What is truth?

Dear Dino

My point is that already David Hume pointed this out 300 years ago and his point was precisely that this is indeed stating a philosophical truth. He called it empiricism and we all more or less live with the legacy of David Hume ever since (he was one of Gilles Deleuze's favorites and idols, almost as much as Baruch Spinoza). So my point is that you have just stated a philosophical truth but not a scientific truth. Science deals with "truths", philosophy deals with "the conditions for truths" or "Truth" with a capital T. As both Hume and Hegel would have insisted on this issue. Against the historical thesis of truth, you have constrcucted an antithesis of "truth is impossible" after which you arrive at the synthesis of a new condition for truth. You will always end up with a philosophical truth. Just like you and I can argue of whether "we" exist or not and what we mean with "existence" but we will always have to agree that whatever we are arguing about, there is something there which we have a habit of calling Dino and Alexander. An undeniable truth!

Ushta
Alexander

2009/12/11 Special Kain



Dear Alexander,

There are deterministic and probabilistic hypotheses in science: The natural sciences deal with deterministic hypotheses and the social sciences deal with probabilistic hypotheses. But even the natural sciences increasingly deal with probabilistic hypotheses, as if the universe was not a well-oiled machine, but an essentially indeterministic and multi-layered «organic multitude» based on interactions and full of genuine surprises. But still this is not the truth in a philosophical sense.
Simply because you can't validate theories. The only thing you can examine are the consequences of their employment. So scientific theories or any theory - be it probabilism or representationalism - aren't photographs, but tools. This means a shift from true and eternally valid statements assuming that words could depict «the real world out there» to functional models. The universe isn't logical, but logic can serve as a tool.

Ushta, Dino

--- Alexander Bard schrieb am Fr, 11.12.2009:


Von: Alexander Bard
Betreff: [Ushta] Indeterminism: Zoroastrianism and probabilities
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Freitag, 11. Dezember 2009, 0:59



Yes, I agree 100%!!!
But have you not just stated a truth? The truth of probablism? You have not only made a socially acceptable statement, you have also appealed to facts and scientific findings, in other words, your statement below is truer or at least claims to be truer than what it is opposing. That's the nature of statements. And we do present a look into the reality of existence with sharper eyes than what say a primitivist being without access to modern science could ever claim.
To kill "the truth" as concept, you still need a "meta-truth" to replace the truth. Because there must be a quality to your statement for it to win approval. Words may change over time, but numbers actually do not. And science deals with numbers and not words, it is the interpretation of science we should be careful with. But science's own progress is undeniable. Don't you agree?
Ushta
Alexander/often uses Hegel against Deleuze...