That's not true. Many people agreed it was true that the earth was flat, but it wasn't, and isn't. Many people agreed that the earth was in the center of the heavens. It wasn't and isn't. Many people agreed that disease was caused by an imbalance of the four humors. It wasn't, and isn't. Many people agreed that combustion gave off a substance known then as "phlogiston". It wasn't and isn't. There is a long list, but you get the idea.
Where does truth ever truely represent what really is? Never. So truth is either subjectively true, which is true to you, or objectively true, which is accepted so by every one; or truely true, which is an exact representation of reality, which it never is. The fact that a hypothesis turns out after the fact to be incorrect means nothing. People do with their vision of the truth, and not with a vision they do not possess. Truth is a form of relationship. Truth is social. And what is, is what is real. Knowing, on the other hand is personal. We are what we know. People do not see themselves as so many question marks. Certainty is demanded of us and of all, whether it is warranted or not. So, even if a person knows little, they know that with certainty.
Perhaps we had better stick to what you said, rather than jumping to some different claim. You said that the thing that makes anything true, objectively true, is how many people agree that it is true. But I have just presented many examples in which you are clearly wrong. Don't you want to withdraw that claim, or, at least say why you don't think you are wrong? I have given you case of people many people agreeing when they turned out to be mistaken. Isn't that right?
After all, consider this: the earth does have some shape, whether it is round or it is trapezoid. And if many people were to agree that it was trapezoid when it was actually round, or the other way, those people would be wrong however may agreed. Isn't that right?
I can see you are missing my point, which is: It usually does not matter what the truth is, but it does matter what people do with what they think the truth is. As a practical matter, the earth is flat. The truth is that it is not flat when considered as a whole; but the truth is, that considering our part of it, it is clearly flat, and since that is all that most people have to deal with, that view is correct. It is easier for me to like people like Socrates who could truthfully report that he knew nothing. This knowledge is virtue because only certainty that we do know all truth, are omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omnisufficient would lead us into taking a life that we cannot return. It is possible to know enough in every instance to avoid injury to others, and to help ones self. The same is true of history and of the future. Since we were created by Promethius, we have the power of foresight. We only lose that ability when we hope against hope. It is hope, as well, that blinds us to the lessons of the past, that are far from buried by the dust of time. When we hope we can succeed in snatching our cheese from the same trap that caught that last rat we are blind to the facts. What do we know? What do we need to know. We need to know how not to deny the obvious. The beginning of all sight is seeing what is at hand.
I think it matters very much what the truth is. And even if it matters what is thought to be true, it surely matters that it is true that it is thought to be true. If you didn't think it mattered, you would not say that it matters what is thought to be true.
It certainly matters what is thought to be true, because unless what is thought to be true is, in fact true, trouble usually results. If, for instance, I think it is true that the truck down the road is far enough away so that I can cross the road safely, and I am wrong, it matters a great deal that my belief was not true. Don't you think?
The earth is not flat, even as a practical matter. Perhaps the earth appears flat, But that is very different.
I do not think I missed your point. I understood your point. But your point is wrong.
If I may spell it out; what the truth is, is secondary to what people do with it. Since the real truth, the exact truth is always beyond our grasp it is rather the ethical truth, the social truth, and the human friendly version we should strive towards.
Think of how many died because their verson of truth was not acceptable to those with the power to kill them. When they were smoking on a pile of faggots do you guess another truth may have suggested itself to the condemned: That there is no truth? I believe there is truth. The world revolves none the less. But the victory of truth over false hood does not require martyrs, but a mountain of evidence. And I say this even while I agree that a demonstration of what the powers do to protect false hood is the best lesson because it causes people to question their morality. It is ethical truth, what will we do to protect a certain version of reality, rightly or wrongly, that is the ultimate question.
I am not questioning what happens as reality. Ptolomeic truth explained the universe as did copernican truth. Copernican truth explained reality better. What did the church have on the old horse that made them seek to hobble the new horse? They could not admit to error. But error is life. Our views of truth are constantly changing or growth would be impossible. How do we ever learn a new truth without abondoning the old?
We cannot know the truth rationally. That thought should be abondoned. We can get a sense of the truth, as we do from history, understanding that when we read history we are reading fiction, something made, rather than found. We should also recognize what trouble truth has overcoming what is obvious. If people believe they are good, as people always do, then they will always look at their victories rightly, or wrongly as justification. Good always wins in the minds of the believers. And the obvious reality is hard to overcome.
The world is flat as a practical matter. The earth has been squared for thousands of years. Every circle is more square than round. No, that is not true is it? If it were square, then the angle of the circumference would be 90 degrees from its diameter. It is not. Its angle departs by slight difference called pi. Do you believe the flatland farmer ever has the ability to measure or appreciate pi from his point on the circumference? Consider his reach, and the fact that the cicumference of the earth is a ways over twenty thousand miles. Is he not more correct than the scientist? Only when the ability of mankind reached a point of allowing travelling great distances was the geometry of the earth corrected for truth. Truth does not only bring a new age, but each new age requires a new truth. For this reason truth has become the most dangerous weapon in the arsenal of the powerful. If they can control truth they can control the world. Too bad for them that the facts are not so easily mastered.
I find it impossible to follow you, since you are all over the place. But think about that truck bearing down on you, and your judgment that it will not hit you before you cross the road. Does it not matter whether it is true (either as a practical, or as a theoretical matter)? And, won't it be quite easy to tell whether or not it is true if it hits you? (If not you, then an onlooker?) Can we stick to this example, please? No new ages, no flowery vague expression. Just the truck.
You are making my point for me. If a truck is bearing down on me, it is a practical matter. That is the sort of truth people deal with every day. As a practical matter the earth is flat, and that is why it is hard to pursuade some, even today, that it is not. In the example of the universe, that truth that is sufficient to explain reality is difficult to displace. If the old gods work, why switch to a new god? It was for this reason that pagan and heathen mean essentially the same even though they come from Italy and England respectively. The truth always has a ethical componant. If it is not good, and does not serve a social purpose, it is not truth. Truth is always good news, because even when it is not good it helps us to adapt to reality so we can survive. If the finer points of the truth are harder to grasp, what does it matter if we can avoid the trucks?
It would seem to me that if it were not true that the truck was bearing down on me, it would not be a practical matter, since then, it would not matter at all.
People who think that the earth is flat don't look at the horizon. Bertrand Russell tells of a chicken which, if fed by the farmer each and every day, and feels great, as a practical matter. Only one day, the farmer comes, wrings the chickens neck, and eats her for dinner. The chicken was mistaken, as a practical matter. That chicken lacked information.
If means the problem is theoretical. Is means the problem is practical. When people build a tall structure they build vertically from a flat earth, and no matter where they go the laws of gravity are such that plumb line will always hang toward the center of the earth. The changing forces of the gravity of the sun and moon will soon cause the plumb line to begin describing a circle at its bottom end, as it would tend to do at its top, but as a practical matter, if the structure is built to resist the forces of gravity, acceleration, and weather, it will stand about indefinetly. The problems presented by the changing force of gravity from sun and moon are insignificant. It does not matter that the world is spherical, as it is flat where we live. As we change our contexts, other versions of truth come into play.
So, I would say both you and the chicken are wrong. The chicken had all the information that he required. As long as there is food there is life, and as long as there is life there is hope, and if both food and hope continue long enough there are chicks, and unless people become so desparate as to eat their last chicken there will always be chickens.
You need to see how truth differs from reality. Reality is not a representation of truth, but truth is a representation of reality. The more accuratly truth represents reality the more time consuming, and onerous it becomes. And, it is ulimately unknowable, so it is also incommunicatable. This does not mean we should look at history and say that because what happened cannot be known or expressed that it cannot be understood.
Understanding requires that we make a connection that is more intuitive than logical. We have to recognize that those people in other times had their dreams, their hopes, their pains, their struggles, their triumphs, their losses, their lives, loves and deaths. We should know that their celebration and prayers are to some extent realized in us. While they can no longer give meaning to their lives and take lessons from them, we can. History is not all the drama of the rich, but is also the drudgery of the poor. If they, in every generation strove for the heroic, and the marvelous; so as to leave their mark on the land, should we not notice that we walk in the footsprints of giants? Yet they were just like us, fully human, doing as they could with what they knew.
We will never get the truth from a history book. We will never get the truth from any book. Truth is an absolute we can approach but never reach, and we should draw as near to truth in our affairs as we can. It is essential to realize that we can know the thing- truth- better than we can ever express it. We can live it, and yet never speak of it. It is a form of relationship, not only between reality and how reality is represented, but between all people. Perfect truth is a waste of time, as is perfection on any level. Good enough is good enough; and I will hang with the Muslims in their view of perfection, that only Allah is perfect, and to attempt perfection is sacrilege.
