• Caleb
    10
    I am looking for sources on philosophers who discuss how one's education impacts truth, one's faith impacts truth, and one's experiences impacts truth. Will someone point me in the right direction please?
  • Caleb
    10
    thanks! i'm looking for scholarly articles, as well as famous philosophers who have spoken on these ideas.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Better to start by trying to figure out what truth is, or lacking that, drafting a good working definition. If you think "truth" is going to be any kid of a life preserver, you'll sink with it. Or if some kind of fixed point by which you can navigate, you'll get lost. Nothing wrong with the word; it just isn't quite what you think it is, nor worth what you might think it's worth.
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    I don't really dwell in articles, so please forgive me. But I can speak generally in that this is a historic topic, so you can arguably trace it back to the Greek idea where everything is one. Zeno is my favorite because he's handily archetypal. The next marker would be either Descartes or Kant, who juggled ideas about the mind, and were hugely influential. Their work is documented extensively, the latter accidentally defining a philosophical schism which still exists. The constructivist approach is an attitude which has developed since the 60's, also extensively documented. It's quite modular, almost atomic in principle. Being a champion of independence, I'll save you my personal response to that particular thought, but in essence it's coherentist..
  • Caleb
    10
    for purpose of this research. truth is what one accepts as being true. my thesis is that knowledge determines truth. and my approach is looking at how one's education, faith, and experience impacts their truth.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    You may well think it's a small point, but true and truth are very different words. It's good to be aware of it. Defining truth as what one accepts as true is actually pretty good. It puts the attention back on "true." Just sayin'.
  • Caleb
    10
    thank-you! veracity is my assigned speech topic. would you say that defining truth is an essential part of my introduction before getting into my main points of education, faith, and experience?
  • Caleb
    10
    thank-you for those names and direction. my current approach is discussing the different theories of determining truth and how they all fall short of absolute truth. with the conclusion that the only way to obtain absolute truth on any given subject one would have to be omniscient on that subject. an impossible feet.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Depends on how much trouble you want to cause. Truth has been a topic of several threads, here My own notion is that truth is exactly and only that which makes true statements true, the quality those statements have. As such, I understand it as an abstract collective noun: that is, there is no such thing as truthin itself. Maybe someday someone will teach me otherwise.

    As to true, whatever is reckoned true seems to be true only in respect of those criteria. Both words get lots of the world's work done, but both get difficult the closer you look at them. Truth nearly evaporates; true becomes particular.

    None of this matter in non-critical contexts....
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    Hold on.. truth is regarded as a linguistic qualifier. I feel like terms are being misused here.

    What is metaphysically real is called so. Truth is a statement which is logically valid, in language.

    "All fathers are male" is a statement of truth. "All fathers exist" is real based on accepted models.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    "All fathers are male" is a statement of truth.Thrifclyfe

    Which is to say that it is true - except maybe for seahorses. Can you offer any definition of truth not in terms of true?
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    It would probably rely on the concept of logic. Predicate, term, and propositional.

    Your objection is an objection of terms. This can be substituted effortlessly for any other quantifier.
  • Caleb
    10
    "All fathers are male" is a statement of truth. "All fathers exist" is real based on accepted models." This would fall under the theory of coherence which makes sense based off of your earlier statement of being coherentist. Which is probably the closest way we can test truth, but it still falls short to our human limitation having to accept as true the most coherent explanation with available facts.
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    In the case that truth is constructed, we can remedy this by rigorous scientific analysis. I adhere to a faintly positivist attitude that science is true, and that humans are merely representations of data which can be expressed mathematically, even their beliefs. It's not perfect but it has a funny habit of predicting the future. To me that's quite real.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    Your objection is an objection of terms. This can be substituted effortlessly for any other quantifier.Thrifclyfe

    Indeed it is. One's an adjective, one's a noun. Taking a noun as "person, place, or thing," what sort of person, place, or thing, would you say a noun is?
  • Caleb
    10
    this might sound silly but i have a couple rebuttals to science and math. one is that science is based off of theories (which i understand go under rigorous tests to become such), however theories can/have changed over time with new discoveries. math, obviously something that is universally accepted but one could argue based on their education or lack of that maybe even mathematicians got it wrong. exhibit a: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS2aEfbEi7s
  • Caleb
    10
    A=B,B=C, then A=C. this way of testing truth is limited because it requires another test of truth to use standard.
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    Right. Science's refinement is a subject. I point to the fact humanity has found it useful as the truest marker because competing theories have yet failed to achieve its results.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    What is accepted as true is always a function of whatever presuppositions are in force. A question arises: is it presuppositions all the down? Or is there an absolute. Of course the absolute would have to be free of the taint of presupposition, no so easy to find.
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    Where are you going? Monism?
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    I don't know what monism is, unless you're channeling Leibniz. Where I'm going I've already arrived, that truth is really hard to define unless you define it in terms of true; that is, qualitatively. But what quality? Th quality of being true, of course. But beyond listing particular examples of true statements, how would you define truth otherwise than in terms of them? My only point here is that truth, and true, too, are merely functional words - what they mean or signify depends on what you want (even if you don't really know what you want!).
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    Monism is the idea that all things are of the same substance. Difficulty arises when numbers are paired with physical events because the mind appears to be the only factor pairing them.

    I mentioned elsewhere truth is a linguistic statement. All good philosophers define their terms, and the term you are possibly looking for is "reality".

    Insofar as truth is concerned, outside of modal logic, it's a statement of preference. The reality that there are no truths and that society is contrived is essentially a statement of belief.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    I mentioned elsewhere truth is a linguistic statement. All good philosophers define their terms, and the term you are possibly looking for is "reality".

    Insofar as truth is concerned, outside of modal logic, it's a statement of preference. The reality that there are no truths and that society is contrived is essentially a statement of belief.
    Thrifclyfe
    I could use a little clarification: "truth is a linguistic statement." Don't you mean that a truth is a linguistic statement? If not then what do you mean?

    Are you suggesting that truth *is* reality? Maybe time for a reality check. If you wish to continue, please offer a definition of truth.

    I do not understand your second paragraph.
  • Caleb
    10
    so is there a philosopher that would agree that one's knowledge obtained from education (in the sense of consensus gentium), beliefs, and experience determines truth?
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    When you apply terminal logic to terms, they inevitably become atomic and meaningless.

    Aquinas was a philosopher who was obsessed with education, and scholasticism endures.

    Comments about the social order weren't regarded as relevant in the time Thomas lived.
  • Caleb
    10
    this may be an odd request but would either of you mind Skyping tomorrow around noon (central time)? the messages are becoming a bit tangled and confusing, and i think it would help with clarification.
  • Thrifclyfe
    17
    "Thrif you make no sense"

    Not again..
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    so is there a philosopher that would agree that one's knowledge obtained from education (in the sense of consensus gentium), beliefs, and experience determines truth?Caleb
    Sure, but no doubt with some - a lot - of qualifications.

    Unlike most, such a person would trouble to define his/her terms before making any categorical statements about them. It would likely fall out that defining the terms would provide an answer.
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