotion is nonsensical but even if we agreed on what anger is, the characterisation in reality functions without accordance with reality. You could say that I seem angry right now and I could reasonably deny it. It is not about primary and secondary. It's about how characterisations can be more or less contentious, it's about who has the authority to make the judgement.

    In general, people do not distinguish between social facts and brute facts, but the identification of a complex social fact as a mere fact, and the processes of recognition are impossible without the inscription of the status of truth.Number2018

    Yes, of course.

    When you state a fact, you (most often implicitly) effectuate some system (arrangement) of truth.Number2018

    I see. I mostly thought of the arrangement of truth as being more explicitly stated, consciously understood. Logically, I see what you're saying, the same explanation you gave of the social fact of money and how acknowledging the item means acknowledging the system. Truths are acknowledged and must also acknowledge a system and that system can be called an arrangement of truth. Is that correct?

    The worldview cannot be separated from the results of socially determined processes of normative recognition. One lives life as grounded on a set of essential (true) social facts. Yet, any recognition or identification results from operations of socio-political institutions and apparatuses, incorporating and applying various regimes (arrangements) of truth.Number2018

    So you are saying that because one's worldview depends on social facts and social facts depend on an implied arrangement of truth and this arrangement of truth is determined by various social, economic and political factors, we can see these factors as restricting our capacity for types of worldviews? Influencing how we see things? Is that correct?

    Any social fact that we accept and recognize as an accurate and correct is the product of particular arrangements' operations. When you merely start with the facts' truth, you run a risk of the unintentional effectuation of the hidden 'ideological' assemblage.Number2018

    I hope I have the above correct and that I now understand you properly. If so, then you've taken the concept in a very interesting direction. I need time to think about it and to see a response validating my interpretation.
  • fdrake
    6.6k
    I don't really disagree that the terms objective and subjective have issues. Thinking of alternative conceptualisations has been on my mind lately but I've yet to settle on anything. Mostly what I am interested in is looking at the effects of a viewpoint on an individual and challenging the individual to ask not what is true but what effect their ideas and beliefs are having on their lives. Analysing characterisations or narratives - looking at the consequences and evaluating what outcomes are good and why and how can we try for those outcomes.Judaka

    Something rough and ready in that regard:

    Subjective/objective in their usual use are better parsed as matters of taste (subjective) and not matters of taste (objective). I think of a matter of taste as a condition whereby having the opinion/taste is sufficient and necessary for its truth. EG: I like coffee. Roughly whenever thinking something makes it so.

    Issues which are not matters of taste break down into either failing the sufficiency or the necessity clause or both. If the connection between having a belief and its truth fails to be sufficient; then the fact that you have an opinion need not say anything other than that you have it (matters of fact). If they fail to be necessary, perhaps you are committed to things that you do not know (matters of ideology/behaviour).

    Things of note fail both; we can be wrong in ways we don't understand, we can be wrong about something and not know we think it (but nevertheless we are committed to it). If having a belief but being unaware of it is something incomprehensible, spending some time in therapy will both convince you otherwise and probably make you feel better.

    My interest in OP is based on such thoughts, as far as the best method for determining what is or isn't true, honestly, I had given much less thought to how this might bear on that. I was really thinking more about challenging the unwarranted truth status given in a variety of contexts which I was unhappy about.Judaka

    I think the motivating context for the subjective/objective framing is usually matter of taste vs not matter of taste. Like seeing politics as a choice between really important ice cream flavours (and nevertheless choosing vanilla with chocolate chip for unexamined psychosexual reasons latent in the colonial unconscious :P)
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    My interest in the subjective/objective framing is to distinguish between what @Number2018 has called "brute facts" and pretty much everything else. The importance of which is how it is relevant to my approach to understanding it. So if you drink coffee every morning then the claim that you do can be verified by the evidence alone. If the claim is that you like coffee then crucial elements of this statement are not verified by the evidence alone, it's not a brute fact. So I have come to like this framing, clearly signifying the dependence of the fact on institutions of thought.

    Then with "social facts" for instance, we can see that although evidence alone is not sufficient for verification, to call it a matter of taste is simply unreasonable. Because someone born into an environment where this social fact exists is going to have a really tough time doing anything except accepting it although exceptions may apply. I suppose that other categories help to signify the nature of the claim and how it is NOT merely a matter of taste. It is just a very helpful framing which really embodies what I see as the correct way to see things.

    What do you think about this?
  • Number2018
    560
    I mostly thought of the arrangement of truth as being more explicitly stated, consciously understood. Logically, I see what you're saying, the same explanation you gave of the social fact of money and how acknowledging the item means acknowledging the system. Truths are acknowledged and must also acknowledge a system and that system can be called an arrangement of truth. Is that correct?Judaka

    because one's worldview depends on social facts and social facts depend on an implied arrangement of truth and this arrangement of truth is determined by various social, economic and political factors, we can see these factors as restricting our capacity for types of worldviews? Influencing how we see things? Is that correct?Judaka

    Yes, now you understand me much better. Probably, I could not articulate my points clear enough, so thank you for your patience! :smile: You are right; in your OP, you involve a more explicit and logically coherent conception of truth than what I suggested. All in all, your outline is precise, logical, and intelligible. I tried to broaden it
    to better deal with the latest debates and situations. Still, we are so concerned about truth… But what if at the heart of our discussions is not the truth, but the image of truth? “Narration ceases to be truthful, that is, to claim to be true and becomes fundamentally falsifying. This is not at all a case of ‘each has its own truth,’ a variability of content. It is a power of the false which replaces and supersedes the form of the true, because it poses the simultaneity of incompossible presents, or the coexistence of not-necessary true pasts…The truthful man dies, every model of truth collapses, in favor of the new narration.” (Gilles Deleuze, ‘Cinema 2 The Time-Image’). In many domains of social life (politics, the media, marketing), the construction of social reality has been so accelerated and shirt-circuited that the distinction between brute facts and social facts has been vanishing. As a result, the whole system of reference has been deformed, and we encounter
    “the simultaneity of incompossible presents, or the coexistence of not-necessary true pasts’.
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