Truth and Reality

1. Truth and Reality

2. Announcement: Tutorial Group 10 will meet next Wednesday at 2:00 Reminder: Your portfolio will be due on December 3rd. Submit a hard copy of your portfolio to Loletta in the Philosophy Department Office or submit a soft copy to me at kellyinglis@yahoo.com.

3. What is truth? • We started the course talking about skepticism. Skepticism asks, what if we are deeply deceived about the world? What if the world is not real? • “What is truth?” asks what does it mean for the world to be real? What does it mean for the statement “I am in this classroom” to be true? What does it mean for “I am not dreaming right now” to be true?

4. What is truth? “There is no truth. There is only perception.”Gustave Flaubert “Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.”Mohandas Gandhi “The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” Winston Churchill “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”Marcus Aurelius “Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”Albert Camus Gandhi

5. Relativism vs. absolutism Absolutism: truth is independent of our knowledge and beliefs. Relativism: there is no absolute truth. What is true for me may be false for you. Truth is a construction and every person may construct truth differently. Every person’s version of truth is equally legitimate. • The paradox of relativism. • Truth is relative to the speaker/believer. • No statement is necessarily true or false to all speakers/believers. • “Truth is relative” is a statement. • “Truth is relative” is not true for everybody. • “There are absolute truths” is not false for everybody. • “Truth is relative” is a self-defeating statement. If it is true, it is not true for everybody. If its true, its opposite is also true (for some people).

6. Relativism about morality Absolutism: Kant, utilitarianism It’s wrong because it is against God’s law, or it harms people or it harms the earth/the universe, etc. Relativism: Sartre There are no objective moral truths. • Paradox: I cannot say that you views are wrong, even if you believe that there are moral truths and that I am absolutely wrong. • Solution? It is objectively true that there are no moral truths. It is subjectively true (true to me) that murdering innocent babies is wrong, and since it is morally wrong to me, then I am justified (to myself) in imposing my moral views on you. Jean-Paul Sartre

7. The correspondence theory of truth A statement is true if it corresponds to reality, i.e. to the facts. “Joe Black owns a sword” is true if Joe Black exists and if a sword exists and if Joe Black owns the sword. Problem: what is reality? What does it mean for Joe Black to exist, for a sword to exist, etc.

8. Reality • Philosophical realism: objects exist and are the cause of our perceptions (one of the causes: an object plus our minds cause perception of an object) • Descartes: how can we know if the world really exists? Maybe it exists and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe the world is real but maybe we are deceived. • Berkeley: there is no mind-independent world. Objects only exist when they are perceived. Question: does a virtual sword exist? Is it real? Berkeley

9. The coherence theory of truth • A belief is true if and only if it is part of a coherent system of beliefs. • Truths do not exist independently of each other. Truths cohere together systematically to create a whole that makes sense. • All beliefs that work together without contradicting each other are true. Question: if two stories/systems of explaining the world are both internally coherent but contradict each other, can both be true? Question: is a virtual sword real if it is part of a coherent system of virtual swords/virtual knights/virtual dragons, etc.?

10. Pragmatism • C.S. Peirce, William James • Truth is what works. • True beliefs enable us to make accurate predictions. As long as a prediction based on a statement always works out, the statement is true. • Science works so it is more true than myths and legends. Question: if I believe a virtual sword is real, and use this belief to make accurate predictions about how to use the sword, is my belief true?

11. The Matrix (again) Is the simulated world of the Matrix real? Are beliefs about this world true? According to: Correspondence theory? Coherence theory? Pragmatism?

12. Nietzsche Truth is part of the “will to power”. Truth is useful if it promotes and enhances life, but a life-enhancing falsehood is better than a truth that undermines life. "The falseness of a judgment is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgment... The question is to what extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding...“ Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

13. Does truth matter? Is truth a value in and of itself, i.e. an intrinsic good? Or does truth have only an instrumental value, i.e. it is good insomuch as it leads us to success in predicting and interacting with the world, which is good insomuch as it makes us happy or fulfilled or satisfied? Would you rather live a happy lie than face a miserable truth? Is it morally wrong to prefer happiness or contentment to truth? Is it morally wrong to lie to others to make them happy? Are the occasional benefits of being deceived necessarily short-lived? (i.e. the truth will out, and the sooner we face it the better off we will be)

14. Suggested readings • Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, entry on “Truth” at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth • Friedrich Neitzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part 1 “On the prejudices of philosophers”, on reserve in the Philosophy Department Office