1. TRUTH & PARADOXES

2. LIAR’s Paradox: Statement: “Ms. McDonagh-Vella lies all the time.”
If the statement, as spoken by me, is true, then I have contradicted myself.
If the statement is false, I have lied in characterizing myself as a chronic liar.
So? Reminder that language is a supple resource; like a visual illusion, it can play odd tricks with our minds.

3. Common Sense 1st – Sense (ours)
2nd Commonly sensed (us, but also others) Social Psychologist: Solomon Asch
Which line is longer?

4. OH Let me Count the ways… of using “Truth”
He is a true friend.
He has remained true to his beliefs.
A portrait that is truthful to its sitter.
I love you truly, madly, deeply.
She is wearing true emeralds.
A true replica of a Barcelona football shirt.
The door is not hanging truly.
She did not stay true to her boyfriend.
It is synonymous with plenty of other words such as genuine, faithful, loyal, original, honest and so on.

5. TRUTH is…
What we apply to a proposition: Either they are, or they are not, true. Either they are, or they are not, things that can be justified and believed in.
Truth has degrees. i.e. if we do not tell the complete story we are not presenting the entire truth (vs. lying or telling “falsehoods.”) Thus, courts/law seeks out not just the truth, but “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

6. The following are summaries of some of the more well known theories of truth…

7. CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF TRUTH
Summary:
List of criteria, known through our senses, has to be met for something to be true.
Truth is conformity with fact.
Similar to empiricism – relies on personal experience to figure out if true or not.
A golden mane of hair, large fangs, a roar = a lion = true = an elephant = false
Criticisms:
How many criteria have to be true?
What/who defines the criteria?
If statements can merely correspond to the truth – do we fail to capture the reality they are really about (fall short of truth)?

8. Coherence theory of truth
Summary:
The truth of any (true) proposition consists in its coherence with some specified set of propositions.
Truth relies on proposition fitting in with what we know to make sense (induction).
Similar to rationalism – we use information not acquired through personal experience to logically reach an answer.
Several versions of theory exist.
Criticisms:
“Snow falls from the sky” could only be true if the belief that snow falls from the sky coheres with other beliefs – is mind-dependent.
In a large complex society how can people’s beliefs always be consistent?

9. PRAGMATIC THEORY OF TRUTH
Summary:
Greek “Pragma” = action, Charles Pierce, 1878
“What practical difference will the truth bring to any one’s actual life?”
Truth is a function of an active process of engagement with the world and verification.
“Water is wet” – must understand “wetness” of other objects.
Criticisms:
Is a belief “useful” or “true?”
“What works” may not always work (i.e. success)
What if an “untruth” is more useful than a “truth?”

10. IDENTITY THEORY OF TRUTH
Summary:
100% correspondence with identical fact is required for something to be true “Socrates is ugly.” – What is “ugliness”?
Criticisms:
How can we be 100% certain of something?
Can ideas ever be 100% identical to things outside our head?
Nothing can ever be true.

11. Deflationary Theory of truth
Summary:
The truth is equivalent of nothing.
Truth doesn’t exist – frustrates philosophers
The snow is white is true -“is true” doesn’t add more substance or credibility to the statement
Get rid of the idea of truth – linguistic issue
No characteristic is true.
Criticisms:
Use of truth and falsity has occurred for years, therefore we can’t write it off so quick.
Saying something is true is referring to the truth of the statement, not what the statement is talking about.

12. Paradox Para = contrary Doxa = opinion
a statement or proposition that seems self- contradictory or absurd but in reality  expresses a possible element of truth.
Basic Examples
Read Theseus’ Ship Handout and A Page or Two of Paradoxes (Hmwk)

13. Soren KIERKEGAARD Writes;
“But one must not think ill of the paradox, for the paradox is the passion of thought, and the thinker without the paradox is like the lover without passion: a mediocre fellow. But the ultimate potentiation of every passion is always to will its own downfall, and so it is also the ultimate passion of the understanding to will the collision, although in one way or another the collision must become its downfall. This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.” From Philosophical Fragments