I always thought the value of Truth and 'Truth' itself are ambiguous matters. I see it is quite often discussed and it is almost always somewhat of a...dogma. I always asked myself "What good is the truth if it is no good for me or for a group or a people I belong to?"
I find this 'hunt for the truth' to be somewhat problematic, as I do not see why Truth is above anything else, in a kind of ... well, Faith (see Scientism or Science in general, other than pragmatic value, which is understandable, the only things that drives the scientist is his curiosity...what else? is the truth of any value beside the pragmatic value? Why truth is always the standard, even if the 'Truth' is ... perhaps... useless? For example - If there's absolute morality, and it gives me no benefit - why should this 'truth' be of any value to me? Who said TRUTH is of any good value?
In a world where there's a God, and there are absolute moral laws - which give me no advantage, why should I adhere to this truth? In fact, I think the belief in God, for instance, is one of these cases whereas you know not whether the presumption is true, but you like to believe it because it enhances your livability. So, in a world with or without a God - anything 'pragmatic' mean/target goes.

One may win a debate or present better arguments against someone else's arguments... But than the supposed 'loser' would say: "So, this truth you present...what if it is no good and we wish to change it? Is it of any value and of any good? Do you like it because it is truth?"
I cannot think of any better example other than Bertrand Russel's critique of Nietzsche's philosophy (from History of Western Philosophy):

I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die. But I think the ultimate argument against his philosophy, as against any unpleasant but internally self-conscious ethic, lies not in an appeal to facts, but in an appeal to the emotions. Nietzsche despises universal love; I feel it the motive power to all that I desire as regards the world. His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.



Russel, a supposed hero of rationality - appeals to EMOTIONS instead to facts and arguments, and tries to create a deconstruction of Nietzsche's PSYCHOLOGICAL legitimacy, so that Russel's pacifistic view of the world be embraced against the threat Nietzsche's Philosophy imposes.

I think the truthfulness or fallibility of a presumption, dogma or an argument is secondary to what this presumption or belief in that argument gives the believer. All that remains is a man's Will(-to-Power) and the descriptions he offers to the people who will to hear it - and to spread the word. There are perhaps 'absolute truths' (2+2=4, or is it only a social conviction?), sometimes they're a condition for existence (not life, existence - for example - knowing that you need to breath in order to exist) - but they're outnumbered by ideas which we cannot know whether they are true of false, whether they are factual or nonfactual - so we resort to believe what we want to believe (BTW, This applies to Science as well). Even causality is based upon induction, and we're often tricked by our perception and senses and even recorded observations. For example, we cannot know whether things in repetition (like the social or political paradigms Plato presents in his 'Republic' or any other vision of social justice and equality appearing within liberal circles) will reoccur once all the conditions are answered (let alone the very 'placement of phenomenons as categories' once one observes various phenomenons). The need for the 'truthfulness' of an argument or a presumption is omitted must times. We are left with either the direction we WILL to take or we're blown hither and thither. So, obviously we need the Reasonable means (logic, empirical details or just plain abstract thinking) to justify or to understand 'Why?', but we mostly get to describe the 'What?', and even at this humans do not excel that much. But, from time to time, when we don't get all the pieces of knowledge that compose our coherent and consistent view upon reality, we are often left with blank slates we usually ignore or believe their unimportant, since our better arguments and ideas are much more well-supported. But this untruth is necessary...indeed it is, for it lets men do things and to live as pragmatic as they can, as powerful as they possible. If I told a pacifist that War is rational at times, whereas he would say violence is irrational, and I would elaborate and prove my point - will he suddenly become a non-pacifist? This illusions of life, the untruthfulness...they sustain livability, interest, conquest, activism... to various extents.
If one shatters the presumptions of modernity, will moderners become less of what they were, because of the truth revealed before them? So, what is the ultimate value if truth, if truth does not change anything? Where is it? Can we really determine its value?

I suppose the Object-I (or Objects-We) is constantly in a state of expenditure of the self(s), of control and of space, in competition with other objects - which result either in a struggle or in a union of objects against another union of objects - in a struggle thereafter. So, better rely on the trustfulness of usefulness (whether 'pragmatic' or 'life-enhancing' or 'practical') rather than on 'Truthfulness' of "Knowledge" per se. I know not whether morality is correct or incorrect, truthful or fallacious - but I can used it for my advantage or the collective advantage of my peer 'objects' - why not use it? Is it irrational to do so?

Is it that much of a request? Are there any specific problems with the secondariness of Truth? In the absence of any attainable absolute truth, what is left? Why? I would like to know whether there are possible problems with such a view, and I'd like to hear some comments.

The Chapter on Nietzsche in Russell's History of western Philosophy is terrible. The book as a whole is a brilliant, but his evaluations of recent philosophers such as Dewey and Nietzsche are not from a historical perspective; these were philosophers writing just before or during his time. Nietzsche wasn't really understood until much later, most people don't really understand him today. No-one will ever understand him completely.

Anyway, your view seems to be about a hundred years out of date, at the very least. You'll probably grow out of it if you spend several years reading some more recent philosophy.

All truth means it that if P then P (and P)

The poem 'Storm' comes to mind:

Chatter is initially bright and light hearted
But it’s not long before Storm gets started:
“You can’t know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion”
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis a vis
Some unhippily
Empirical comment by me

“Not a good start” I think
We’re only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on the second floor.

I decide what is true or not, and everything else falls in place

Going by the Logical Truth:

Anyway, your view seems to be about a hundred years out of date, at the very least.


Appeal to Novelty?

Chronological Snobbery?


You'll probably grow out of it if you spend several years reading some more recent philosophy.

Reductio ad ridiculum combined with one of the two above?

Please, there are other ways to be aggressive, I understand that you like explain ideas, and that you have learned a lot - but this horrible vanity and your presumptions on people (which you cannot be detached from) makes what you say less tangible and horribly dangerous (mainly for you). You could have just said "All truth means it that if P then P (and P)" - I'd understand. But the arguments were...lightheaded. Errs occur by each man's standards, again it depends on who we see 'truth' (one is to remember that standard are to established first, this includes yourself). You say philosophy is built over years of learning and reading - give me some book recommendations instead of throwing all these...arguments, that work against you once you'd later say you can't explain. This is not how good arguments and a good conversation are both made, this is not how people are being taught.

I believe I understand what you saying, but I ask - WHAT IS THE VALUE OF TRUTH? What is 'Truth' per se?
Be it a logical tautology or whatever. Who guarantees the truth (even as tautology) will be of any good use? of any efficient use?
Its not that knowledge is 'an opinion' - but what I say is that knowledge is extremely hard to deduce into a fully-functioning 'logical truth'. Let alone that 'knowledge' is changing. Let alone that there are thing which we cannot know - and than what can we do other than to pass over with silence?

But...well, at least we agree on Russell's awful critique. I too think Russell's book was excellent generally, until I read the chapter on Nietzsche, which revealed to me what I knew about most liberals - they're just cuddly little creatures dealing with rationality when it suits their little pink and rosy dream of the reality the perceive.
Same goes with Dawkins.


I decide what is true or not, and everything else falls in place


Of course it does.

May I ask you a few questions? Suppose you say 'Yes':
On what basis do you determine the truthfulness of your judgment? Do you have any measures by which you understand what you see? What makes you think or believe you 'step on actual ground'? Do you question the knowledge and information you perceive, even the kind of information that perhaps suits your own view of reality?

Hey man, I wasn't trying to be aggressive (all though I think you already know that). I'm just telling the 'truth'. Your concerns were voiced a long time ago and have been dropped or answered by many philosophers in varying ways.

I purposely didn't make any 'arguments' and probably won't. There are no fallacies on my behalf as I made no arguments (although you have or two in your last post) (: I don't really have any huge desire to take the time to change your (apparently flawed) opinions. Mine are far from perfect. I'm just posting on a forum to take breaks from my work.

Anyway I posted the section of the poem as it is relevant. What value is truth, you ask? This is what the poem means:

If you think its true that its better for you to leave your house through the front door, rather than the second floor window, because you will have less chance of damaging yourself, then you choose the front door because you believe this to be true.

Next time you do do that (I'll bet you don't choose the second story window), perhaps you should think about the value of that particular 'truth'. It helped you survive. If you didn't 'know' it, then you might have just jumped out of the second story window. I carry bits of truth around with me everywhere I go, they come in handy all the time.

Can't really give you an exact value like '97%' or something, you measure value in relation to other things.

I'm a bit drunk so I'll fix this if it doesn't make sense when I'm sober.

The aggressive 'comment' is just something nice I'm using. Good call for knowing that I already know this). I have a little habit of examining reactions to 'emotionally'-charged language.

There we have it...the pragmatic value of truth. Is there no other value to any truth? And the pursuit after knowledge, or after facts...if this doesn't give any good lessons, if this doesn't answer the Hume's instrumentalist axiom?

I think survival is a good answer. But I believe the 'truths' we are dealing with, fighting for and killing for, have something to do with some element that is far beyond mere survival. Let alone that you can't, sometimes, measure two pieces of knowledge and know what exactly is better - than you have to take...risks.

You might have a habit, but that doesn't mean your good at it. Based on the evidence; that you have interpreted almost every post of mine (on this thread and others) to be aggressive or similar things, when they are intended as the opposite, I'd say its a bad habit. I'm pointing out certain truths. Its suppose to be constructive.

Notice I didn't say that truths value lies only in survival, that was just a concrete example of one particular truth. In post-Wittgensteinian (or post-Nietzschean in certain circles) philosophy we tend not to assume that particular words have a particular essence.

Things don't have intrinsic value, you want to believe this because of the Platonic and Christian belief that words refer to things that is currently inextricably entangled in western civilisation.

You're asking the wrong questions.

Also, you should probably apologise before you ask for book recommendations etc.

Skullduggery wrote:
On what basis do you determine the truthfulness of your judgment? Do you have any measures by which you understand what you see? What makes you think or believe you 'step on actual ground'? Do you question the knowledge and information you perceive, even the kind of information that perhaps suits your own view of reality?

I have done nothing but question things using ancient techniques over a lengthly period of time, to arrive at supremely accurate answers. My truths are based on those that balance scales perfectly. With such knowledge, i am aware mine overide the majority of peoples out there.

There can only be 1 truth, the town isn't big enough for the both of us.

Am I really asking the wrong questions if I'm getting the right answers? If I use the wrong mean - but I get what I wanted - is it not 'right' in its own way?

Please, I don't think you are aggressive, I like the cargo aligned words carry and what reactions they produce (If I'd use the same things on someone else, he's probably say something completely different). 'Aggressive' is an aligned word. 'Truth' is an aligned word. But I do think there's some vanity is what you say, in that you 'point out' truths, and avoid them. Also, you should know, that what you'd call 'truth' can be 'aggressive' (for example 'this is bullshit' - your first reaction to one of my posts). Correlation?
I find your explanations to be very relevant.

I don't believe things have intrinsic value, or that words and terms are 'strict' in what they mean - and I don't want to believe this in any way. You'd be very surprised, but I actually opened this thread from this exact reason. In turn, you have misinterpreted what I intended to show or to hone (for myself as well), and you went on the attack, immediately, whilst believing I support what I say.

Notice that I didn't exclude that you only referred to survival as a sole 'source of useful truth'. I only extended the thought.

About the arguments you haven't made - notice that if I take them 'logically' they are somewhat ... well, fallacious, but since they are 'no arguments' - they might be very truthful. I find it interesting.

BTW, Wittgenstein is great.