A tale of truth | Simon Blackburn

Join Simon Blackburn to explore the connection between truth and pragmatism.

#Blackburn #Wittgenstein #Tractatus

Truth has had a difficult century. More than ever we are lost as to both 'what truth is' and 'what is true'. Should we instead turn to pragmatism? Author of Think and Truth: A guide for the perplexed, Simon Blackburn has worked to bring philosophy to a wider audience. He was a Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University and Vice President of the British Humanist Association.

[scotthullinger]

Truth is the opposite of falsehood.
Falsehood is the opposite of truth.
Not too complicated -
Slightly more complicated is knowing the difference between the two.
This difficulty is of course constantly expressed by those who believe they know, versus those who believe they know, but in fact know nothing -

[raycosmic]

The Word of Truth is ever faithful (loyal, true, isomorphic) to Reality (That which is).

[havenbastion]

The Truth is that which continuously replicates.

[earthjustice]

It seems to me that the pragmatist theory of truth is the same as the coherence theory. Pierce: truth is the end result of exhaustive inquiry. OK, the end result of exhaustive inquiry are statements that cohere with the rest of our knowledge.

[richardpenhardt]

Yes. Some circumstantial i.e. local events labeled Truth.

[havenbastion]

Coherent is sufficient, but it must be internally coherent for internal purposes and externally coherent for external purposes.

[shehrosemian]

Wittgenstein actually covered that case; but Blackburn probably over-analyzed the work while reading it. I would advise him to try to read it with some normative force and see what he thinks...

[josephsookraj]

the person of God who speaks forth, See the gospel of the disciple of John, objective and unchangeable

[____uncompetative]

The world is not everything that is the case.

[xavariusquest]

What a remarkably childish premise..."turn to pragmatism". That is the philosophical rant of a dilettante. What is pragmatic is often not true...but it is easier, serves ulterior purposes, a justifiable compromise, and an acceptable option for not doing the right thing...the correct thing. Expediency often follows pragmatism in decision-making.

Of course there is truth. Not everything can be reduced to a single truth because not everything can be known. But, truth is discernible and measurable in enough cases in life that we can see empirical evidence of it. That is important. It takes character to search for it...especially when knowledge of it could be counter productive to the aim of the search.

[toniwilson]

Starting to feel like a propaganda channel