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.
454
questions
47
votes
10
answers
13k
views
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....
33
votes
5
answers
27k
views
What is the difference (if any) between "not true" and "false"?
A fairly simple question I hope someone can help me with.
- 339
32
votes
15
answers
14k
views
Why do some people care so much about "empirical truth"?
Whenever you discuss philosophy, inevitably you will come across a type of person who holds empirical truth above all else, and will blatantly ridicule any discussion which has its onset in a paradigm ...
- 337
32
votes
4
answers
16k
views
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
...
- 9,502
31
votes
10
answers
291k
views
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 ...
- 595
23
votes
17
answers
13k
views
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 ...
- 526
23
votes
12
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 9,960
23
votes
8
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 2,273
22
votes
10
answers
780
views
Is the truth a privative?
A privative is the absence of something, and as such doesn't exist. So cold is a privative, as it is merely the absence of heat.
This question is inspired by this answer about a single noun for an ...
- 325
22
votes
1
answer
15k
views
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 ...
- 9,960
19
votes
11
answers
7k
views
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 ...
- 319
17
votes
8
answers
6k
views
Is "This sentence is written in English" nonsense?
Wittgenstein and many others have said that our language gives the appearance of truth to some nonsense.
Do you think the very simple "This sentence is written in English." is such nonsense ...
- 330
16
votes
1
answer
4k
views
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 ...
- 2,758
15
votes
8
answers
7k
views
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 ...
- 271
14
votes
1
answer
12k
views
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 ...
- 9,960
13
votes
6
answers
4k
views
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 ...
- 655
13
votes
3
answers
606
views
What is the relation between proof in mathematics and observation in physics?
Recently in his 2015 Hirzebruch Lecture in Bonn, Arthur Jaffe re-amplified his famous perspective that finding proof in mathematics is analogous to making experimental observation in physics. In ...
- 1,506
12
votes
4
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 479
12
votes
3
answers
29k
views
The difference between soundness and completeness
Is anyone able to articulate the difference between the properties of soundness and completeness insofar as they relate to the validity of the truth tree/semantic tableau?
- 121
11
votes
1
answer
766
views
What are the differences between Tarski's 1933 and 1956 truth definitions?
The paper "The Seven Virtues of Simple Type Theory" mentions that it uses the same trick (due to Tarski) to define the semantics that is also used by first-order logic. I interpreted this a reference ...
- 3,909
10
votes
5
answers
984
views
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 ...
- 799
9
votes
8
answers
4k
views
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 ...
- 91
9
votes
6
answers
900
views
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 ...
- 303
9
votes
3
answers
968
views
Is there such a thing as N-valued logic?
Is there such a thing as N-valued logic, N being above 5 since there exist 3-valued and 4-valued logic. I am asking, because after true, false and neither, the additional truth value basically don't ...
- 3,797
9
votes
1
answer
464
views
Supervaluationism and Theories of Truth
How does the supervaluationalist defend his/her theory of truth since the correspondence theory of truth seems to presuppose bivalence? It would seem then that the only truth is Super-Truth. And, the ...
- 568
9
votes
3
answers
1k
views
What are the philosophical implications of Tarski's truth definition?
I am a Math student currently taking my Master's Degree, and last semester I took an introductory course on Mathematical Logic. One of the subjects we covered there was Tarski's truth definition; and ...
- 193
9
votes
5
answers
797
views
Is Truth the Primary Epistemic Goal?
There is broad agreement that knowledge is more than just true belief. What, though, must be added to true belief to get knowledge? According to traditional epistemology, two more ingredients are ...
- 3,202
8
votes
12
answers
4k
views
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 ...
- 3,196
8
votes
3
answers
534
views
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 ...
- 577
8
votes
2
answers
364
views
Should truth entail possible truth?
It is a well-accepted axiom of modal logic that truth implies possible truth.
Is there any philosophical argument against this conclusion? In other words, should truth entail possible truth?
- 289
8
votes
6
answers
4k
views
How does Logic define "true" and "false"?
"Truth", "Falsehood" are pretty axiomatic expressions, but even axioms need to be defined in common language terms.
What are the "official" definitions of these in Informal logic, Formal logic, ...
- 500
8
votes
5
answers
489
views
Is it possible to have truth if objective randomness exists?
I will do my best to describe both of my terms as clearly as possible. I would describe true randomness as a process that has absolutely no predictability : even if you knew absolutely everything you ...
- 181
8
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Roko's Basilisk as Descartes' evil genius?
I'll try to pose a shortened version of Roko's Basilisk below and then ask about how it relates to Descartes' evil genius:
The idea is that down the line may it be decades or centuries from
now, ...
- 113
8
votes
1
answer
158
views
Have there been any attempts to "redo" epistemology without the factivity of knowledge?
Mainstream analytic epistemology seems to take for granted that for S to know p, p must be true. I do not share this intuition. It seems that to be properly internalist about knowledge, one can't ...
- 1,603
8
votes
4
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 1,891
8
votes
1
answer
308
views
Does Fodor present any argument for his use of computable methods in his view of the mind?
In defense of his Language of Thought Hypothesis (SEP article), Jerry Fodor argues that Thought is recursively compositional in just the same way that Language is. When we understand a sentence, we ...
- 5,279
7
votes
12
answers
1k
views
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, ...
- 433
7
votes
9
answers
8k
views
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 ...
- 179
7
votes
3
answers
2k
views
In what sense are proofs just arguments that convince us, not arguments that establish truth?
In mathematics and logic, it seems that once a proof of some theorem is discovered, then it is taken to be "absolute truth" within the axiomatic system from which it was derived. My question is: are ...
- 172
7
votes
5
answers
446
views
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 ...
- 216
7
votes
3
answers
980
views
Would Popper's philosophy become pragmatist without the idea of getting closer to "The Truth"?
Popper believed that scientific knowledge is obtained through conjectures and refutations; the refutation of Newton's theory by Einstein is an example. He also believed that in this way science ...
- 2,673
7
votes
5
answers
2k
views
How to disprove "I'm entitled to my opinion"
Background
There is an article in The Conversation that attempts to disprove the notion that people are "entitled to their opinions." That is, people have a right to believe whatever they ...
- 173
7
votes
4
answers
3k
views
Is 'truth' abstract or concrete?
I'm reading Mathematics: Its Content, Methods and Meaning. The authors make what is to me a surprising claim:
To put it briefly, truth is concrete; and it is particularly
important to remember ...
- 173
7
votes
4
answers
1k
views
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" (...
- 3,846
7
votes
1
answer
489
views
What is the current state of the Correspondence Theory of Truth?
Is the Correspondent Theory of Truth currently the most important way of thinking about the nature of truth?
What alternatives are important?
Is there a version of the Correspondent Theory of Truth ...
- 113
7
votes
3
answers
3k
views
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 ...
- 1,891
7
votes
3
answers
961
views
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 ...
user13738
7
votes
2
answers
283
views
Is Tarski's theory of truth compatible with intuitionism?
Intuitionistically, truth is identified with provability: A is true means that it is possible to prove A. In his essay "Intuitionistic logic a philosophical challenge, Logic and Philoshophy" (1980) ...
- 243
7
votes
2
answers
236
views
How does strong evidence imply truth?
I have seen a great number of individuals who take a step from "There is overwhelming evidence to suggest theory X is true" to "Theory X is true." (I think I misworded the former sentence ...
- 17.5k
7
votes
1
answer
179
views
Did any philosopher promote a “pure” pragmatic conception of truth?
William James often associated truth with usefulness (utility), but overall his conception of truth was not pure in this regard. It shares some elements of the correspondence and coherence theory. For ...
- 4,570