What is truth?

                                                               Kai Froeb

, 1997-2007 (English translation 7/2020)

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editorial remarkseditorial remarks

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The classical theory of truth - The correspondence between theory and objectThe classical theory of truth - The correspondence between theory and object

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How and where to make the comparison?How and where to make the comparison?

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ResolutionResolution

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Consequence: the logical processing of the many aspectsConsequence: the logical processing of the many aspects

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Objections: ignorance and scepticismObjections: ignorance and scepticism

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The true is the wholeThe true is the whole

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Paradox - astonishment as a starting point for thinking/learning:Paradox - astonishment as a starting point for thinking/learning:

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Plurality of the sensesPlurality of the senses

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Witness statementsWitness statements

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EmpiricismEmpiricism

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Scepticism, thing in itself and modelsScepticism, thing in itself and models

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Different theoriesDifferent theories

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Pluralism - elephant examplePluralism - elephant example

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The truth as a conceptThe truth as a concept

editorial remarks

The first question is: What is the subject matter of our science? The simplest and most intelligible answer to this question is

that it is the truth.

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This article is my try to explain some of the aspects of that quote of Hegel in my own words.

As the truth is expressed in the form of the concept, as will be shown below, I suggest that you also read my

“Concept Tutori-“Concept Tutori-

al”al”

in conjunction with this article.

And as Hegel also addresses the sceptics later in that paragraph, who say that there can be no knowledge of truth

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, you

might also want to read my other article

“Ignorance and Scepticism”“Ignorance and Scepticism”

to better understand it and make the most use of it. You

can read all three articles in any order, but you will see that they are connected.

In all three articles I try to convey to you some lessons I found from my Hegel readings. Of course some other may differ, but I

hope that you will find them useful anyway.

In some ways, together they also constitute a challenge to the concept of “relativism” and of “alternative facts”.

This text was first published in my “Hegel workshop” (“Hegel Werkstatt”) incrementally between 1997 and 2007. It was first

translated into English on 2020-07-05. On 2020-07-15/16, I reworked the translation, replaced several misleading words by

better translations, adding several explanations and footnotes and also shortened other, more distracting parts.

The classical theory of truth - The correspondence between theo-

ry and object

In the classical theory of truth (“Correspondence theory of truth”

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), which everyone intuitively advocates and which Hegel con-

sidered once of “supreme value”

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(even if he criticises it and expands / sublates it) and which the other theories of truth must

at least take into account, a proposition is true if it has a “correspondence” “in reality” (“is the case”, as Wittgenstein and logi-

cal atomism

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say, adequately “reflects” reality, as Lenin and in his wake classical Marxism-Leninism say).

 

 

Today - at the end point of a long search in the history of philosophy up to our times, for an ever more refined and complex

conception of truth - the classical theory may seem to some professional philosophers rather naive. However, everyone, in-

cluding professional philosophers, in his ordinary life finds it nevertheless worthwhile, in case of doubts whether a UFO has

landed outside, the lights have been turned off, the children have brushed their teeth, today is Sunday, etc., to simply “look”

first.

The object here is therefore in that regard (quite in the sense of the empiricists and materialists - see below) the measure of

truth.

How and where to make the comparison?

A question remaining is however, how one can practically carry out this comparison between ideas/models “in our head” on

the one hand, in “reality” (“outside our head”) on the other hand. Comparing implies that there is some common ground

where a comparison can take place. Apart from the specific problems that sometimes arise in the individual cases:

Does the comparison take place inside or outside our head/mind? Or in a third place? In any case, the question arises how

the separate “inside” and “outside” can be brought together for comparison (and compared, which presupposes some com-

mon ground).

In order to circumvent these problems, some modern theories apply only formal criteria that no longer require this compari-

son, such as the “coherence theory of truth”

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, according to which it is only important that the theory does not contradict it-

self.

Resolution

These different questions are resolved by making it clear that the comparison (between the outside world - mediated by sen-

sory impressions - and the inner world (Hegel’s theory of the

theoretical mindtheoretical mind

< https://hegel.net/en/e3131.htm>< https://hegel.net/en/e3131.htm>

provides in-

formation about the complexity of the processes taking place) takes place in our head (or more precisely: in our mind) (and

the difference between the inner and outer world can be derived from this, so this is not denied).

Thus the concept of the correspondence between subject and object actually expands to the “Coherence theory of truth” in

the sense that the classical theory is “sublated”

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in it (because both the experience of the subject from your senses and expe-

riences, your readings, the witness stories and discussions with others, the results of experiments etc. all need to be brought

into coherence with the concepts of these subjects (see the

concept tutorialconcept tutorial

)). So Hegel’s theory of truth is indeed rightly sub-

sumed under this “Coherence theory of truth” in the Wikipedia article. By the way, I may also argue that the various “pragmat-

ic theories of truth”

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can also be sublated in the “Coherence theory of truth”, because the practical experience of fability, is a

sign of “incoherence”, leading to self correction (John Dewey

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for example was a former Hegelian, so it is no surprise that his

theories are at least in some parts compatible with Hegelianism. If my understanding of Hegel is correct here, then Popper is

therefore fundamentally wrong, when he believes that Hegel maintains a theory of truth where you systematically can’t prove

anything true or wrong

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) .

Consequence: the logical processing of the many aspects

It is now not only the task to bring object (sensory/measurement data) and subject (model/concept) into agreement, but to

process everything that reaches us from outside (simple sensory data, measurement data, experiences, reports of others,

theories about the object in books, etc.) and our own “ingredients” for this (further conclusions, views, feelings, intuition, etc.)

into a logically consistent whole. Simply put: the whole must actually (logically) fit together.

In thinking, science and truth, logic has the task of arranging the given, multi-layered material in such a logical way that it be-

comes a complete whole (this also includes the discovery that at one point or another there is a lack of information/facts/ma-

terial, which then remains empty for the time being or - depending on the possibility - must be asked for, for example in the

form of experiments or other research).

These different aspects, points of view, etc. should not simply be stuck together in the sense of a “collage”, but should be

processed into a logically ordered whole.

By the way1: Of course, the material can also be arranged in any other way, the free association of dreams, the productions

of the artists etc. show this. On the one hand, however, the logical relationships of the objects is not independent from them,

so that when you leave them out, you are missing something relevant and thus don’t have the whole thing. On the other

hand, the productions of dreamy and artistic fantasy are obviously more subjective (than objective) in nature (i.e.

they owe

more to the subject than to the object) and therefore don’t do justice to the objects (and in everyday life, everyone expects

that thinking about an object makes you

more aware of it

, makes you more worthy of it).

By the way2: Hegelian

“Logic of Being”“Logic of Being”

describes the side of the phenomena (which in turn cannot be left out and, as it turns

out, are the basic for the further process), his

“Logic of Essence”“Logic of Essence”

describes the process of “logical digestion”.

 

 

Objections: ignorance and scepticism

Regarding the question whether there is another “reality” beyond that in the respective human “space of experience” that is

not taken into account and therefore is not in accordance with the human thinking about the objects, I have answered in de-

tail in “Ignorance and Scepticism”: first, this difference is only invented, since in case - this is the starting point of the sceptical

doubt - it lies beyond human experience (thus cannot have its cause precisely in a human experience), then, therefore, the

question is how one could ever know about it at all (how to make the comparison, see

“Ignorance and Scepticism”“Ignorance and Scepticism”

). Experienc-

ing / Knowing about what we can not experience/know by definition is obviously impossible, and therefore this imagined dif-

ference obviously has no practical consequence (I can never be embarrassed to find out that I am wrong) and obviously irrel-

evant as a theoretical thought as well (since it is apparently useless as a distinguishing feature between a right and a wrong

theory, since, the way how this fundamental suspicion of deviation is constructed, it applies to any theory, no matter how

good it is).

People might (rightly) have a (too) great respect for any “holy” absolute truth, being sure that it is too ambitious for our hum-

ble limited human mind (ironically, while such sceptics are in that way sure that there is no thing like an absolute truth, at

least that “fact”/truth that there is no absolute truth is by them thereby treated as if it were a kind of absolute truth. A kind of

contradiction (As Hegel noticed: in case you apply your scepticism/doubt to scepticism/doubt itself, the scepticism/doubt van-

ishes

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)).

In real life however, people never just doubt everything and thereby take every theory/concept as evenly unproved and possi-

bly false, but need to take decisions, so instead try to find at least a relative truth, that gives justice to what they know and ex-

perience and to avoid errors. That is exactly what we want to do here (and what Hegel in my understanding tries to do in his

Logic and in his work as such: trying to examine, reflect upon, understand and explain what we do in our practice).

So the objection dissolves and is sublated to the effect that all aspects should be taken into account and that one should also

be cautious of “hasty” answers and open to the correction of mistakes and the inclusion of extensions (which, however, can all

be traced back to the consideration of all aspects - “the truth is the whole”).

The true is the whole

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In the following we will now once again look at some of the typical aspects and arguments for pluralism, empiricism, etc., so

that we can check for ourselves whether the concept of truth given here does indeed capture them adequately

(because obviously a concept of truth formulated in this way must indeed aim to also sublate the other concepts of truth as

well).

Paradox - astonishment as a starting point for thinking/learning:

Philosophy begins by astonishment (the need to no longer accept something as simply unproblematically given, but rather to

think about it), says Aristotle

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, and indeed, when something turns out to be problematic, a paradox/contradiction (e.g.

from

new phenomenons that can’t be explained by the existing theories) arises, we feel unsatisfied with that state and aim that

such problems are resolved (so it is a classical pedagogical motivation applied by teachers, for example, to present something

to their pupil in a way that they are made aware that they can not explain it, so that they are aware that they are missing that

knowledge and want to explain it and so learn its explanation).

The progress sought is then of course that a solution is sought which sublates the existing knowledge and the new phenome-

non in need of explanation, which cannot be explained with what has been known so far (but perhaps even contradicts it ap-

parently) in a new explanation on a new level (the rise from Newton’s physics to Einstein’s physics is the classical example, but

this also happens in a much smaller level all the time in our daily life).

Plurality of the senses

It is said that the senses do not give certainty, because they may be deceived, but in practice it is usually the case that we at

least get information from one sense about the deception of the other sense: we feel that we cannot touch an optical illusion;

we see the other way round that the felt stimulus of our skin does not emanate from what we suspect, but from something

else, etc. The different, superficially contradictory sensory data are something we want to put together in a convincing overall

picture.

Witness statements

Who is not familiar with the different testimonies in a crime thriller/detective story or in other research (oral history or even in

everyday life, for example, in an argument between siblings). The film “Rashamon”

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(or more recently - and more trivially -

“Hoodwinked!”

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) became famous. Here, too, the aim is to arrive at an overall picture from the various, superficially contradic-