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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How can we reason about "if P then Q" or "P only if Q" statements in propositional logic?
When you have a propositional sentence of the form P ⊃ Q — which we might read as "if P, then Q" — how can you tell when it is true, or false, based on the truth-values of P and ...
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What is the difference between Fact and Truth?
I'm curious about the difference between Fact and Truth. I was searching on the internet if I could find it. But still I'm confused about the exact meaning.
I first read the forum discussion here
Fact ...
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Is everything just an opinion?
I read some people don't believe in truth but do believe there is always a chance that x. I have a question about such thought.
I recently heard an anecdote that says nobody can ever prove I ate ...
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Is there modal logic without possible worlds?
Would it be desirable to carry out a deflationary research programme in modal logic? In other words, would it be desirable to re-think modal logic without the possible worlds semantics? The original ...
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Is mathematics truth? As in the sense of that which is manifest or possible in reality?
In mathematics there are imaginary numbers which cannot be represented directly in reality (the physical world). For example, you can't have i apples where
i = √-1 (square root of -1)
Can we ...
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Motivations for dialetheism?
At the request of the moderators, I've reformulated this question to change the emphasis of the question to something perhaps a little more broad-ranging:
Question. What are the major modern ...
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Are mathematical statements necessary truths?
I apologize if a similar question has been asked here, but I haven't found it.
Are mathematical statements necessary truths?
By 'mathematical statements', I mean both mathematical axioms as well as ...
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Does Reality change when theory change?
I was going to include a caveat to prove a premise: to show that truth has become more subjective and then proceeding from older to newer theories of truth, I would cite a survey showing how ...
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Ref request: Reality objective or subjective
This is a request for a reference on (within) philosophy.stackexchange.com.
It follows from discussions around this question.
I am asking after having tried my luck at websearch.
What I am searching ...
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Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem: How can truth go deeper than proof?
My current understanding:
Math starts with a set of basic (purportedly self-evident) statements that are taken as a given without the need to prove them true, like e.g., a + b = b + a etc. Such ...
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Can my attitude kill you?
Indeed, it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish... -Nietzsche
Would it be morally reprehensible to tell a truth to someone if I know or ...
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Is scientism a self defeating epistemology?
Some who have argued against the validity of scientism have argued that the view that only science can uncover truth is not a scientific discovery but rather a epistemology. Hence it has been claimed ...
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Can there be true conclusions without assumptions?
I was thinking of the sentence
"I think therefore I am",
which I had for a long time considered indisputable because it's self-evident.
Then I considered the hypothetical situation where my ...
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Is there a single definition of truth?
Is there a single definition of truth in philosophy?
Seeing multiple definitions has inclined me to believe that there is no proper definition of philosophy that everyone can agree on.
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What are the philosophical implications of Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem?
Gödel's First Incompleteness Theorem states
Any effectively generated theory
capable of expressing elementary
arithmetic cannot be both consistent
and complete. In particular, for any
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How do quantifiers work in predicate logic?
Predicate logic is somewhat like propositional logic, except that where propositional logic only works on the level of whole sentences (e.g. A = "Socrates is mortal", B = "All ...
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What makes Humans different from a chemical computer?
Are we all robots? Is our DNA the 0's and 1's of computer code? Are we an advanced computer system, with instead of keyboard and mouse input... input from our senses. Our database being our brain ...
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Shouldn't statements be considered equivalent based on their meaning rather than truth tables?
Consider the following truth table, which serves to define the logical connective ⇔,
P | Q || P⇔Q
T | T || T
T | F || F
F | T || F
F | F || T
According to the above truth table, the logical ...
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Are truth-claims inappropriate?
Strictly speaking, is it inappropriate to make a truth-claim?
I am seeking an answer from Philosophy (Epistemology), and feel free to use logic
I am speaking "theoretically", not "practically"
I am ...
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Is it ethical to research potentially harmful topics? [closed]
Some truths are very unpleasant. Some fields may even be unpleasant to research, because the researcher may wind up discovering something very disconcerting about the world.
Should we investigate ...
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Dynamic concept of "truth"
I've recently read a book in which a certain sentence sparked a question in my mind:
"the Platonic philosophy is a search for truth, the certain truth.
Such truth... is necessarily static" (...
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How should we choose between different theories according to Rorty, based on Kuhn?
Popper tried to distinguish a scientific framework from a non-scientific framework ( like Marxism or Psychoanalysis, according to him) by suggesting the criterion of falsification.
Kuhn suggested ...
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Finding a clear difference between truth and fact [duplicate]
I have been starting back in school after a long hiatus. In one of my classes, a discussion of Truth began. The problem I have had is that no one seems to have a solid definition between the two.
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Can reason defend itself without resort to reason?
I recently read, "Reason can't defend itself without resort to reason." Is this universally true?
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Is it possible to prove that a particular statement cannot be disproved without creating a contradiction?
In the following link (http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_ExistenceExists.html) the authors are basically arguing that there are statements that we cannot deny without contradicting ...
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A world where nothing can be hidden. No lies, always truth
In a Bollywood movie Pk, a man comes from a planet where lying is not possible as all the thoughts/knowledge is transferable via human contact. Due to which they do not have to lie about anything or ...
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Can we say that "I Think Therefore I Am" was never about "I", or thinking, or "I" doing the thinking?
Strictly speaking, "Cogito ergo sum" simply means:
"The existence of your own mind can never be in doubt."
Item 1) also describes our true knowledge in its entirety.
Or we can ...
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Why do I accept some inconsequential claims as "obviously true" without evidence? E.g. "Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer."
There are certain claims that I accept as obviously true without (much) evidence. For example:
Most people don't like to be hit on the head with a hammer.
Donald Trump ate dinner some time last week....
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What is the difference (if any) between "not true" and "false"?
A fairly simple question I hope someone can help me with.
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When it is correct to use Tarski's undefinability theorem versus Gödel's incompleteness theorem?
Smullyan (1991, 2001) has argued forcefully that Tarski's undefinability theorem deserves much of the attention garnered by Gödel's incompleteness theorems. That the latter theorems have much to say ...
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Does every truth have to be provable based on evidence?
I know the answer is "no" in general due to Gödel's Theory of Incompleteness, but I mean this question in a more real-world sense (i.e. scientific sense). In other words, I am talking about empirical ...
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Is the concept of “knowledge” important for philosophy?
I learned the definition of “knowledge” of justified true belief. I wonder whether it is important in any branch of philosophy? If I think about information per se, this boils down to technical ...
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Why is belief necessary for justified true belief?
In justified true belief it is said that for a person to know a fact it must be true, she must believe in it and she must be justified in believing it.
My question is: Is belief necessary? Why is the ...
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Claims that we know (virtually) nothing - can they be refuted?
Here's an argument that I've heard a number of times from friends and on the Internet:
"The ratio of what we know about the universe to what we have yet to
discover is so small - it is therefore ...
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Is finding truth possible?
Consider the following argument:
If want to know that something is true, I need to first know what
is truth. If I need to know what is true, I need to find the truth.
(Is there ...
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Is there such a thing as a 'necessary truth'?
Wikipedia (note the redirect) defines 'necessary truth' as statements which "could not be untrue", and I assume that this is how the term is usually used. A search through the SEP shows that while ...
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According to St. Thomas Aquinas, do "being" (ens) and "truth" (verum) differ?
In his Disputed Questions on Truth q. 1 a. 1 arg. 3, St. Thomas Aquinas presents an argument against "that the true (verum) is exactly the same as being (ens)":
3. Things which differ conceptually [...
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Do philosophers think beliefs are bearers of truth-value?
In the literature about what sorts of things have a truth-value, the idea that acts of belief bear truth-value seems present, yet uncommon. On the other hand, objects of belief like propositions or ...
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What is the division of philosophical doctrines with respect to absoluteness/relativity of truth?
Right now I am listening to a talk on youtube which starts with the declaration "of course we all know truth is a relative notion".
There are certainly some directions in philosophy which ...
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Did medieval philosophers believe that Truth is causally active?
From the modern standpoint, truth is about propositions or beliefs. Getting true beliefs is not something that just comes to us by itself; evidence has to be gathered by us, we have to reason, ...
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Can correspondence and coherence views of truth be compatible?
If in the course of interacting with an external world, a person is creating a set of coherent knowledge about this world, then there should be a mapping between their beliefs and the external facts. ...
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If "All S is P" is true, does it contradict "No non-S is non-P"?
I have a problem I encountered in a logic textbook that I cannot figure out after multiple tries.
Say we assume that "All S is P" is true.
Does this allow us to conclude the truth value of "No Non-S ...
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Justification of the material conditional truth function in Introduction to Formal Logic
Pages 150-151 of §18.3 of Introduction to Formal Logic by Peter Smith provide two justifications for the truth table of the material conditional.
In the first justification (paragraph (a) - (c) on pg. ...
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What is the end goal of contemporary philosophy? [closed]
I had a professor who I found quite worthless except his explanation of philosophy as:
an attempt to reduce the flux of the world to arrive at unchanging truth
The class was centered around seeing ...
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Are extraordinary first-hand subjective accounts more likely to be true the more people report the same experience?
For illustrative purposes, let's take as an example the following claim X = "I went to sleep, but then I suddenly woke up at 3:00 a.m. feeling a terrifying evil presence, and then my bed began to ...
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Are there any stoic suggestions around dealing with unneeded hard truths and happy unknowing minds?
Say I really liked sausage, one day decided to learn how it was made, and came out disgusted though not morally opposed.
Later, someone is telling me they really like sausage. They are happy liking ...
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Is perspectivism a subtype of relativism?
This question is motivated by a comment discussion from my previous question. From this article that was linked in a comment:
“Perspectivism, or scientific relativism, is never relative to a subject: ...
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What is Alethic Nihilism?
I recently came across this reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/15chen5/comment/jtwnkkw/
I think it has something to do with denying the truth predicate without denying the ...
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What makes an argument objectively more "compelling"?
If person A gives an argument to person B in order to convince them about the truth of claim X, how can B determine how compelling A's argument is in a way that is as objective as possible (i.e. in a ...
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Would the imaginary unit be the truth-value of sentences formed using √𝐧𝐨𝐭?
Section 4.3 of "Sentence Connectives in Formal Logic" discusses a concept of demi-negation or what is (for the sake of the text) resolved to a concept of "the square root of negation&...
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