Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Truth

  • Presentism, Truthmakers, and Ex-Concrete Objects: Some Questions for Francesco Orilia

     Here is an interesting little antilogism to break our heads against: A. Presentism: Only what exists at present, exists. B. Datum: There are past-tensed truths. C. Truthmaker Principle: If p is a contingent truth, then there is a truthmaker T such that (i) T makes true p, and (ii) T exists when p is true.…

  • Can it be Shown that Truth is More Than a Transcendental Presupposition?

    Cyrus writes, I've been thinking about Pyrrhonian arguments. I wonder if you could help with something:   i. Either there is truth or there is no truth. ii. If there is truth, there is truth. iii. If there is no truth, there is truth. iv. Hence, there is truth.   (i) is an instance of…

  • Were Trump Voters Irrational? Instrumental and Epistemic Rationality; Truth and Accuracy

    A very good article. I agree that the answer to the title question is in the negative.  But I have a couple of questions about the following: Cognitive scientists recognize two types of rationality: instrumental and epistemic. Instrumental rationality is achieved when we act with optimal efficiency to achieve our goals. Epistemic rationality concerns how well beliefs map onto…

  • Sometimes the Truth is not Reasonably Believed

    If a proposition is true, does it follow that it is rational to accept it? (Of course, if a proposition is known to be true, then it is eminently rational to accept it; but that's not the question.) Hefner's death reminds me of a true story from around 1981.  This was before I was married.…

  • God, Necessity, and Truth

    Jacques e-mails: You think that if God exists, He exists necessarily, and if He does not exist, He does not exist necessarily.  But suppose that God does not exist.  We agree, I think, that we can't rationally rule out the possibility?  For instance, you've often argued that our evidence doesn't settle the question of theism…

  • God, Truth, Reality Denial: A Response to Some Questions

    It is always a pleasure to get a challenge from a professional philosopher who appreciates the intricacies of the issues and knows the moves.  The comments below address things I say here. My responses are in blue. A few questions about this idea: "As Nietzsche saw, if there is no God, then there is no…

  • Social Constructivism, Denial of Reality, and the Role of Religion

    John Derbyshire gives the following as examples of reality denial: All but a very tiny proportion of human beings are biologically male (an X and a Y chromosome in the genome) or female (two X chromosomes). A person who is biologically of one sex but believes himself to be of the other is in the…

  • Disagreement in Philosophy: Notes on Jiří Fuchs

    That philosophers disagree is a fact about which there is little disagreement, even among philosophers. But what this widespread and deep disagreement signifies is a topic of major disagreement. One issue is whether or not the fact of disagreement supplies a good reason to doubt the possibility of philosophical knowledge.   The contemporary Czech philosopher…

  • On the Logical Independence of Person and Proposition

    If the Father of Lies speaks a truth per accidens, it is still a truth. And if the Father of Lights speaks a falsehood per impossibile, it is still a falsehood.

  • An Exchange on the Metaphysics of Truthmaking

    Dan M: Discussing a puzzle about divine simplicity has led us to the metaphysics of truthmaking; I'll just focus on the latter for now – but the broader dialectic is this: I was thinking that a particular view about truthmaking can help us with that puzzle about simplicity. [Cf. first related article below.] Take your…

  • Consciousness is an Illusion but Truth is Not?

    From an interview with Daniel Dennett in the pages of The Guardian (HT: Dave Lull): I was thinking that perhaps philosophers are exactly what’s needed right now. Some deep thinking about what is happening at this moment? Yes. From everybody. The real danger that’s facing us is we’ve lost respect for truth and facts. People…

  • Scholarly Blog Index Summary of my ‘Post-Truth’ Entry

    Here. The entry in full is here. UPDATE: I just re-read the full entry. It's good! Might I be biased? Is such a thing so much as possible? The summary appears machine-generated. Not so good.

  • ‘Post-Truth’

    'Post-truth' is a silly buzz word, and therefore beloved by journalists who typically talk and write uncritically in trendy ways. There is no way to get beyond truth or to live after truth.  All of our intellectual operations are conducted under the aegis of truth. Here is one example of how we presuppose truth.  People…

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

    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 statement made with the intention to deceive.  In…

  • Does Deflationism Rule Out Relativism?

    This post floats the suggestion that deflationism about truth is inconsistent with relativism about truth.  Not that one should be a deflationist.  But it would be interesting if deflationism entailed the nonrelativity of truth. There is a sense in which deflationary theories of truth deny the very existence of truth. For what these theories deny…