Yes.

So what's going on here? What is happening? Why can't we stop? — csalisbury

The intellect is the realm of partial truths and dismantled cuckoo clocks.

Do stuff that obstructs thought like mountain climbing.

So what's going on here? What is happening? Why can't we stop? — csalisbury

It seems to me that there must be some need or desire -- and perhaps it's the sort of desire which is not fulfilled. It can be like thirst, in that the need is reoccurring, or it can be like anxiety, in which the desire is productive of itself -- where desire forms a kind of self-reinforcing feedback loop, so the very act of declaring the Truth makes us desire to do so again, but more.

I imagine that the desire at play probably varies. With Plato you have a profound disappointment with the world as it is, especially the political world, and an attempt to make it better. With Aristotle, so it seems to me at least, he has an incurable curiosity. This psychologizes what is properly philosophical, and is of course very speculative on that count, but I only offer these as possibilities for answering your question (possibilities that are my best guesses, but I recognize how weak these sorts of claims are too).

I'm not sure if this is satisfactory, but it's my best first attempt at answering the question in the spirit you pose it.

Why can't we stop? — csalisbury

Indeed; all that is needed is that one stop. — Banno

Bravo!

So the disease of philosophy is the need to, combined with the impossibility of, stating the Truth... — Banno

It is quite possible to speak truth -- provided one does not aspire to be God, and believe that to know truly, one must know exhaustively

This. I think it's literally just what brains do. They build stable theories of the world. And it's natural for a person, when asked, to preach it. Universal self-criticality and agnosticism are something that just isn't common or completely natural

Also, I don't think vocalizing your beliefs in that way necessarily implies they're unquestionably held. I'm sure Derrida would've been open to criticism about his personal theory

What makes "The snow is white" true is the snow being white. That's not a justification. — Banno

As usual, the missing words are being white “to us”. Truths are always ultimately psychological facts, not ontic ones, as they require that reality has the further thing of a point of view.

Nietzsche believed in the will to power as underlying all human motivation, and so also the will to truth. He described philosophy somewhere as being the most spiritual form of will to power.

There are ample examples in history of truth capital T being used to serve the ruling class, and wars being fought with ideas. So it's not that hard to see where he's coming from here.

He also believed in different human types, biologically determined more or less. If one is of the philosophical type, will to power would tend to manifest itself in this way... so a virus maybe, or maybe just the nature of the beast?

But one of the big appeals - one of the temptations you see thinker after thinker succumbing to - is the possibility of pronouncing the Truth. Of being the one who pronounces. — csalisbury

People want to know if a belief is true, there's nothing more natural. Does God exist? Does God not exist? Is one belief better than another, or are all beliefs purely subjective? Everyone one has a philosophy of life, you can't escape it. Even your ideas put forth a certain philosophy. It needs unpacked quite a bit, but I'm sure there is a philosophy about truth pronouncements in there somewhere. Once you put forth your philosophy, people want to know if it's true. Then they might ask if it's subjectively true or objectively true, and on and on it goes. That's how we discover.

As usual, the missing words are being white “to us”. Truths are always ultimately psychological facts, not ontic ones, as they require that reality has the further thing of a point of view. — apokrisis

I don't agree with the always part, but your overall point does raise a problem I still have with deflationary notions of truth.

We can all agree that snow looks white when we see white snow. We can also agree that science tells us pure snow reflects all visible light into our eyes, which is why we see white.

But in a philosophy discussion, the question we typically want answered is whether the snow is actually white.

As such:

Ontologically speaking, the snow is white is true if and only if there is real, mind-independent snow that has a property of being white in a way that snow appears white to us.

It's not good enough to go look and see that the snow is white, because appearances can be false. And on a scientific understanding of how vision works, the snow only appears to be white to us. The colored in world we see around us isn't how the world is, it's how it looks for conscious creatures with visual systems like ours.

The colored in world we see around us isn't how the world is, it's how it looks for conscious creatures with visual systems like ours. — Marchesk

Correct. So what better example of a psychological truth could be imagined?

So what better example of a psychological truth could be imagined? — apokrisis

Just for the heck of it, what do you say psychology is? I confess to a bias against much of it, which admittedly should not cause bias against all of it. Except that for the failings of psychology (as I see it, and them), psychologists seem uninterested in putting their own house in order. But on your take on it, I may be able to suspend my "disbelief."

You think the whole of psychology is a failed science somehow? A bit sweeping.

How could you possibly be so sure, if it is a work in process? — Banno

Ever been a while on a sailboat? After a while you start being able to sense the wind shift direction before it does. Maybe it's something like that... ?

The colored in world we see around us isn't how the world is, it's how it looks for conscious creatures with visual systems like ours. — Marchesk

This relation is symmetrical. The world is also the world that appears coloured to such creatures as us.

This relation is symmetrical. The world is also the world that appears coloured to such creatures as us. — Akanthinos

True, but we could also apply this to various illusions.

The stick is bent in water is false even though the light being refracted by the water makes it appear bent. And thus begins the appearance/reality distinction.


Is the following statement about the picture below true or false?

The surface of A is a darker shade of gray than the surface of B.



False, they're the same shade, which I verified with my color picker: RGB( 126,126,126 ).

The truth in this case is different than what it appears to be to us.

Ultimately, it seems, that's a self-defeating position. If you can use illusions to doubt appearance, then why can't you use it to doubt your attempt at verification by colour picker. You've opened the floodgates, have you not?

False, they're the same shade, which I verified with my color picker: RGB( 126,126,126 ).

The truth in this case is different than what it appears to be to us. — Marchesk

Part of the issue can also be with the perceived meaning of the question. While it says shade, perhaps some interpret it to mean natural color (which excludes shadow).

However as long as there is a standard by which the meaning and truth of claims can be decided (such as verifying with a color picker), then there is no in-principle problem.

As a whole, yes. In parts, no.

I'm none the wiser about what you want to say here. My comments are based on pretty basic psychophysics and neurocognitive research. I would presume those would be the parts that work.

I thought the question straightforward. You're writing about psychology. I'm asking you for what you understand psychology to be, expressing en passant my own skepticism about psychology in part to give some background to my question. I pluck this off the internet:

"Psychology is the science of behavior and mind, including conscious and unconscious phenomena, as well as feeling and thought."

What are conscious and unconscious phenomena? The question is rhetorical, rhetorical because I do not think it answerable unless "conscious and unconscious phenomena" is restated in some way that makes more sense. And I doubt very much if the science of "the behaviour of mind" is anything more than observations, and observations on the observations - that is, not any sort of science at all. I realize there are exceptions, and maybe I'm a half-century out of date, but that's why I asked. Left to my own devices, I would say that any discussion of psychology lacking a good solid definition of either what psychology is or how it works, is a waste of time. I recognize that some psychologists will bristle at this, but in that case we go back to what,exactly, science is and how it works and then compare.

I'll assume that psychophysics and neurocognitive research are science.

There's a lot of stuff that philosophers do and and a lot of stuff that can be done with philosophy.

But one of the big appeals - one of the temptations you see thinker after thinker succumbing to - is the possibility of pronouncing the Truth. Of being the one who pronounces. — csalisbury

Well, I don't. I just state how things appear to me in the present moment. Probably because I take the problem of induction and the regress problem a bit too seriously.

Truth, capital T, gets eviscerated by the postmoderns, but the gesture and drive lives on nontheless in their works. Derrida is emblematic here. More truth-shaking than anyone AND ALSO the most pronouncy person who ever lived.


Capital T truth is pronounced synoptically. Anything else that might be said will, inevitably, fall within the ambit of the truth pronounced - and so can be given its proper place.

Nietzsche already more or less said that but kept doing it anyway.

So what's going on here? What is happening? Why can't we stop?

"Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels in your head! You imagine great things, and depict to yourself a whole world of gods that has an existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea!"
-Max Stirner, "The Ego And His Own", p. 43.

The question is rhetorical, rhetorical because I do not think it answerable unless "conscious and unconscious phenomena" is restated in some way that makes more sense. — tim wood

Well OK. So here for example I would note that neurocognitive researchers don't actually talk much about conscious and unconscious. They talk about attentional and habitual, or voluntary and automatic.

They don't find a mentalistic jargon useful. They employ concepts that can be cashed out in terms of neurocognitive mechanisms, or behavioural criteria. So psychology - to the degree it is scientific - does restate "conscious and unconscious phenomena" in ways that make more sense to scientific inquiry.

I realize there are exceptions, and maybe I'm a half-century out of date, but that's why I asked. — tim wood

The psychology of the 1970s was indeed pretty dismal. Behaviourism had little to offer. Cognitive psychology was too wedded to computationalism. Neuroscience classes were run by the medical school and had little to say about functional architecture.

But a lot has changed. Evolutionary and social psychology have become big. So too, functional anatomy. Psychology has been put on a decent biological and developmental footing.

Maybe you are talking about psychology as therapy or something?

Capital T truth is pronounced synoptically. Anything else that might be said will, inevitably, fall within the ambit of the truth pronounced - and so can be given its proper place. — csalisbury

Really, it need not be like this. One might say "this is the way I see things, do you see them in the same way?", instead of pronouncing the truth This is quite different from what apokrisis expresses:

Be that as it may, my response was simply that the right way to go about things is to "pronounce truth" - as that is then inviting falsification head on. It is saying, come have a go. — apokrisis

What apokrisis expresses is an aggressive form of self-assertion, the other an expression of insecure, uncertainty. Psychologically they represent two completely distinct, and somewhat opposed attitudes.

So "Snow is white" is a statement, and not a state of affairs, but that snow is white is a state of affairs, but not a statement?

This line of thinking is quite confused.

Can we get by without it? I think we can. — Banno

The confusion might be worse than it first seems:

Awareness of what is ontic (i.e., of what factually is in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals) precedes our understanding for the epistemological criterion of truth.

This is so because truth, as it’s commonly understood, is a relation between one or more points of view (the existence of which is itself an ontological position; i.e., is itself a judgement concerning a state of affairs) and that which these apprehend to be ontic, i.e. to factually be (aka, to be reality or real, but here not necessarily limited to semantics associated with materialistic realism).

The philosophical paradox emerges in that we thereby need to first philosophically know of an ontology, of some state of affairs in general, in order to then discern what particular truths are and, consequently, what is knowledge (this when knowledge is in any way contingent on the property of truth—don’t know what knowledge would be otherwise).

So ontology predates epistemology, but we need epistemic criteria by which to appraise and establish some ontology.

Is this chicken and egg conundrum between ontology and epistemology itself an inherent aspect of Truth? Don’t know. But it certainly isn’t a consciously intended falsehood.



The heck is capital-T Truth supposed to be anyway—other than a nifty synonym for that which factually is in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals? In which case why not just call it reality, or that which is real? And don’t we all then have a working model of what reality is, one which we sometimes attempt to enlighten others about in places such as these? Maybe it’s the lack of acknowledged fallibilism involved with many such affirmations.

Just passing through. Interesting stuff so far. Thought I might be able to stir up the waters a bit.

The heck is capital-T Truth supposed to be anyway — javra

I think csal is talking about philosophical narrative as "Truth" and criticizing that.

I'm seeking the end of the suffering of planet earth and it's inhabitants.

That would make sense in an intuitive way. I’m interpreting it as “the map is not road”. Still, don’t all philosophical narratives intend to expound of that which is real or reality? This taking it for granted that they’re not instances of intentional deception. So, allegorically speaking, if the map is true because it accurately depicts the road, then wouldn’t the map be an expression of Truth?

I’m not big on Truth myself, by the way. It to me reeks of infallibilist mindsets—and the authoritarianism that too often accompanies them. All the same, I confidently uphold that there is a set of factual givens that occur in manners indifferent to subjective appraisals—a reality that we can ever-better approximate in our collective body of knowledge.

That would make sense in an intuitive way. I’m interpreting it as “the map is not road”. Still, don’t all philosophical narratives intend to expound of that which is real or reality? This taking it for granted that they’re not instances of intentional deception. So, allegorically speaking, if the map is true because it accurately depicts the road, then wouldn’t the map be an expression of Truth? — javra

Agree, and that was more or less the point of some of us here. I don't see how the big T can be avoided with a coherent philosophical narrative even if it's not explicitly put as such.

So psychology - to the degree it is scientific — apokrisis

Maybe you are talking about psychology as therapy or something? — apokrisis

I have science defined in two ways: 1) organized thinking about a determinate subject matter, and 2) the endeavor that uses the scientific method (including hypotheses, experiments, conclusions, replication).

Sure, psychology as science, respectable, sez I. Psychology as concerning mental health, especially via counseling and therapy, neither science nor organized thinking. This is not to say that a good therapist/counselor is worthless (bad ones certainly are, or worse), only that what he or she is doing is not science in the sense of 1) or 2) above (they're doing counseling/therapy).

And (it seems to me - and here I have to take correction if necessary), a lot of psychology is just observation followed by opinions about the observations, that is, not only not a science, but also a non-rigorous and non-self-critical activity.

But all of these style themselves as psychology. Which leaves the question: If psychology permits such varied and variously qualified bed-partners, wouldn't you say they were running a disreputable house?

Maybe you're right; maybe I'm stuck in the way-back machine. Can you speak to the general quality of the work of psychology, of psychologists, taken as a whole? Or are you somewhat like me, at least in thinking that while some psychologists are fine fellows doing fine work, that qualification does not extend to and cover all of psychology, so-called.

This isn't worth a lot of column inches. No need to chew on this if there's no meat on the bone.