Truth and Language

edited--see below.

On the other hand, it may have been naive of me to say that truth statements are propositions about reality. It seems, on second thought, that Reality is far too inexhaustible, subtle, grand and fluid to be caught in the small nets of language. Moreover, truth itself is an invention of language (an idea). It seems to me that the postmodernist notion that language is always about language (text-ing) and that "truth" is always based on foundations of prior truths, whether or not they have proven to be valid (by whatever criteria), shows a weak connection between truth and language and Reality itself. Truth is the object of philosophy which is fundamentally a matter of language (including the language of mathematics), and Reality is the object of mysticism which has little to do with language--except as a secondary phenomenon, i.e., talking about mysticism and nondualilsm.

Nobody:

As I said before, I define truth as an adequation between a statement and empirical experience. I am not talking about "reality", since a statement is so real as a fact of experience.
You say that reality is too inexhaustible to be caught in the small nets of language. I disagree, because I think that reality is nothing more than human experience. What else could it be?
But returning to the topic: language and truth. I claim that there are no criteria in language to reach truth, except one: the definition of truth. If you accept truth as nothing more than adequation, then you cannot find that adequation within language.
When I speak of truth, I don't mean the Absolute or Ultimate Truth. I mean correspondence between a statement, or proposition, and a fact of experience. When you say "it is raining", that statement can be true or false, but you can only decide through empirical verification (going to the window).
If you talk about philosophical truth, then I must say I don't believe in it. We can agree to a philosophical theory, but there is no way of verification of any adequation. I disagree with many philosophical theories (Hegel, Marx, James) but I cannot say they are false.

I don't think that "adequation" as a correspondence criterion of truth (the "fit" between propositions and experiences is very good epistemology--from the perspective of philosophers generally. It is good as a practical matter. For that reason I'm surprised that you do not like the pragmatist, Willliam James.
I agree that reality, for our purposes, is no more than our experience (of reality). My reference to Reality was to what metaphysicians might call the objective whole. THAT is what we can never catch in our conceptual nets. But you are right: we can "catch" bits of its manifestations (we should say that reality IS its manifestations, thus avoiding the dualistic split between reality and its manifestations). This applies particularly to those "bits" relevant to our immediate practical concerns--or if we are mystics, that portion of the whole that IS our nature (both the part and the whole).

-edited, Oct.31

Nobody
I understand your perspective. I am not an empiricist, being more close to the Heidegger of "Sein und Zeit". But your position, as I see it, cannot be discussed at an epistemological level. It raises an ontological question.

I'm sorry to say that I've never been able to follow the writing of Hiedegger, but I can say that I disagree fundamentally with your epistemology of truth. Truth, as an absolute, cannot possibly be established by its congruence with an axiomatic definition of truth. All definitions are arbitrary constructions. They are what we begin the philosophical quest with; they not the result of the quest--at least as far as I know. This is in response to your statement that: "I claim that there are no criteria in language to reach truth, except one: the definition of truth."
I do, however, like your statement, viz., "I disagree with many philosophical theories (Hegel, Marx, James) but I cannot say they are false." I feel the same way. My perspective is MY perspective. It is REAL but not necessarily TRUE, since I do not know precisely what that means. I read philosophers in the same spirit that I read anthropological ethnographies of cultures. Every culture has its particular configurational genius. But it is not proper to ask which is the TRUE culture. In the same spirit, I read philosophical theories (and even social scientific theories) as wonderful human constructions of the world. They tell me about the reality of Humanity, but not necessarily about the Truth of the world. They represent human truths, not contenders for, or even versions of, The Truth. This relativism is far more realistic, as I see it, than any absolutist model of the world I have ever seen.

"Truth" is subjective; but "the truth" is not.

[but 'the truth' is unknowable, due to subjectivity!]

Interesting distinction, BoGoWo. By "the truth" are you referring to the "objective" character of Reality, and by "Truth" the human (subjective or inter-subjective) ideal of knowledge of "the truth"? If that is correct, let me ask you: how can you advance the notion of "the [objective] truth" without it actually being an expression of [subjective] "Truth"?

Re: Truth and Language


I think your statement that, "Facts are empirical experiences," is false because it is not empirically verifiable. No matter how much empirical data you collect to verify this assertion, you still run the chance of missing something that would contradict it. For my part, I think there are some truths of the matter, in addition to yours which I quoted above, that are not empirical experiences. I was reading in A.J. Ayer's book, "Language, Truth, and Logic" this summer and I think he was making a similar error. I could be wrong about that because Ayer was certainly a well-studied and prolific philosopher.
This is also why most atheistic phillsophers do not claim that God doesn' exist anymore. The modern philosopher Kai Nielson, in the book he wrote with the Christian J.P Moreland, entitled, "Does God Exist," doesn't try to defend the assertion that God does not exist for the reason I just gave (it is a negative existential). Instead he argues that the concept of God (the theistic God) is incoherent, nonsensical. While I disagree with his conclusion, I think he was right to sidestep the issue of proving the negative existential, which none or at least very few, philosophers try to do.

Baffman, I have a problem with your challenge to Val that his statement that "'Facts are empirical experiences,' is false because it is not empirically verifiable." That would be so for an empirical generalization, but Val is making a theoretical statement, a definitional offering. I personally think that facts REFER to empirical experiences, but they are actually "little theories." Facts are laden with metaphysical assumptions.

JLN

I've just lifted this from a Google search on "Wittgenstein and Truth"

<< The denial of clear foundations for meaning in the form of determinate links between language and reality could be widened from language to social or religious practice. A search for justifications in terms of objective, factual truth might be replaced by legitimation in terms of social or cultural use>>

Empiricism is clearly being sidestepped here in favour of "interactive paradigm".

To stretch an analogy a little, Einsteins theory of relativity assumes there is no "ultimate" frame of reference for observers but that the laws of of physics "work" for each individual. So in general arguments about "truth" could be essentially a result of differing frames of reference and the absence of any "ultimate factuality".

mutually re-assured reality......

"Did you see that?"

"What?"

"That."

"Oh, that."

and "that" is "that."

Re: Truth and Language
Baffman
You are right when you say that my definition of facts as empirical experiences can not be empirically verified. That's why I am not an empiricist. In the end we all experience what? Experiences. That's the beginning of the road that leads us to Berkeley and the radical skepticism of Hume.
But, in my point of view, we have to assume that experience is an interaction between us and and an exterior stimulation. If you have your head under water you try not to inspire. You assume that water is exterior to you, you assume that trying to breath under water will drown you.
And yes, we can never reach an ultimate truth even in my definition of adequation. It's a process, an evolutive process.
But this has nothing to do with God. The problem with God is different. When you define God as a transcendental entity, you mean you cannot have a sensorial experience of him, and he is beyond your reason - remember Aquinas: "when we give characteristics to God we are talking about ourselves, not Him".
Such an entity could only be reached by mystical experience, if we accept that kind of experience.
But, speaking of language and truth, even in the case of mystical experience there would be no possibility of establish any adequation. Mystics generally report their experiences in other forms of language, like the poems of St John da Cruz (I don't know if this is how you name him in English).

Language, Truth, and logic
Yo Val

Thank you for insightful comments. I would like to respond to the following,

"When you define God as a transcendental entity, you mean you cannot have a sensorial experience of him, and he is beyond your reason - remember Aquinas: 'when we give characteristics to God we are talking about ourselves, not Him'."

Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by "transcendent." I think I was equating transcendant with metaphysical. In that sense, I do think God is transcendent and that he governs by nature and by will the physical universe. Or, to put it more accurately, the physical is governed by Him. If not, he is not a God of any sort. Unless He is transcendent, he is a part of the physical universe, no? And if he is a part of the physical universe, he is more like an eastern god than a theistic God (pantheism or panentheism). Did you mean else by "transcendant"?

"Such an entity could only be reached by mystical experience." Perhaps, but what if that entity should try to reach us? What I think you are saying is that we could never confirm a message received from God. Do I understand you correctly?

Val, San Juan de la Cruz (Spanish). I will respond to your interesting post later--the election process has my mind by the balls at the moment.

Fresco, I'm not sure what you meant by the established "laws" of physics working for each individual. It is my judgement that such "laws", as expressed in engineering, constitute a degree of objectivity (or its functional equivalence), which is, in some sense, a pragmatic "ultimate frame of reference" (who dares to reject the physical principles that keep bridges from collapsing?). But theoretical physics, which, as you have shown, frequently merges with philosophy, particularly regarding epistemological issues, is fundamentally problematical and relativistic. Here is where cultural and social forces are so important for the legitimation of claims to truth. It is so clear to me that the difficulties you, Tywvel, and I have had communicating our nondualist perspective to (our worthy but challenged rivals) JoefromChicago, Craven de Kere and Frank Apiso reflect paradigmatic differences, not just issues of evidence and logic (although they seem to think it is no more than that).
Our differences reflect the cultural complexity of western complex societies (as compared to the more homogenous traditional and tribal societies). Our cultures (I'm lumping England and the U.S. because of obvious commonalities) contain profound cultural variabilities, generally acknowledged for regional, class, and ethnic categories. But the contrast between us (you, Twyvel and I) and them (JoeCravenFrank) epitomizes more subtle divisions within our intellectual community (typically given the dichotomies: objectivists vs. subjectivists, mentalists vs. materialists, positivists vs. interpretivists, etc.). This is seen in our inability to forge a culturally constituted, consensually validated versions of reality (Kuvasz' "mutually re-assured reality").

-edited

JLN

(I should perhaps have said that in my analogy "laws of physics" for Einstein could be equivalent to "logic" for me)

In general I agree with your summary of individual respondents "positions". A key issue for me is whether we are attempting to answer from "outside the box" i.e. whether the writer is prepared to "stand aloof" from traditional concepts like "truth", "evidence" and "existence". That position is where both recent "scientific" developments and meditational practices seem to point.
However an important issue seems to be whether the respondent is prepared to be "self critical" and this is what "our group" tends to display. (..... a "British trait" ? )

Re: Language, Truth, and logic
I mean transcendent, as an entity that is not part of our physical reality.That means he doesn't exist in time and space. But I have nothing to object that such an entity could create a physical universe. I dont believe it, but there is nothing contradictory in it.
An immanent god would be closer to ancient greek religion.

The problem is the characterization of that transcendental entity. You say "God wants", "He tries to reach us". Those are expressions that you can apply to human beings. But not for a transcendental God. If He had same of our characteristics like "will" he would be a "physical" God, just like the Greek Gods.l

Very good, Val. It is the anthropomorphism in literalist religion that is most untenable. The Greek gods were no more than superhumans. Zeus even fathered the half-human Hercules. Nothing transcendtal about procreation. Although sex is divine.
-edited

Re: Language, Truth, and logic
Yo Val, this is Baffman again. Thank you for comments. I'd like to respond to your comments on the transcendant God again. When asked to identify what you meant by transcendant, you said,

"I mean transcendent, as an entity that is not part of our physical reality. That means he doesn't exist in time and space. But I have nothing to object that such an entity could create a physical universe. I dont believe it, but there is nothing contradictory in it.
An immanent god would be closer to ancient greek religion. The problem is the characterization of that transcendental entity. You say "God wants", "He tries to reach us". Those are expressions that you can apply to human beings. But not for a transcendental God. If He had same of our characteristics like "will" he would be a "physical" God, just like the Greek Gods.

Hey, why can't such expressions as "He tries to reach" us or, "He wants," apply God? If God made all the physical universe, how is it illogical that it (and we humans) have some of His characteristics? Just like there is something of the artist (like Mondrian or Picasso) in his art?