Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Truth

  • Against Ostrich Nominalism (2021 Update)

    Cyrus asked me whether being an ostrich indicates a moral defect. He is invited to repeat his question in his own words in the Comments. Logically prior question: what is an ostrich? The entry below is a redacted version of one from January 2013. ……………………………………….. As magnificent a subject as philosophy is, grappling as it does with…

  • How are God and Truth Related? (2021 Expanded Version)

    By my count, there are five different ways to think about the relation of God and truth: 1) There is truth, but there is no God. 2) There is truth, and there is God, but God is not the ontological ground of truth. 3) There is truth, there is God, and God is the ontological…

  • Narrative Coherence is not Enough

    There is a logical gap between coherence and truth.

  • Reductive Presentism and the Truth-Value Links

    What renders a statement about the past true? On one version of presentism, nothing does: statements about the past are brute truths. A rather more plausible version holds that "whatever renders a statement about the past true must lie in the present." (Michael Dummett, Truth and the Past, Columbia UP 2004, 75)  Craig Bourne labels…

  • Do Past-Tensed Truths Need Truthmakers?

    Cyrus wrote in an earlier thread, In the linked article, you write: That (some) truths refer us to the world as to that which makes them true is so obvious and commonsensical and indeed 'Australian' that one ought to hesitate to reject the idea because of the undeniable puzzles that it engenders. Motion is puzzling…

  • Truthmakers and Truth Conditions

    The following is an excerpt from an old entry that makes a distinction we need to keep in mind in present discussions. ……………….. Dan offers (*) The sentence 'Al is fat' is true because Al is fat to show that a truthmaker need not be an entity. It seems to me, though, that Dan is…

  • Presentism and Truthmakers: A Reply to David Brightly

    I first want to apologize to David Brightly for not paying more attention to his ongoing gentlemanly critique of my ideas at his weblog, tillyandlola: Comments on the Maverick.    Although our minds work in very different ways, this is scant excuse for my not having engaged his incisive and well-intentioned critique more fully.  I…

  • Lie or Exaggeration or Bullshit? Politics in an Age of Bullshit

    A redacted re-post from 30 November 2016 ……………………………….. Over the weekend, Donald Trump bragged in signature style that he “won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Lefties are calling the statement a lie.  But it is no such thing.  In the typical case, a lie is a false…

  • Is There Such a Thing as Metaphysical Explanation?

    M. L. writes,   I've been enjoying your critique of [Peter] van Inwagen. [The reader is presumably referring to  my "Van Inwagen on Fiction, Existence, Properties, Particulars, and Method" in Studia Neoaristotelica: A Journal of Analytical Scholasticism, 2015, vol. 12, no. 2, 99-125]  I was initially astonished at his claim that metaphysics/ontology doesn't explain, but…

  • The Infirmity of Truth

    Having the truth is no defense in the court of the politically correct. For that court lies in the precincts of power, and here below truth is no match for power unless those who are truthful also have power.  But the paths to power are often paved with lies and their necessity. Rare then is…

  • Narratives and the Left

    Leftists love narratives because a narrative needn't be true to be a narrative. Their assessment criteria are identity-tribal rather than logical.  A good narrative is a coherent  story that enhances the tribe's power. Whether true or false is not to the point, the point being power. Truth is not a leftist value. It is not…

  • Meinertsen on the Merely Apparent Existence of Thick Particulars

    This is the second in a series on Bo Meinertsen's 2018 book. It is part of a 'warm-up' for a review article to appear in Metaphysica.  Here is the first installment. A thick particular in the parlance of David Armstrong is an ordinary particular taken together with its non-relational properties. But an ordinary particular is…

  • Saturday Night at the Oldies: The Seder Scene in “Crimes and Misdemeanors”

    "Crimes and Misdemeanors" is Woody Allen's masterpiece. Here is the Seder scene. Addendum 8/26 The scene ends with Saul saying "If necessary, I will always choose God over the truth."  It works cinematically, but it is a philosophically lame response to the atheist Aunt May. It is lame because Saul portrays the theist as one…

  • Truth, Fallibilism, Objectivism, and Dogmatism

    It is important not to confuse the question of the fallibility of our cognitive faculties, including reason, with the question whether there is truth.  Truth is one thing, fallibility another. A fallibilist need not be a truth-denier.  One can be both a fallibilist and an upholder of truth.  What's more, one ought to be both…

  • How are God and Truth Related?

    By my count, there are five different ways to think about the relation of God and truth: 1) There is truth, but there is no God. 2) There is truth, and there is God, but God is not the ontological ground of truth. 3) There is truth, there is God, and truth ultimately depends on…