Truth, Facts, Theories, and Definitions

Truth and Facts 3 Theories of Truth: Pragmatic Coherence Truth is what works, or serves our purposes Coherence Truth is what coheres with the rest of our knowledge Correspondence Truth is what corresponds to facts

Truth and Facts The Coherence Theory: seems circular or question begging: it defines truth in terms of coherence with our knowledge. But knowledge presupposes true belief. If we know something, then surely anything that contradicts that knowledge will be false. But how do we get knowledge in the first place? What if we only knew one thing?

Truth and Facts The Pragmatic Theory: seems compatible with many things we think are false belief in spirits or ghosts may work or serve the purposes of mediums and fortune tellers … we still want to say those beliefs are or may be false

Truth and Facts The Correspondence Theory seems to be what we mean when we say something is true My pancake is salty! (we seem to agree that someone told the truth when we check the pancake and find it salty) Coherence and Pragmatic theories seem to confuse a test of truth with what constitutes it

Truth and Facts If truth is correspondence (not all philosophers accept this), what are the terms of the correspondence? One candidate pairing is a sentence and a fact, but since ‘Puellam amo’ and ‘I love the girl’ are different sentences, but say the same thing, it’s better to have a name for what a sentence says than to make those different sentences the bearer of one truth. Philosophers call what a sentence says a proposition.

Truth and Facts So truth is correspondence b/w propositions and facts. But what are facts? The best way to think of a fact is as a state of affairs. Imagine a ruler on a desk. That is one state of affairs. Another is the distance of the ruler from one of the corners Another is the distance to another corner, and yet another Another state of affairs is the color of the ruler Another, the color or the desk. You see where this is going…

Truth and Facts So, from the previous example, the world is composed of innumerable, though perhaps not infinite, states of affairs, or facts. “The world is the totality of facts, not of things.” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Sentences, or propositions, express facts we select from the world. Experience teaches us to be selective about which facts we seek to express.

Truth and Facts From this account we see that it is confusion to speak of “true facts.” Or, for that matter, false facts. Facts just are. Facts are the target. We don’t say the target was true; we say the archer’s aim was true.

Truth and Facts When truth does occur, it will be the proposition which is true, not the fact, and the proposition will be true only because of the fact. ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. –(Alfred Tarski, Polish logician) What that means is, the sentence is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact.

Truth and Facts Breaking it down (analyzing it, somewhat sloppily): ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if there is an entity referred to by the term ‘snow’ there is an entity referred to by the term ‘white’ there is an exemplification relation referred to by the term ‘is’, such that, the entity referred to by the term ‘snow’ has the property referred to by the term ‘white’, and the having of the property is expressed by the use of the term ‘is’ Notice, this analysis will have problems accounting for the truth of statements about the future, fictional beings, and the whole theory may have other problems. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/#5

Truth and Facts One last word about facts: notice that facts, as such, indicate nothing about how well or poorly we know them. There are gazillions of unknown facts. In journalism school, students are (used to be?) taught to use the term ‘fact’ only for what can be known by the reader’s reflection (like 2+2=4), or what can be easily inspected (Abe Lincoln was president)

Theories and Facts So, how should we understand this disagreement? Evolution is a fact, not a theory! or Evolution is a theory, not a fact! What is a theory, anyway?

Theories A theory is one possible explanation among other possible explanations Theories are competing explanations That doesn’t mean there must be two or more actual explanations competing before we can call one or the other a theory It does mean we use the term theory when we recognize the door is open to possible competing explanations (otherwise, we call our explanation the explanation, not a theory) Consider the “you or the dog ate the cookie case.”

Theories If that's a good definition, that makes every explanation a theory relative to level of skepticism, or relative to ability to conceive of alternative explanations Consider debate over 2+2=4.

Theories Consider the previous definition to any of the 6 you will read in Merriam Webster’s dictionary http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory Compare the previous definition to The National Academy of Sciences’ definition of theory: http://nationalacademies.org/evolution/Definitions.html

Definitions Aristotle distinguished between real and verbal definition Verbal definition = definition of words Real definition = definition of things Dictionaries contain verbal definitions, which tell us what words mean Scientists and philosophers sometimes seek real definitions, which tell us what things are

Definitions Real definitions try to express that ‘whatness’ or ‘essence’ of a thing Perhaps the most fundamental distinction of reality is between existence and essence: Existence: that something is Essence: what something is In answering the question what something is, we are providing a real definition

Genus – Difference Definitions Genus – Difference Definitions (also mistakenly called Genus – Species definitions) A Genus is a group or kind of thing A Species is a subgroup of that group or kind Genus and Species are relative terms: a genus may be a species of some other larger group a species may be a genus if it contains yet smaller groups

Genus – Difference Definitions Example of relative classification terms: Life form (genus) Animal (species) Animal (genus) Mammal (species) Mammal (genus) Tiger (species) Tiger (genus) Bengal tiger (species) Biologists have more rigid taxonomy where genus and species are used in a non-relative way: Kingdom, phylum, class, order …

Genus – Difference Definitions In a genus – difference definition, the “species” are separated from one another by the “difference,” or, you might say, the difference is an attribute or attributes that distinguish species from one another Daughter = offspring, female Species Genus Difference

Genus – Difference Definitions Biography = book, on a person Skyscraper = building, very tall Species Genus Difference Species Genus Difference

Genus – Difference Definitions Consider 2 definitions of human being: Featherless biped Rational animal Both are genus – difference, or genus – specific difference definitions of the species ‘human’ or ‘human being’

Genus – Difference Definitions Consider 2 definitions of human being: Featherless biped Rational animal Which definition is better? In terms of uniqueness? (too broad or narrow?) In terms of expression of whatness or essence?

Other Ways of Defining In addition to Genus – Difference definitions, there are: Ostensive: defining a term by pointing Enumerative: by naming members of the class the term refers to Subclass: by naming subclasses of the class the term refers to Synonymous: by identifying a term with a synonym Etymological: by citing the term’s origin Operational: by using a test that tells whether a term applies to a thing

Kinds of Definitions… Below are 5 commonly distinguished “kinds” of definition Lexical (Reportive) – these are dictionary definitions that report the ordinary meanings of words. These may employ all the ways of defining on the previous slide Stipulative – a new meaning or new name for a new thing or new understanding. Let’s call this new animal a ‘Tigon’ … and this other a ‘Liger’. Precising – a “just to be clear … let’s agree to use the word this way” definition: let’s say ‘poor’ means ‘earns less than $20,000 dollars a year, for a family of 3’ Persuasive – an underhanded effort to solve a dispute with a definition: let’s define ‘abortion’ as ‘the murder of the unborn’, shall we? Theoretical – a meaning dependent upon a theory: in Utilitarian ethics, ‘good’ means ‘tends to produce happiness’