"The Truth" - dialectically speaking

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Materialism vs. Mysticism/Idealism

Truth is inherently a conscious subject. An untruth is a subject known to contradict with scientific understanding of material reality; understanding is inherently a conscious action.There are quite a few fields where we humans know to have knowledge about all possible varieties, the light and color spectrum for instance; we know all the basic elements that make up specific colors. We see all possibilities because of these varieties and hence it is true that we see all colors. Truth is congenitally a conscious concept.

[Dean]

Materialism vs. Mysticism/Idealism

Truth is inherently a conscious subject. An untruth is a subject known to contradict with scientific understanding of material reality; understanding is inherently a conscious action.
Wouldn't a materialist perspective hold that truth is the objective fact that can only be known via understanding?

What extent of certainty is required to acknowledge that something is true? What degree of uncertainty is acceptable? To what extent can faith supplement your understanding to allow you to act when you are uncertain of the outcome?


There are quite a few fields where we humans know to have knowledge about all possible varieties, the light and color spectrum for instance; we know all the basic elements that make up specific colors.
Colors are a perceptual issue. Its analogous to taste or odor - we are limited in our degree of sensory perception of colors. Scientific studies have shown that there are others outside of our ability to distinguish; why should we be sure that we have all of these already?


We see all possibilities because of these varieties and hence it is true that we see all colors. Truth is congenitally a conscious concept.

I don't disagree. But I also don't see what the real meaning is here... truth, if it refers to ideas (i.e. "what you said is true") is a conscious concept. It is also a concept malleable to the degree of uncertainty and faith I am referring to above. This is a mystical concept and it is applicable to even the hardest sciences. I don't feel like I can stress this enough. Even the most intense scientific studies still rely on the honesty of the tools: there is no way to be certain that our perception is not consistently wrong even when results consistently show something to be true.

I don't think mysticism is opposed to materialism. I think, rather, that no real concepts of material reality can exist without some kind of mysticism. If it weren't for faith, we should all be acting like Hume and questioning ideas, never developing new ones. A bit simplistic, but I think you get the idea.

This is just from my interpretation, by the way, so forgive me if I misunderstood what you were getting at.

[Red Economist]

As far as I know dialectical conceptions of truth [from what I've read by Maurice Cornforth, which isen't much] differ from 'mechanical' ones in accepting that truth is simultaneously objective and subjective:

i.e. whilst truth may be discovered in our practical activity (it is objective and material), it still has to be discovered by human beings (it is subjective as well, but through material activity, with thought processes existing interdependently, rather than in seperation/isolation, from labour). The two are in contradiction to one another given that (objective) evidence can overwhelm (subjective) belief at a certain point. This is something of a 'labour theory of knowlegde'.

Marxist conceptions of truth have to take into account the 'false consciousness' of idealism and religion against an 'athiest-materialism'. Given that Marxism starts philosophically from the premise that there is no god (the existence of god being a BIG subject)- it is not the same as current conceptions of science, or objective truth (Positivism?) and consciously requires a fairly large philosophical (or subjective) component to start with.

In the subjective area, this would appear to have some similarities to Nietzsche's philosophy, given that the 'will to truth' becomes a 'will to power' in asserting that one thing is true over another (possibly a legacy of Feurbach's Athiest and Hegel's Dialectical influence on Nietzsche which are common sources with Marx: not sure as I am not an expert). However Nietzsche over-emphasises the subjective will of the inidividual in forming 'truths' to the point where it is idealist and truth becomes a product of the mind.

[Thirsty Crow]

Materialism vs. Mysticism/Idealism

Truth is inherently a conscious subject.
Funny, this statement is completely mystifiying.

Truth is no such thing as a "conscious subject". It is a property of a given proposition.

[Dean]

Funny, this statement is completely mystifiying.

Truth is no such thing as a "conscious subject". It is a property of a given proposition.

If truth is a property of a proposition, propositions being ideas, how is truth not a conscious subject?

[RedMaterialist]

As truth develops and establishes a boundary, it then becomes false.

[blake 3:17]

I don't think mysticism is opposed to materialism. I think, rather, that no real concepts of material reality can exist without some kind of mysticism. If it weren't for faith, we should all be acting like Hume and questioning ideas, never developing new ones. A bit simplistic, but I think you get the idea.


Are answers better than questions? It could be far better to actually explore mystical and idealist thoughts and thinkers than to turn them into some lump.

I find Hume a terrifying thinker. I think he and Descartes are under appreciated. The latter's more obviously utilitarian, but his spooky side throws up lots of questions that are more interesting than a conventional Hegelian Marxist response is.

[Thirsty Crow]

If truth is a property of a proposition, propositions being ideas, how is truth not a conscious subject?

To be more precise - truth testability (verification) is a property of certain propositions.
How could "truth" be called a "conscious subject" is beyond me since truth does nothing, it doesn't act as a "subject" (or I'm misunderstanding the use of the term here), and furtheremore how "truth" can be conscious when it does not have a brain...all very mystifying, as I said.

[Dean]

To be more precise - truth testability (verification) is a property of certain propositions.
How could "truth" be called a "conscious subject" is beyond me since truth does nothing, it doesn't act as a "subject" (or I'm misunderstanding the use of the term here), and furtheremore how "truth" can be conscious when it does not have a brain...all very mystifying, as I said.

I didn't think this was about truth "thinking for itself." But rather, the concept of truth being a mental construct. Since it is a property of ideas solely, I don't see how it can be see as anything but an issue of a thinking mind (objective material reality is always real so the true/false dichotomy doesn't even apply).

Verifiability is an issue of the mind, as well. Nothing in nature "verifies" anything unless some proposition is introduced. Propositions are, by nature, ideas, and so those things that come with them are limited to the mental world.

That is how I took the OP.


As truth develops and establishes a boundary, it then becomes false.

Are you talking about truth becoming laws or dogma? Perhaps you're onto something, but I think that all interpretations of the world are "false" in that they don't capture the whole picture. Rigidity is not necessary for uncertainty.


Are answers better than questions? It could be far better to actually explore mystical and idealist thoughts and thinkers than to turn them into some lump.

I find Hume a terrifying thinker. I think he and Descartes are under appreciated. The latter's more obviously utilitarian, but his spooky side throws up lots of questions that are more interesting than a conventional Hegelian Marxist response is.

Schopenhauer is better for dark, spookiness imo. Either way, I think mysticism is the only thing that allows humans to function once our certainty reaches its limits, which I think happens far quicker - for every idea - than anyone will admit.

[Thirsty Crow]

I didn't think this was about truth "thinking for itself." But rather, the concept of truth being a mental construct. Since it is a property of ideas solely, I don't see how it can be see as anything but an issue of a thinking mind (objective material reality is always real so the true/false dichotomy doesn't even apply).

Verifiability is an issue of the mind, as well. Nothing in nature "verifies" anything unless some proposition is introduced. Propositions are, by nature, ideas, and so those things that come with them are limited to the mental world.

That is how I took the OP.
But Dean, you shouldn't be forced to take the OP in any way.

What I'm getting at here is that the wording, the rhetoric, makes no sense. You can try to decipher it but inevitably different people would come to different conclusions, without a clarification from OP. For me, a sentence like "truth is inherently a conscious subject" couldn't mean anything else but what I stated, because I didn't bother by trying to decipher it (even if it were revised to read "truth is a subject of consciousness", it wouldn't get any clearer). I'm amused when trying to decipher poetry, but theoretical communication demands clarity of expression.

I could as well say that the truth is dialectically interwoven with its opposite, and that truth and flasehood synthetically form a higher whole. Now, that would also make no sense and would leave everyone wondering what I'm blabbering about.

For one thing, it's clear that "truth" is a mental construct in the way you describe it. It is also a function of language (communication), or a function of our brain if you like. All that holds.

But another point is precisely relating to language. You can't really say that a sentence like "Thomas Paine was a judutondor" is false, it is non-sense. What is at stake here is language use, and the established relationship between a string of sounds or letters and a concrete thing. So truth in this respect is always objective since our communication requires an object we talk about. That is the so called correspondence, and it is not the property of propositions solely, but it has to do with the relationship between them and the objects they refer to.

But of course, on this level, that there exists no truth outside the thinking human brain, you're completely right.

And sorry if this comes accross as nitpicking, but I actually do think that there might be problematic undertones to the basically correct approach of "truth is a mental construct" (not that you even implied these, of course).

[Luís Henrique]

To be more precise - truth testability (verification) is a property of certain propositions.
How could "truth" be called a "conscious subject" is beyond me since truth does nothing, it doesn't act as a "subject" (or I'm misunderstanding the use of the term here), and furtheremore how "truth" can be conscious when it does not have a brain...all very mystifying, as I said.

I suppose he means that "truth" is a property that only applies to conscious acts.

As in:


* The stone is true.
* The frog is true.
* The airplane is true.

Are all meaningless sentences - or at least sentences where "true" doesn't mean the same as in


Saying that Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 is true.
Your account of the situation is not true.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not true.

But I think he misses something. "Truth" is a property of acts of speech; not all conscious acts can be true or untrue.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

But I think he misses something. "Truth" is a property of acts of speech; not all conscious acts can be true or untrue.

Luís Henrique
Bingo.

I think we can only talk about truth meaningfully in a non-metaphysical sense, and with clear and careful use of words, since confusion is very easy to proliferate, especially when people whose primary language isn't the one they're speaking in at the moment communicate.

[Luís Henrique]

I think we can only talk about truth meaningfully in a non-metaphysical sense,

This would depend on what you call "metaphysical". It is difficult to find two people who use such word in the same sence (and in this, it's use is way more objectionable that the use of "truth").


and with clear and careful use of words, since confusion is very easy to proliferate, especially when people whose primary language isn't the one they're speaking in at the moment communicate.

We shouldn't however promote ordinary misuse of words to the category of philosophical-metaphysical-mystical misaprehensions of reality.

Reality knows how to make itself misunderstood; it doesn't need linguistic conundrums to resist knowledge.

Luís Henrique