Questions tagged [truth]
Theories of truth deal with questions such as: what are truths? what makes them true? what is the relation between truths and the things that makes them true? Not to be confused with "what is the truth", which is a completely different matter.
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human life is based on suspicion and assumption, rather than certainty?
A murder occurred, so the police came to the house where the crime took place, and as soon as they entered, they found a person whose clothes were stained with blood and carrying a knife in his hand. ...
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Is it possible for truth to be set by humans?
Let's say I create a video game. Let's call it V.
Then I set a rule in V that you need to find a car in the game and click on it to jump.
Now we ask the question of how to jump on V.
Someone replies ...
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If philosophy is based on reason and rationality, then why is there so much disagreement?
If philosophy is based on reason and rationality, then why is there so much disagreement?
Is it due primarily to operating with different premises absent consensus on their truth, so that dissenters ...
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Is there any valid Theory that Categorizes statements to levels of their truthfulness? [closed]
Is there any valid Theory that Categorizes statements to levels of their truthfulness? and if you consider this theory to be true what is the reasoning behind it?
Because if we look we find that ...
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Illusionists about qualia: how?
I understand that the belief in qualia may be based on a sensual illusion, but I can't get my head around illusionism. Obviously, illusionists deny that we experience any illusion, we just believe (or ...
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More about vacuous truth
All my children in the yard are playing soccer.
It is vacuously true if the speaker has no child.
But if I parse the statement, is it "there are all my children in the yard and they are playing ...
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Why "two unicorns in my backyard are eating flowers" can't be vacuous truth?
"Two unicorns in my backyard are eating flowers".
Why can't it be vacuously true even if there are no unicorns in my backyard?
For all x, if x are two unicorns in my backyard, then x are ...
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How can I understand vacuous truth?
Vacuous truth has two types conditional statements (if) and universal statements (all).
I intuitively understand why conditional statements can be vacuous truth but I don't understand why universal ...
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Vacuously truth in linguistics
I'm wondering because according to dictionaries, there's no truth value in it, but according to Wiki, it's a vacuous truth.
the possibility in certain semantic systems of a statement being neither ...
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Do the senses themselves (not what they deceptively reveal) exist in some form? [closed]
Firstly, I accept that "I" probably don't exist, labelling a tree Barry and a baby child "Charlie" is the same useful construct for reference.
Secondly, the statements "...
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Can we prove the statement "truth exists"? [closed]
It seems that to prove this statement, you cannot assume the notion of true or false, otherwise its circular, meaning that the proof contains no reference to the concepts of true or false.
This ...
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What makes a philosophy better than others? What makes certain assumptions better or of more value?
How do you even consider a philosophical virtue, or even definition of virtue or knowledge to be true or even conception of true.
Like, what makes certain philosophies better or worse? You can ...
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Can axioms be false?
I have often wondered, can axioms be false? For example, I could take as an axiom that "Dogs don't exist", but that is false. To give a more mathematical example, I could take as an axiom ...
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Logical statement, is the deduction correct?
I found a theorem that is like this:
If A and B are true, then C is true if and only if D is true.
In other words:
Can we deduce,
If D and ( not (A) or not (B) ) then not (C)?
Of course "and"...
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Is brevity the soul of wit?
The principle of parsimony is a fundamental philosophical tool. So, is modern philosophy over-complicated? Simplicity is also elegant. So is modern philosophy inelegant? As well as prolix, irrelevant, ...
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When truth or falsity are attributed to the liar sentence, is it a truth trope or a falsity trope that is attributed, rather than a Property of Truth?
I was reading the SEP article on tropes and in a section on semantics, it says:
So when we say, "This is a false sentence," is the initial attribution of falsity equivalent to the ...
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If it is verisimilar that A, is it verisimilar that it is verisimilar that A?
Truthlikeness, AKA verisimilitude or a function of "proximity to the truth," is such as when we might say, "The number of planets (in the Earth's solar system) is 10," vs., "...
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Do we breakdown an explanation of the world into reductionism and holism?
We breakdown the world with an explanation of the truth, in having two schools of approach, the reductionist approach and the holistic approach.
Is there another approach?
Will both approaches arrive ...
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Facts and the denial of "Iff it is true that A, then it is true that it is true that A"
The SEP article on axiomatic theories of truth goes over a theory in which "the truth iteration axiom ∀A(T[TA] ↔ TA) is inconsistent." Apparently (and this sentence is an edit), it's ...
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Are debates in metaphysics usually substantive?
In the SEP article on truth, the author remarks
The contrast [of the coherence theory of truth] with the correspondence theory of truth is clear. Far from being a matter of whether the world provides ...
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If an unfalsifiable claim doesn't contradict known fact, is it harmful to hold?
Say panpsychism. It's compatible with physics, but I don't know how we could determine if an electron is conscious. I don't even know you're conscious! But if believing in it made one's life better, ...
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Why is having true beliefs important? (More detail)
I forgot to keep track of my earlier asking of this question. Rather than make similar replies to many comments, I'll elaborate here. I'll use the example of panpsychism: it holds that natural laws ...
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Why is having true beliefs so important?
Of course, when you need to describe reality or make predictions about it, it's important that the beliefs correspond to reality, but say a religion makes an unfalsifiable and unverifiable claim. Does ...
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Is to be able to describe something to be able to judge that it's true or not?
Unicorns don't exist, but I can still describe unicorns as "unicorns have four legs".
Does the statement "unicorns have four legs" have no truth-value or is it always false, ...
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There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Are these words of Shakespeare,inspired by Marcus Aurelius, true?
This question is not about ethics. It is about our perceptions of positive and negative value. I take the original meaning of the great emperor to be that we have control only of our own thinking, and ...
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Proof verification of god existence theorem
NB:
My question was closed on math stack exchange. They advised me to post it here, but due to the lack of LaTeX formatting, I had to upload it as images. Apologies for that.
I am a first year student ...
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Can semantics work independently apart from philosophy? [closed]
"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."
It implies grammar can work independently apart from semantics.
So I was thinking: "Can semantics work independently apart from philosophy."...
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According to Meinong's theory, is it false that all circles are not square?
According to Meinong's theory, "square circles are circles" is a true statement.
Does it mean that "circles include square circles" is true, so is it false that all circles are not ...
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Why don't people say a square is round?
If a round square exists as a concept, does it mean it exists? So, a square is round because it exists as a concept. But why do some people think "sqaure is round" is a false statement ...
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Vacuous truth: can something exist and not exist at the same time?
Any square isn't round, so I use "round square".
A round sqaure exists
A round sqaure doesn't exist.
Are they both (vacuously) true because any square isn't round?
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Can a definition be true/false?
Can a definition be false or, for that matter, true?
Dog (noun): A tamed lupus canis.
Unicorn (noun): A horse with a horn growing out of its forehead; may be of any color, but are usually pink or ...
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Model vs Theory: Meanings reversed in Alfred Tarski vs Julian Jaynes?
In my reading of Alfred Tarski's model theory, a theory is a formal system whose sentences are without inherent meaning, but which becomes meaningful (e.g. having truth values) only after a model ...
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Do you gain further truth from syllogisms
If you have a valid syllogism thats conclusion is true, have you gained any further truth?
I'll explain my reasoning.
The syllogism:
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man
Conclusion: Socrates is a ...
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The Truth Paradox [closed]
This is a paradox thought up by me, and I do not know if anything similar exists. Please do not accuse me of copying others.
Assume that I am a schoolchild. One day, we have an assembly. Our principal ...
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Confused On The Definition Of A Proposition
One definition I encountered was something that is either true or false.
(for example, I ate vegetables yesterday is a proposition).
Another definition I encountered is the meaning of a sentence
(for ...
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Is there a difference between believing something and behaving as if it were true?
To clarify, I mean without deception. In other words, if something seems plausible to me, and I decide to act on it as though it were true while recognizing that I could be mistaken, do I believe it?
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What is the fallacy called where "Nothing a liar said can be true?"
What is the fallacy called where "Nothing a liar said can be true" (i.e., "false in most things, false in everything")?
For example, consider that 99% of something someone said is ...
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Can life have meaning when all your happiness is from a clear illusion?
When all your happiness is from a clear illusion, is your life meaningless? I am not talking about intentionally living a lie, because I don't mean lying to yourself about it, but feeling as if it ...
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Is philosophical truth always necessary truth?
p147 of Section "Two Kinds of Truth" in Big Questions by Solomon says:
Perhaps the statement "the Forms are most real" is defensible through pure
thinking and without regard for ...
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The deception clause in lying
What if I am asked a question, and respond with an untruth I know is untrue, and I don't really care if I am believed, but definitely don't want to be found out (I don't want anyone to know Ive ...
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When is ok to tell a lie?
When is ok to tell a lie? Clearly, there may well be some cases, such as hiding Anne Frank.
May we sometimes lie about our infidelity, if e.g. we think it could lead to a jealous murder? What about ...
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How can we commute the alethic negation in the liar sentence?
Normally, "It is not true that F," equals, "It is true not that F," or even, "It is true that not F." I can't figure out how to carry this out with the way the truth ...
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Is seeking truth always preferred?
I’ll start off with moral values as an example. I think it is pretty obvious that moral values are socially constructed and don’t have any sort of ontological basis to them. Nature is full of examples ...
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Do alethic nihilists think that all deception and secrecy has the same moral value that "lying" would to non-nihilists?
Do alethic nihilists think that all deception and secrecy has the same moral value that "lying" would to non-nihilists?
This seems strange if taken to extremes. So what separates a virtuous/...
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I think I finally understand alethic nihilism
So the definition of truth is that p is true if and only if p.
However, since the Liar Paradox states that p is true if and only if p is false, this is a contradiction.
So the words truth and falsity ...
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Quantum probability theory and the idea of a "truth-value sphere"
A while ago I asked a question about using imaginary numbers as truth-values for a peculiar concept known as "the square root of negation"; I just found out that apparently this concept is ...
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How Does Alethic Nihlism Address The "Changing Of Subject" Objection?
I recently read this article in my pursuit to understand wtf alethic nihlism is trying to say:
https://philarchive.org/archive/ASASIT
One of the objections to alethic nihlism is that alethic nihlism ...
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Trivialism vs Alethic Nihlism
What are the similiarities and differences between the two theories (as well as arguments for and counterarguments against).
From what I know, trivialism states that everything is true (and I believe ...
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What's so special about Tarski's T-Schema?
It seems fairly obvious. Even a five year old could probably come up with it. Its obvious that if something is the case, it is true (literally synonyms).
So, am I missing something? Is there a gulf ...
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How can alethic nihilism be justified?
I read the article “On the Advantages of Believing that Nothing is True”. I just don't understand how someone can believe something is the case, but is not true. It's like saying you believe unmarried ...