By language, here, I mean meaningful sentences (MSs) of the general form S is P. For an MS to be true, it must accurately describe some aspect of reality, that is, be descriptive of a thing. — tim wood

This is pretty close to the verification principle (or the verifiability criterion of meaning) which is the philosophical theory that only statements that are empirically verifiable (ie. verifiable through the senses) are cognitively meaningful. The most well-known statement of that was A J Ayer's Language Truth and Logic.

MSs like 2+2=4, because they work perfectly, are here deemed perfectly true, or completely and absolutely true. — tim wood

They are true 'a priori', i.e. true by virtue of logic, tautogically true, as are all mathematical truths or truths of logic, e.g. 'bachelors are unmarried'.

The idea of "table" is certain, so that if it were ever possible to determine that the thing is entirely a table, then the MS that asserts it is a table would be a descriptive MS that was absolutely and completely true. — tim wood

What does 'certain' mean here? It's rather like a reference to the Platonic form of table - the idea is the perfect archetype of which actual tables are imperfect instances.

The difficulty - my difficulty - is with people who represent their beliefs as being true, and acting on them as if they were. — tim wood

I suspect this is the real point of the OP. You're basically re-stating the Vienna Circle arguments about verifiable beliefs contra theological, metaphysical or religious ideas, by which means you're trying to define 'truth' in such a way as they can be excluded; exactly as did Carnap, Ayer, and various other positivists.

1. Reality is real.
a. Only reality is real
b. Only things are real
i. For the moment the test of thingness is if in principle it can be felt, seen, smelled, heard, or tasted. Here, at least, neither numbers, love, justice, nor any ideas at all, are things. — tim wood

Reality is more complex than this. There is also the movement of things. The movement of things creates a difficulty for the "S is P" form of sentence, because it is described as a relationship between one thing and another.

Let's see if some rules help. It seems to me there are really just three ways to respond to rules:
1. agree with them
2. modify and improve them
3. demonstrate where they're wrong.

Of course one may also dislike them, but that's neither here nor there. — tim wood

Why? You have the unqualified "agree" option - why is there no "disagree" option?

Anyway, you don't have to start from scratch, you know. Truth

Thank you Wayfarer and MU! (MU, are you one and the same as another MU...?) You're both right on! But perhaps you agree with me that what true and truth mean seems to depend on what's being considered, as if they were not a one, but a many. And there are no end of traps and rabbit holes to get stuck or lost in, here.

It seems to me that true is a quality that some propositions have, calling them here meaningful sentences (MSs). But I cannot do any better with truth than to say that truth is simply, and only, the abstract generalization of true taken across all true statements. It's a little like saying number means quantity, but that (clearly) "number" provides no clue as to any particular quantity.

Even if truth is a many, from there being more than one kind of true, there is still the problem of particular "trues." Which ones are, and by what standard, or must we say standards?

Kant famously limited knowledge to make room for faith. I'm looking at limiting faith to preserve truth. I think pure Positivism is a one-size-fits-all solution that creates more problems than it solves. At the same time, I wonder if it can truly be that "true" comes in so many sizes and flavors that we need resort to large cardinals to understand how many there are. Godel might argue this way.

Back to simplicity, if possible. A useful idea here is about presuppositions. In order to think or do anything, we presuppose, usually not consciously. In the course of any endeavor we may question some of these presuppositions - and indeed we should! But if you plow deep enough you find presuppositions that you don't question, because, for example, they ground the thinking you're doing. You could question whether they're true, but that questioning simultaneously destroys the thinking you started with. With these presuppositions, "it is not their business to be true, it is their business to be presupposed." (RG Collingwood).

We can thus set aside some claims to truth by understanding that those who make the claims are merely making explicit some of the absolute presuppositions of their thinking (assuming they're honest to begin with!), and ignorantly claiming that they're true. Which claim, properly understood, subjects the absolute presupposition to metaphysical analysis that instantly destroys it by turning it into an ordinary presupposition - that is, one subject to question.

And the concept of accuracy, keeping in mind that this is a relative standard: an MS is as true as it is accurate. Unfortunately, accuracy can be subject to understanding, and different folks can have different understandings.

Perhaps the solution to problems with the idea of accuracy lies in demonstrability - shades of positivism here - or at the least in prior agreement (not necessarily temporal priority, although that's usually the smoothest way).

My point here is that to my way of thinking true needs absolute criteria, whether one or a few - but not a many. Otherwise, as a practical matter, there is no true, no truth.

As to tables, it's not so much the idea of Platonic perfection v. actual imperfection, rather it's the idea that to be a table requires something (and I'm not going there) that makes it a table. If it does not have that, it's hard to argue that it is a table. And having that "certainty," presumably easily attainable, one can aver that X is a table, and that the MS that expresses that can be absolutely and completely true. The trick lies in conformance to a minimal idea, the minimal idea of being a table. Suggestive of, but not at all the same thing as a Platonic ideal.

Well, you can disagree with a rule, but one hopes the disagreement is for some relevant and useful reason which can aid in refining or rejecting the rule. In terms of the progress of any argument, mere disagreement get no one anywhere, and thus really is neither here nor there.

Thank you for the link to Stanford. It's hard sometimes to keep in mind, especially a one-gerbil power mind like mine, how much is available at the click of a mouse. I read this sentence there in the second paragraph; "It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way." It's a better man than I am who can travel that route and not fall dazed by the wayside. That is part of the reason I'm appealing to some standard a little simpler and more accessible, and with this assurance of at least being able to hope for some success: everyone knows what the truth is.....

3) Within language, rules matter. We can start with the rules of identity, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle. Call it logic, for that's what it is. — tim wood

You write about presuppositions and here to my mind is one of yours. These three rules are about formal language. They aren't about ordinary language. We all talk about excluded middles, contradictions and non-identity in our ordinary language. The purported rules of logic don't just arise out of 'language'. They are part of a deliberate and brilliant exercise by logicians to use less unruly languages than the ones we actually ordinarily use.

Then in formal language the steps of logic bear truth boldly onwards. Meanwhile I pop round to the Square Orange cafe for tea, to discuss a friend who both is and isn't married to a transexual who goes under many names, including a professional one.

True? :)

i. For the moment the test of thingness is if in principle it can be felt, seen, smelled, heard, or tasted. Here, at least, neither numbers, love, justice, nor any ideas at all, are things. — tim wood

Just a thought, but could you not also define something as being a 'thing' if it has an effect? For example, some things, like society, cannot be physically sensed (ie, we cannot 'feel' society, 'see' society, etc.), but their impact can be (ie, we can see the effect of society in physical things like infrastructure, public buildings, etc.).

If, on the other hand, you think that it cannot be considered to be a 'thing', then what exactly is it? If it is not a 'thing', then it doesn't fit into your definition of being 'real' either. At least, that's my interpretation of what you're saying (I could be wrong).

Additionally, if you include 'having an effect' as being a property of 'thingness', then it becomes quite hard to draw lines between 'things' and 'not-things'. For example, justice could be considered to have an effect on the natural world in that it causes humans to do certain things, like kill other humans (using capital punishment as an example), and thus is a 'thing'. However, earlier you mentioned that it could not be considered to be a 'thing' because of it not being a physical entity.

What do you think?

(By the way, I am not necessarily arguing for this amendment to your definition, merely bringing it to your attention).

Maybe "society" is an abstract term that gathers a lot of things together. I think it's fair to say that society (in itself, of course) never caused anything. This also gets into just what "cause" means, and the only way to resolve that is to decide ahead of time what it means.

And your point would be the start of a whole other dialogue and a perfectly good one. But before we go there, perhaps you'd take on the propositions of the OP. The question put most simply is, does "true" have a determinate meaning? Or is it just a matter of context and interpretation? I think it does have a determinate meaning, but that the horizon of that meaning is limited as described above.

Do you find a fault? Or do you agree?

I am tempted by a theory that defines as 'not real' all of my debts, responsibilities, pangs of conscience and regrets. But I don't think it's altogether, well, realistic. And it also excludes my triumphs, friendships and acts of charity. None of which can be tasted or smelled, thank goodness.

HI tTm, I did recently compose an answer to this on another thread, here I copy it for you.

In modern philosophy, truth is defined by formal logic on propositions (statements). There are three main basic kinds of it, which I hear attempt to express in way compatible with the thinking of the formal logicians Russell, Whitehead, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Strawson, Putnam, Searle, Kripke, Popper, Kuhn, and Davidson. According to all these various thinkers, truth is the result of evaluating a proposition, but the relation between truth and the proposition itself can be different depending on epistemological considerations.

• Tautological truths within formal systems, such as mathematical equations. These are established by syntactic consistency with core axioms. The core axioms themselves describe the formal systems, and so truths at this level are necessarily true, in accordance with syntactic rules which are themselves defined in formally as logical propositions. These propositional systems can also define rules of deduction and inference without introducing meaningfulness and causality.
• Empirical truths, which are determined via ratification by observation of material objects, states and events, as long as the propositions describing material states and events are logically coherent. If the observation verifies the proposition, then the RESULT of the observation is factually true, but the proposition itself without empirical ratification remains a proposition that is neither true nor false, and is simply an assertion. The specific and exact nature of truth itself depends not on facts or data, but on the epistemological factors relating the proposition to the material world in different metaphysical systems, most predominantly in the theories that define the relation of subject and predicate to objects, states, and events in the physical world. These theories add semantics (the meanings of words) to the syntactic relationships described in first-order logic. 'Internal' states, resulting from consciousness, are also evaluated empirically. The nature of consciousness itself is part of the epistemology.
• Causal truths, which again first must be generally consistent within the rules of propositional calculus, and additionally, they must not contain any syntactic fallacies of deduction or inference. These are the most complicated forms of truth, and the basis of science. They are the most complicated because causal relationships cannot ever be proven necessarily true. They can only be proven not to be false. That distinction remains one of the least understood aspects of truth in the current world, because causality is so often claimed, yet errors in statements of causal truth are so frequent. The metaphysical factors of causality are more frequently better understood if they are known to exist, but only a small number of people even know that there are metaphysical factors involved. Those who do know the metaphysical factors understand that the relation of the subject and predicate's in the cause, to the subject and predicate of the result, is an abstraction that can be very complex.

While these are the *basic* forms of truth, the truth of many statements rely on combining two or more these forms together. For example, most commonly believe they know that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is based on empirical observations of many prior days where the sun did rise, leading to the simple second-order deduction that it will rise again tomorrow. Logically, one cannot know whether the belief is true that the sun will rise tomorrow until after the event has occurred. But in most cases, when sufficient empirical validation of many prior similar events has occurred, it is loosely assumed true that the same future event will occur again in the same circumstance. This 'axiom of probabilistic certainty'  is the foundation of prediction in much scientific theory. The extrapolation of this axiom is the creation of the scientific method, which is designed to define the minimum number of observations necessary to corroborate a theory. As per the rules for causal truth, theories can only be corroborated and not be proven true; but modern science theory might still call a theory true based on the axiom of probabilistic certainty.

Beyond that, there are some other very specific forms of truth in philosophy. For example, there are 'self-generating' truths in linguistics, such as promises, statements of intent, contracts, and some statements of belief, which all become existent by their own statement. One should be aware these kinds of truth have limitations. For example, after making promises, it becomes true that promises were made, but the truth of the promise itself remains an indirect proposition, and still must be determined within the rules for the three basic forms of truth described above.

Truth in theology, morality, ethics, law, and metaphysics

Much confusion about truth has arisen in these fields, but by the above schema, the nature of truth itself is relatively simple. Theological systems make assertions about that which cannot ultimately be proven; morality strives to define that which is good or bad for an individual; ethics defines that which is good or bad for a society; law strives to define that which is right or wrong; and metaphysics strives to define that which is real. In all these cases the absolute truth of the assertions they make is undefinable. However within each of these disciplines, it is possible to evaluate the propositional consistency of statements within formal systems that they define; and from that, to evaluate the truth of their propositions empirically, within the formal systems themselves. so again, when different propositions within, or across, these disciplines contradict each other, it is not possible to evaluate which are true or false in absolute terms. It is only possible to demonstrate whether the claims by each system are coherent.

"True" and "truth" are words that are not so easy to define (even though we use them all the time and may even think they're simple). In an attempt to gain some clarity about them, I want to try to restrict them to what is clearly the case, and where they turn out to be limited in scope - or where they seem to be maybe not so clearly the case - try to sharpen the focus on them so that they can still be used, even if with some limitation. Let's see if some rules help. It seems to me there are really just three ways to respond to rules:
1. agree with them
2. modify and improve them
3. demonstrate where they're wrong.

Of course one may also dislike them, but that's neither here nor there. If we can establish or agree to some rules, then maybe we can test some things some of us think are true. If the rules are any good, perhaps we can learn something. — tim wood

Umm, Ok

Here goes:

1. Reality is real.
a. Only reality is real
b. Only things are real
i. For the moment the test of thingness is if in principle it can be felt, seen, smelled, heard, or tasted. Here, at least, neither numbers, love, justice, nor any ideas at all, are things.

Saying reality is 'real' is merely tautology or like saying a Cat is a Cat; you can say it but it doesn't show or really do anything. My personal preference is to label "non-real things" as mental and/or abstract concepts. If anyone reading this is a programmer they can a liken a mental construct as a database record as well as a abstract concept as the database metadata that describes how that record is structured (ie a mental concept of a mental concept). While there are additional nuances to this idea, it is safe to say I mental perceptions of a real thing may have aspect to them that make them similar to the real thing, they most likely do not match completely enough that we can be sure that the mental construct and the thing-in-and-of-itself are one and the same.

2. Language qua language is descriptive only. By language, here, I mean meaningful sentences (MSs) of the general form S is P. For an MS to be true, it must accurately describe some aspect of reality, that is, be descriptive of a thing. Because no description can be perfectly accurate, no MS can be completely and absolutely true. And any MS can only be as true as the description is accurate.

Language is just a system where we create,organize,etc various mental constructs, which includes labels. Whether a street is "Main Street" or "Broad Street" is almost completely dependent on how which choose to call it. Numbers are also a kind of label as one can is just called one can if it is by itself but the group of can it is with is called something else when they are together. As far as I know labels are almost always arbitrary and merely used to organize the world around us in order to help us perceive it. Whether it is raining the sky is blue or whether it is raining this is something I think of as a physical attribute of some thing and this attribute may have a descriptive aspect of the real thing but that isn't a given.

Labels can be thought of as variables used in a database record to store arbitrary information about someone or something (such as record ID and/or employee ID) and attributes as a variable used to store real and/or non-arbitrary information (such as employee age, weight, height, etc). I don't have much experience with this but there are gray areas as to what is arbitrary and what is not such as employee name since while it is really arbitrary it is so rare that it changes that it can almost be considered an attribute. At any rate whether there is a grey area or shouldn't make too much of a difference.

However, read on.

3) Within language, rules matter. We can start with the rules of identity, non-contradiction, and the excluded middle. Call it logic, for that's what it is.

4. Language applied to ideas can also be true, e.g., 2+2=4. But "true," here, needs clarification, imho. Let's say that the test of the truth of language about ideas - not real things - is whether it works and how well it works. MSs like 2+2=4, because they work perfectly, are here deemed perfectly true, or completely and absolutely true. MSs like "Justice is good," maybe are not perfectly true, or at least not without a lot of work on understanding what is meant by both "justice" and "good."

5) What complicates matters is that descriptive language is always expressed in concepts - ideas. It is easily possible, then, for an MS about reality to have a quality of absolute truth. For example, "That is a table," is true only insofar as the "that " described just is a table. It may not be a table; it may be a table-like thing of some kind. (Keeping in mind that the law of the excluded middle applies only to MSs within language, logic, not descriptive MSs about reality.) So it may not be entirely true that the thing is a table. On the other hand, the idea of "table" is certain, so that if it were ever possible to determine that the thing is entirely a table, then the MS that asserts it is a table would be a descriptive MS that was absolutely and completely true.

And that's it. My goal is a tool to handle beliefs. Beliefs do not have to be true at all to be beliefs. They merely need to be believed. The difficulty - my difficulty - is with people who represent their beliefs as being true, and acting on them as if they were.

I do not think there is anything new or difficult or original here, but I like the idea of limiting "truth" to preserve its strength, by not applying it to ideas or things that are not or cannot be true.

2+2=4 because in the mathematical language we choose, it is so according to that language. It is the structure/narrative/context that says it is so. However it could also be II+II=IV if we are using roman numerals or 5+5=A if we happen to be using hexadecimal numbers. In such systems, things may be true because the system of labels we conceive says that they are true (regardless of whether or not they represent an actual physical thing) or they may be true because they accurately describe an aspect of a physical thing.

However nearly every mental construct we can conceive of either has an arbitrary and/or transitory aspect to it when in reference to a physical thing. Also it can be wrong for a variety of reasons and it is a pretty much a given that some mental constructs are more or less arbitrary/transitory/wrong than others. While there might be some mental construct that are not arbitrary/transitory/ and/or wrong (when they are used in referencing physical things), I don't think I have ever found one; therefore while mental constructs could be considered 'true' or even 'truth' when they are not referencing anything real, at best it is also a given that they are only temporary 'true' when used when referencing real physical things.

Also as a side note, I'm merely using database concepts and models just so I don't have to reinvent the wheel and because databases and database records are more or less modeled after our own mental constructs so conceiving of thought of something as a mere database record is probably better than something built entirely from scratch.

While these are the *basic* forms of truth, the truth of many statements rely on combining two or more these forms together. For example, most commonly believe they know that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is based on empirical observations of many prior days where the sun did rise, leading to the simple second-order deduction that it will rise again tomorrow. Logically, one cannot know whether the belief is true that the sun will rise tomorrow until after the event has occurred. But in most cases, when sufficient empirical validation of many prior similar events has occurred, it is loosely assumed true that the same future event will occur again in the same circumstance. This 'axiom of probabilistic certainty' is the foundation of prediction in much scientific theory. The extrapolation of this axiom is the creation of the scientific method, which is designed to define the minimum number of observations necessary to corroborate a theory. As per the rules for causal truth, theories can only be corroborated and not be proven true; but modern science theory might still call a theory true based on the axiom of probabilistic certainty.

Beyond that, there are some other very specific forms of truth in philosophy. For example, there are 'self-generating' truths in linguistics, such as promises, statements of intent, contracts, and some statements of belief, which all become existent by their own statement. One should be aware these kinds of truth have limitations. For example, after making promises, it becomes true that promises were made, but the truth of the promise itself remains an indirect proposition, and still must be determined within the rules for the three basic forms of truth described above.

Truth in theology, morality, ethics, law, and metaphysics

Much confusion about truth has arisen in these fields, but by the above schema, the nature of truth itself is relatively simple. Theological systems make assertions about that which cannot ultimately be proven; morality strives to define that which is good or bad for an individual; ethics defines that which is good or bad for a society; law strives to define that which is right or wrong; and metaphysics strives to define that which is real. In all these cases the absolute truth of the assertions they make is undefinable. However within each of these disciplines, it is possible to evaluate the propositional consistency of statements within formal systems that they define; and from that, to evaluate the truth of their propositions empirically, within the formal systems themselves. so again, when different propositions within, or across, these disciplines contradict each other, it is not possible to evaluate which are true or false in absolute terms. It is only possible to demonstrate whether the claims by each system are coherent.

Close enough for me. :D

I realized the reason you have some differences of opinion is that I did not include Tarski. Some methemeticians stated he really should not be left out. So I added a little to the semantics section to allow for theories of classical and modern realism. Also I added a little on ideas of intent influencing causality, as quite a few people raised issues on that; and clarified why causal truth can only be known not to be false by adding Aristotle's law of excluded middle. Beyond that, if I add anything, I would have to remove something else, because it has rather reached a length limit.

----

There’s been much discussion about ‘fake news’ recently, resulting rise to a new interest in the definition of truth. In modern philosophy, truth is defined by formal logic upon propositions (statements). There are three basic kinds of truth evaluation, which I here attempt to express in way compatible with the thinking of the modern philosophers Russell, Whitehead, Moore, Wittgenstein, Tarski, Carnap, Strawson, Putnam, Searle, Mendelson, Kripke, Popper, Kuhn, and Davidson.

• Tautological truths within formal systems, such as mathematical equations. These are established by syntactic consistency with core axioms. The core axioms themselves describe the formal systems, and so truths at this level are necessarily true, in accordance with syntactic rules which are themselves defined in formally as logical propositions. These propositional systems can also define rules of deduction and inference without introducing meaningfulness and causality. While the truth evaluation itself requires some semantic definition of ‘truth,’ in order for the proposition to be assessed, the process of evaluating the proposition’s truth value always requires syntactic analysis alone.
• Empirical truths, which are determined via ratification by observation of material objects, states and events, as long as the propositions describing material states and events are logically coherent. If the observation verifies the proposition, then the RESULT of the observation is factually true, but the proposition itself without empirical ratification remains a proposition that is neither true nor false, and is simply an assertion. The specific and exact nature of truth itself depends not only on facts or data, but also on the epistemological factors relating the proposition to the material world in different metaphysical systems, most predominantly in the theories that define the relation of subject and predicate to objects, states, and events in the physical world. These theories add semantics (the meanings of words) to the syntactic relationships described in first-order logic. 'Internal' states, resulting from consciousness, are also evaluated empirically. The nature of consciousness itself is part of the epistemology.
• Causal truths, which again first must be generally consistent within the rules of propositional calculus, and additionally, they must not contain any syntactic fallacies of deduction or inference. These are the most complicated forms of truth, and the basis of science. They are the most complicated because they involve both syntax, semantics, and additional rules. In particular, causal relationships cannot ever be proven necessarily true. They can only be proven not to be false. That is important because, in proposition logic, Aristotle’s law of excluded middle holds that any statement is either true or false; but in real-world language, there need be no excluded middle, hence, proving that a statement is not false does not imply that it is necessarily true. Metaphysical factors also influence the relation of the subject and predicate's in the cause, to the subject and predicate of the result.

Compound, Contractual, and Scientific Truth

While these are the *basic* forms of truth, the truth of many statements rely on combining two or more these forms together. For example, most commonly believe they know that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is based on empirical observations of many prior days where the sun did rise, leading to the simple second-order deduction that it will rise again tomorrow. Logically, one cannot know whether the belief is true that the sun will rise tomorrow until after the event has occurred. But in most cases, when sufficient empirical validation of many prior similar events has occurred, it is loosely assumed true that the same future event will occur again in the same circumstance. This 'axiom of probabilistic certainty' is the foundation of prediction in much scientific theory. The extrapolation of this axiom is the creation of the scientific method, which is designed to define the minimum number of observations necessary to corroborate a theory. As per the rules for causal truth, theories can only be corroborated and not be proven true; but modern science theory might still call a theory true based on the axiom of probabilistic certainty.

Beyond that, there are some other very specific forms of truth in philosophy. For example, there are 'self-generating' truths in linguistics, such as promises, statements of intent, contracts, and some statements of belief, which all become existent by their own statement. One should be aware these kinds of truth have limitations. For example, after making promises, it becomes true that promises were made, but the truth of the promise itself remains an indirect proposition, and still must be determined within the rules for the three basic forms of truth described above.

Truth in theology, morality, ethics, law, and metaphysics

Much confusion about truth has arisen in these fields, but by the above schema, the nature of truth itself is relatively simple. Theological systems make assertions about that which cannot ultimately be proven; morality strives to define that which is good or bad for an individual; ethics defines that which is good or bad for a society; law strives to define that which is right or wrong; and metaphysics strives to define that which is real. In all these cases the absolute truth of the assertions they make is undefinable. However within each of these disciplines, it is possible to evaluate the propositional consistency of statements within formal systems that they define; and from that, to evaluate the truth of their propositions empirically, within the formal systems themselves. so again, when different propositions within, or across, these disciplines contradict each other, it is not possible to evaluate which are true or false in absolute terms. It is only possible to demonstrate whether the claims by each system are coherent.

The Semantics of Truth

According to all modern logicians, truth is the result of evaluating a proposition, but the relation between truth and the proposition itself can be different depending on epistemological considerations. While one might initially believe the nature of truth to be intuitively obvious, the semantics of truth are complex. This starts with the issue as to whether one believes that tautological propositions are true before any person evaluates them; in which case, the truths must exist independently in some abstract space independent of material reality.

That introduces the metaphysical considerations. Classical realists hold that Platonic ‘ideas’ do exist independent of perception, and truth is simply known by correlation. Modern realists state only external material reality exists, and abstractions are simply known by common sense (as a result, many modern philosophers refer to classical realism as idealism). Dualists hold that there separate domains of physical materiality and conceptual ideas, both of which exist, and some hold tautologies are a priori true (are still truth regardless whether they are considered). Monists hold the known reality is only physical, or only exists in the mind, or something else (such as Wittgenstein's idea of logical positivism, which holds that language is the only thing which can be absolutely known). Such different perspectives change what is actually known when a truth is ‘discovered.’

Regardless whether truth does exist independently of physical reality, a priori or not, empirical and causal truths may be properties attached to the proposition which are not ‘discovered,’ but rather ‘assessed.’ These latter cases introduce the meaningfulness of incorrect assessments, and how exactly something can be meaningful if its truth is beyond simple binary evaluation, such as for example, propositions which refer to non-existent objects or which contain metaphors. Thus the semantics of truth are not so simple, and become involved with metaphysical decisions defining the nature of reality, meaningfulness, and the definition of knowledge itself.

There are also three separate positions on causality. Some hold that there is no causality without intent, and that it is otherwise simply a logical inference or deduction. The second main position is that intent does not really exist either, but is only an apparent phenomena created by the physical workings of the world. The third main group say one or both of those ideas are reductionist, and so do not give any meaning to the word 'because.' The different positions on intent may also influence truth evaluation of empirical observations on internal states, such as emotions.

Truth and Post Truth

One of the most advanced thinkers on the semantics of truth is Donald Davidson, who is an absolute anomalous monist (there are only ideas, or mind, or matter, or language, but it cannot be known which). Therefore, he states truth is ultimately undefinable, yet through our ability to reason meaningfully, truth can be known, even if people do not know that they know the truth.

For example, people can know that the sun will rise tomorrow; but they do not know that they knew that until after the sun has risen.

Rhetorical misconceptions have arisen from this, whereby people state what they wish to be true as being true, then strive to find facts to prove that truth afterwards, giving rise to the ‘post-truth era.’ While one might attempt to dismiss such efforts as obviously absurd, it is not so easy, because of the complexities of formal definitions of what truth actually is. As things are, we are likely to be stuck with this problem for a very long time, because the framework of formal truth described here, with the resulting complex nature of truth in science, is far beyond that which most people who ‘just want to know the truth’ are ready to learn

2. Language qua language is descriptive only. By language, here, I mean meaningful sentences (MSs) of the general form S is P. For an MS to be true, it must accurately describe some aspect of reality, that is, be descriptive of a thing. Because no description can be perfectly accurate, no MS can be completely and absolutely true. And any MS can only be as true as the description is accurate. — tim wood

That's Russell's view, and the foundation of almost all modern thought. And as Russell says, it resolves how to handle statements like 'the king of France is bald,' so its certainly useful. The standard objection is that some words don't describe some aspect of reality, for example 'unicorn.'

"Foundation of almost all modern thought" only if you ignore Wittgenstein and many others, e.g. Searle.

First, there are lots of meaningful sentences that are not descriptive. "Please don't be rude," is a meaningful sentence and contains no descriptions.

Second, some descriptions are perfectly accurate. "The only integer greater than two and less than four" perfectly describes the number three because it does describe something and it could describe nothing else.

Third, the truth of a sentence is not necessarily a function of the accuracy of the descriptions in it. Vague descriptions can yield truth. "I met her some time around the birth of rock 'n' roll" is true if I met her any time around the mid to late 1950's. It's false if I met her in 1967.

On the 'unicorn' point, it's time to go back to Aristotle. To speak truth is to say of what is that it is *or of what is not that it is not*. That neatly deals with unicorns and Parmenides.

I think most of the above, while interesting and mostly smart, missed the point of the OP. My bad. What I'm trying to get at is the difficulty with the word "truth." Maybe a different approach: If you tell me a particular meaningful sentence (MS) is true, I don't (necessarily) have a problem with that. If you have a collection of such MSs, each one of which you aver is true, still not a problem. What you've done is say "MS1 is true," "MS2 is true." If you just say they're all true, that's the same, more efficiently.

But you or your auditor may get the idea there is something called "truth," that each of your (true) MSs has a share of. If by this "truth" is meant only that the MSs are severally true, still no problem, although I think you have to acknowledge that "truth" doesn't itself mean anything (being just a short-hand way of saying, MS1 is true, MS2 is true, ..., MSn is true).

Or you may get the idea that truth is actually something more, perhaps a quality of some kind in its own right. Now here I have a problem: what, exactly, would that property be?

Of course this means that anyone talking about "the truth," or the "absolute truth" (beyond just what in particular makes MS1, or MS2, etc., true), or any of a large number of formulations of this kind, is just talking nonsense.

Disagree? You might be correct: but then what is truth if it is not just a reference to true MSs being true.

What you have described is how Plato's Socrates might approach the question - x is true, y is true, z is true - what is this 'truth' that all true things have in common? But it's not always the best way of tackling the problem. Leaving truth aside for a moment, we would have a problem working out what a 'bus' is by asking what all buses have in common. And on reflection we would find out they have no one thing in common. But we would not then conclude that talk about buses is all nonsense. So if the method doesn't work for a straightforward concept, like 'bus', then we might wonder whether it's going to be a good method for a trickier concept like 'truth'. And the fact that we cannot identify a commonality to all true statements may tell us nothing very interesting about the concept of truth because that lack of commonality applies equally to the concept of a bus.

A conveyance for carrying people - that wasn't too difficult. A definition, to be sure, but the genus-species captures what they all have in common that is in fact a particular characteristic of each. I'm arguing - to establish or overthrow the point - that you can't do the same for true statements. Or equivalently, you cannot do it for truth, because if you could then you could say all the true MSs have truth in common.

Godel says this: xBy (x is a proof of - proves - y) is recursive, meaning you can find a test of all the xBy propositions that will reliably separate the true xBy from the false. But he carefully distinguishes that from a similar-looking proposition, Bewx, which means that x is a provable proposition. That, he asserts, is not recursive, meaning there is no easy way to determine for a given Bewx proposition whether it is true or false, i.e., whether it is in fact provable.

And of course he took this further by showing there were true statements that are not provable. (Not precisely correct, but enough for present purpose.) He had to settle for provability because if his method worked with truth, then he would have ended with a statement that was both true an untrue, instead of merely true but not provable.

I'm not sure Godel settles my question, but his arguments are suggestive. So. I will define "truth" as merely a sometimes efficient of saying one or more MSs are true, and absolutely nothing more than that! Please show me I'm wrong.

Of course, if "truth" really doesn't mean anything in itself, that's interesting!

The difficulty - my difficulty - is with people who represent their beliefs as being true, and acting on them as if they were. — tim wood

Don't all people generally "represent their beliefs as being true" and "act on them as if they
were" ?

Would you hold a belief that you did not count as true and/ or were not prepared to act upon?

No. I think most folks understand their beliefs as being beliefs. Do you hold that all of your beliefs are true?

I will answer your question after you answer mine. Again, do you hold any beliefs which you do not think are true?

Sure, most of my religious beliefs and beliefs about ethics. But there's nothing simple, here. There is very little chance of your understanding my answer, because the "truth" and "beliefs" hasn't even begun to be understood, here. And I do not mean the truth of the things believed, but more primordially, just what "true" and "believe" mean, for such topics.

If you like you may take firsts at defining them, viz, "true" and "belief."

I simply don't believe it is true that you believe anything that you don't believe to be true. Perhaps you could provide an actual example for consideration.

Also, I can't help wondering what the point of discussing a thing could be if you don't believe you can know what it is.

Or you may get the idea that truth is actually something more, perhaps a quality of some kind in its own right. Now here I have a problem: what, exactly, would that property be? — tim wood

So - what is more true than the truth? Is that what you're asking? That seems to me what you're asking throughout this thread. Like A J Ayer, who is, whether you like it or not, your spiritual forbear, you don't want wishy-washy sentiments when it comes to truth, you want crisply-defined and empirically identifiable criteria that all sensible chaps can agree on.

The bad news is: there aren't any. And that's because every notion of truth rests on some intuition of what must be the case, that admits of no further explication. Somewhere along the line, you have to come to rest on what just is the case, and that is often something you will simply feel the be the case. In other words, there is no ultimate empirical fact (other than the fact that we exist, but Descartes already beat you to that.)

At the end of the day, the philosophical definition of truth is simply: what really matters to you; what you are prepared to live by, or defend. Modern philosophy, on the whole, never gets that, because it has divorced itself from religion, and such an idea sounds religious. Whereas philosophy nowadays is parlour games with words, by and large. Serves a purpose, can make you very good with words, but not so much with truth, as that is not simply a verbal matter.

I simply don't believe it is true that you believe anything that you don't believe to be true.

Nice joke. Or do you actually know what the words bolded just above mean? I admit I have trouble with them. Do us all a service and in a well-crafted sentence or two or three, tell us what you understand "true" and "believe" to mean.

For example, why would anyone settle for belief if he or she could have true? But you wanted me to provide an example. Ok. I believe in Santa Claus. At the same time I do not for a minute think it true that there is a person (-like being) who is Santa Claus and does the things that Santa Claus does. Perhaps you will quibble and say that in that case I really do not believe in Santa Claus. Whether you say it or not is your business, because that concerns your beliefs - which can only annoy you if you don't really get the differences between true and belief.

Or if you like, address the question of the OP, as Wayfarer has. Do you agree with him? That truth is turtles all the way down, except there aren't any turtles?

So - what is more true than the truth? Is that what you're asking?

The bad news is: there aren't any.... but not so much with truth, as that is not simply a verbal matter.

Interesting. We almost meet in agreement, but I want to look at the possibility we've actually whizzed by each other without meeting at all. I think "true" and "truth" are words entirely more different than common usage admits. I doubt if you've confused the two, but I'm not sure....

[W]hat is more true than the truth?

Answer: anything true. Again, I'm distinguishing between "truth" as merely meaning, "has the quality of being true," which is to me inoffensive, except as it is misleading because it implies a second meaning of "truth" as something apart from the particular true in question; and that second sense that I think a chimerical.

If I can bring it into focus a little better, I read you as holding that "truth" is simply a variant of "true" and that they both rest on essentially nothing, or

every notion of truth rests on some intuition of what must be the case, that admits of no further explication

.

I disagree. This might be a critique of the true, and you can make it if you like, although I think you're mistaken. Consider these:
1) This (table here) is a table.
2) 7+5=12
3) triangles have three sides
4) Julius Caeser was a ruler of Rome.

These are true, no intuition about it. But as to the proposition that they all have truth, that I find difficult. Again, no intuition about it. And I think we agree only on this: that "truth" doesn't mean much, if anything.

I disagree. This might be a critique of the true, and you can make it if you like, although I think you're mistaken. Consider these:
1) This (table here) is a table.
2) 7+5=12
3) triangles have three sides
4) Julius Caeser was a ruler of Rome.

These are true, no intuition about it — tim wood

These are not so much true as they have been labelled as 'true', by you. Other people may well agree with you; in which case they would have also labelled these statements as 'true'. And you might thus arrive at a consensus. But in no way do those statements have the property of truth.

Consider these:
1) This (table here) is a table.
2) 7+5=12
3) triangles have three sides
4) Julius Caeser was a ruler of Rome.

These are true, no intuition about it. But as to the proposition that they all have truth, that I find difficult. Again, no intuition about it. And I think we agree only on this: that "truth" doesn't mean much, if anything. — tim wood

The first is simply a restatement of the law of identity, A=A
Second is an arithmetical truth.
Third and fourth, matters of definition. But they're all examples of a priori truths.

In any case, it is pointless to ask why A=A, or why triangles have three sides. With respect to both those questions, the answers given are the terminus of explanation. To ask why 7+5 should equal 12, is rather like the child who persistently asks 'why' even when a question has been answered. That is the case with all such necessary truths, which have been debated interminably since Hume.

in no way do those statements have the property of truth. — A Seagull

How do you judge that? You must know what 'the property of truth' is, to know that these statements don't have it. And if you don't know it, then you're simply expressing an opinion, but you can give no reason why anyone ought to agree that it's true.

Or you may get the idea that truth is actually something more, perhaps a quality of some kind in its own right. Now here I have a problem: what, exactly, would that property be?

Of course this means that anyone talking about "the truth," or the "absolute truth" (beyond just what in particular makes MS1, or MS2, etc., true), or any of a large number of formulations of this kind, is just talking nonsense. — tim wood

Consider the difference between an object having the property X, and the concept which is X. So for example, we have an object which is red, and a concept of what it means to be red, and this is the concept of red. It is possible to consider the concept as an object itself, and this is what happens with geometric figures, the concept is the object. We have a point, a line, a right angle, a square, a circle, etc.. All these words refer to concepts, so the concept is the object which is being referred to. When we apprehend concepts as objects like this, we can analyze the concepts, just like we would analyze any object.

Now assume that "true" is a property which we assign to propositions. Accordingly, there is assumed to be a concept of what it means to be true. If we consider this concept itself, as an object, we have "the truth" as an object just like "the circle" or "the square". The problem is that there is no clear and unambiguous definition of "the truth", like there is of "the circle", or 'the square". This leaves us with doubt as to whether there really is a concept, which can be considered as an object, called "the truth". This is the issue which Plato attacked vigorously, with concepts such as "beauty", "love", "just", "knowledge", "virtue", "friendship", etc.. When we cannot agree on the definition of the term, how can we claim that there is such a thing (object) as the concept which is signified by that term. Now you recognize the same problem with "the truth". If there is no agreed upon definition of what it means to be true, how can there be a concept of "the truth"?

But in no way do those statements have the property of truth

. Great! Now, what is that property?