Author: Curt Doolittle

TRUTH: NO MAN IS AN ISLAND. AND NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT IS EITHER.

(reposted from elsewhere)

My definition of Truth under Scientific Realism, is that any notion of Truth whatsoever can only exist if we say it is a) Performative, consisting of b) Correspondence (external correspondence) and c) Coherence (internal consistency). And that all other truth claims are analogies to some subset of these properties.

Further:

That d) formal theories of truth (the ‘logics’) are each subsets of Coherence, which test certain properties of any “True” and therefore Performative, Correspondent and Coherent statement.

And that e) property and involuntary transfer constitute a missing logic of cooperation, that renders all transfers open to analysis and criticism.

And that f) praxeology constitutes a missing logic of the rationality of decisions and incentives, that renders all actions open to subjective testing. But because humans are marginally indifferent in their rationality and incentives, such subjective, SYMPATHETIC testing functions as an objective test of the rationality of incentives.

And that: g) Constructive (meaning socially constructive, including Consensus theories) and Pragmatic theories of truth are failed attempts at obscurant coercion (theft) by adherents to enlightenment democratic equalitarianism, socialists, postmodernists, and totalitarian humanists. Just as the Rawlsian veil is yet another attempt at obscuring involuntary transfers, while relying on the impossibility of human judgement to make such decisions as would be required to achieve the abstract concept of ‘justice’.

As such I view truth as Performative (attestation) constrained by and consisting of {

i) Correspondent (with reality);

ii) Cohesive (internally consistent and formal);

iii) Identitarian (categories, properties and names)

iv) Propertarian (cooperative moral action);

v) Praxeological (rational action)

} properties – each subset set of properties requiring separate logics for the isolation and analysis of each subset.

Conversely, no ‘complete attest-able truth’ can be constructed in any subset without consideration of all. It may be (as in the case of any of the formal logics) that no external dependency is present (although I cannot think of one). But I am unaware of any formal logic without external dependency.

This is a non contradictory, fully explanatory theory of the criteria for truth. And so far I am unable to formalize a criticism of CR, because for all intents and purposes that I can imagine, the CR definition of truth is platonic and non existent, and impossible. Since the only truth that can exist is attestation: the constant reduction in our own errors as we try to describe the properties of the universe.

We can know what is false. That is our only certainty. But we can never know a platonic truth other than a tautology, because only tautological statements are complete. A complete statement is not open to attestation. If any statement is not tautological, and therefore incomplete, it is open to attestation. But how can we say an attestation is meaningful if it’s tautological?

We are, with the concept of truth, improving our attestations about the universe. This is what we improve. That is the purpose and function of truth. Since only by improving our attestations and constantly testing them can we improve our actions, and by our actions, continue to increasingly outwit the deterministic processes in the universe by constructing minor alterations to that universe such that we can make use of the universe as we will.

If I am to defend the claim that obscurantism must be prohibited from political speech (argument), then I cannot make this claim on irrefutable terms, without at least addressing the relationship between the logical disciplines, and the very nature of philosophy, as a moral endeavor.

No man is an island.

No argument in any sub discipline is either.