Well, ontology and epistemology don't exhaust the content of philosophy, but they are certainly part of it.A_Seagull wrote:Ultimately philosophy is not about what is, but rather what we can know (and believe) about what is.
The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Well then what aspects of philosophy do you think do not ultimately come down to what we can know (or believe) about what is?uwot wrote:Well, ontology and epistemology don't exhaust the content of philosophy, but they are certainly part of it.A_Seagull wrote:Ultimately philosophy is not about what is, but rather what we can know (and believe) about what is.
Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
It's a bit like asking what aspects of science don't ultimately stem from fundamental physics. Still, just as I think it is legitimate to describe biology and chemistry, say, as science, so is it legitimate to describe ethics and aesthetics, for example, as philosophy.A_Seagull wrote:Well then what aspects of philosophy do you think do not ultimately come down to what we can know (or believe) about what is?
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Lawrence Crocker
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
“Absolute truth” can mean several different things. A statement that is eternally true, true at all times is one possibility. The 2 truths that began this are probably not absolute in this sense. There may have been and may again be a time in which there is nothing anywhere. It seems pretty likely that there was a time when there was no thought and will be again. There are places now where there doesn’t seem to be thought, the inside of my coffee cup for an example near to hand. Perhaps there are now even places where there is nothing. “It is not the case that there is nothing here now” and “there is thought here now” seem better candidates for “absoluteness” in this respect.
“Absolute truth” has also been used to signify a truth that cannot rationally be challenged, whose falsehood is inconceivable. Unfortunately, history shows that what was once inconceivable has sometimes turned out to be true.
My initial inclination would be to wonder whether “absolute” really adds anything. “5 + 7 = 12” seems to lack nothing in terms of truth, neither does “It rained yesterday in Poughkeepsie.” “5 + 7 = 12” may get low marks for something in the content family, but not for its truth. We can easily imagine yesterday’s having been dry, and I met be meteorologically mistaken, but if it my statement is true, that is the best it can do, truthwise. “There is a greatest double prime” if it is true, which I believe we still do not know, will have no defect in terms of truth. Its defect for the time being is in terms of our knowledge.
Somewhere in the thread is the proposition that something has to be believed to be true. To the contrary, there are infinitely many truths that no one will ever entertain, let alone believe. Until just now I strongly doubt that anyone ever believed “7.25111723 + 5.37131929 = 12.62243652”, true though it is.
The best sense that I can make of absolute truth, if “absolute” is really going to be a matter of truth, rather than something from the belief, warrant, justification, importance, or eternality families, is absence of false making vagueness or ambiguity. I could see saying that a statement false on one disambiguation but true on another was not “absolutely true” even though this is not a common way to put it.
In this respect, the absoluteness of the thread’s 2 might be questioned. As the prior posts show, there is some ambiguity or vagueness attached to “nothing” and to “thinking”. If our understanding of thinking is now, or will be in 200 years, very different from that of Descartes, then “There is thinking here and now” may be true on one disambiguation, but false on another.
“Absolute truth” has also been used to signify a truth that cannot rationally be challenged, whose falsehood is inconceivable. Unfortunately, history shows that what was once inconceivable has sometimes turned out to be true.
My initial inclination would be to wonder whether “absolute” really adds anything. “5 + 7 = 12” seems to lack nothing in terms of truth, neither does “It rained yesterday in Poughkeepsie.” “5 + 7 = 12” may get low marks for something in the content family, but not for its truth. We can easily imagine yesterday’s having been dry, and I met be meteorologically mistaken, but if it my statement is true, that is the best it can do, truthwise. “There is a greatest double prime” if it is true, which I believe we still do not know, will have no defect in terms of truth. Its defect for the time being is in terms of our knowledge.
Somewhere in the thread is the proposition that something has to be believed to be true. To the contrary, there are infinitely many truths that no one will ever entertain, let alone believe. Until just now I strongly doubt that anyone ever believed “7.25111723 + 5.37131929 = 12.62243652”, true though it is.
The best sense that I can make of absolute truth, if “absolute” is really going to be a matter of truth, rather than something from the belief, warrant, justification, importance, or eternality families, is absence of false making vagueness or ambiguity. I could see saying that a statement false on one disambiguation but true on another was not “absolutely true” even though this is not a common way to put it.
In this respect, the absoluteness of the thread’s 2 might be questioned. As the prior posts show, there is some ambiguity or vagueness attached to “nothing” and to “thinking”. If our understanding of thinking is now, or will be in 200 years, very different from that of Descartes, then “There is thinking here and now” may be true on one disambiguation, but false on another.
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surreptitious57
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Logically there can be no such thing as absolute nothing. For if there was then by the simple virtue of it existing
it would be something. Absolute nothing does exist in quantum mechanics but can only exist for an infinitesimal
period of time. And this is consistent with what I have just said about it not existing for I meant it in a universal
sense. That is to say where it is all that exists as opposed to being only a part of what exists so no contradiction
it would be something. Absolute nothing does exist in quantum mechanics but can only exist for an infinitesimal
period of time. And this is consistent with what I have just said about it not existing for I meant it in a universal
sense. That is to say where it is all that exists as opposed to being only a part of what exists so no contradiction
Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
uwot:
"In short, both the following are absolutely true:
There is not nothing.
There is thinking."
Wrong!
There cannot be 'absolute truth'.
Truth is that which can be shown to be the case.
There are no truths without mind.
Clearly, there was a time at which there were no minds.
All of truth is relative to the system that decides it.
Absolute truth is eternal and without restrictions.
Absolute truth is restricted to the system that decides it,
and there cannot be a system of deciding any truth without mind.
therefore,
Absolute truth cannot be independent of restrictions and cannot be eternal !!
There is no truth that is independent of restrictions and is eternal.
That is to say, there cannot be 'absolute truth'.
"In short, both the following are absolutely true:
There is not nothing.
There is thinking."
Wrong!
There cannot be 'absolute truth'.
Truth is that which can be shown to be the case.
There are no truths without mind.
Clearly, there was a time at which there were no minds.
All of truth is relative to the system that decides it.
Absolute truth is eternal and without restrictions.
Absolute truth is restricted to the system that decides it,
and there cannot be a system of deciding any truth without mind.
therefore,
Absolute truth cannot be independent of restrictions and cannot be eternal !!
There is no truth that is independent of restrictions and is eternal.
That is to say, there cannot be 'absolute truth'.
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Arising_uk
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Is that an absolute truth?
Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Obviously, it cannot be an absolute truth.Arising_uk wrote:Is that an absolute truth?
What part of my post don't you understand?
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Impenitent
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
in vino veritas
-Imp
-Imp
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Arising_uk
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
The bit where you say something cannot be, if it cannot be then presumably this is an absolute truth?Owen wrote:Obviously, it cannot be an absolute truth.Arising_uk wrote:Is that an absolute truth?
What part of my post don't you understand?
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
Forget it Arising, he just doesn't or can't understand how sometimes, especially with truth, ones argument undermines their own argument.Arising_uk wrote:The bit where you say something cannot be, if it cannot be then presumably this is an absolute truth?Owen wrote:Obviously, it cannot be an absolute truth.Arising_uk wrote:Is that an absolute truth?
What part of my post don't you understand?
As I once asked Chaz: "When is a skeptic not a skeptic?" And then I proceeded to answer for him, "When he's not skeptical of his own skepticism." Then he replied, 'well you can't question everything.'
For those that don't know him, you'd have to.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: The Absolute Truth. Both of them.
The absolute truth, as far as I'm concerned, simply means those things that happen/have happened in the universe, despite our knowledge or lack of knowledge there of. The 'actual' physics of the universe are good examples of absolute truths. No, we do not have to necessarily be knowledgeable of them at all, for them to be absolutely true. The absolute truth is the actual state of reality, despite anyones characterization.
While it's true that the universe is ever changing, that is not cause for disagreeing, rather just another facet of the absolute truth of the matter.
With human affairs it's determination is a little more difficult. For instance, as to an automobile accident, one might say, "she cut me off," and then the other, "he ran that light," While the absolute truth might be, "humans can't be trusted to either, pay attention, drive, or tell the truth, so you never really know with them. Of course that's just a very simplified example. In terms of human affairs, the absolute truth, in their words/language, would take up all the pages of all the books ever written and then some. Such is the web of discontinuity comprising the current human construct.
I would also say that as to the absolute truth as to human affairs, it would actually take another very long lived being of no human bias whatsoever, observing human history from it's beginning to our current time, that would actually be capable of outlining the absolute truth of human affairs. Of course this being would have to be privy to all that it is in being human, reading the thoughts of all humans from the beginning, watching their every move, knowing everything there is to know about all of them, everything they do, say and their motivations for doing such. That would be the only way the absolute truth of humanity could be outlined, without any bias that selfishness through the need to survive, in all kinds of situations, would afford. It is a complex web of deception that we each create, unconsciously even, such that we'd be the last to know, consciously. Often, if we could truly know, we would deny admitting it to ourselves.
Or so that's how I most honestly surely see us, on the whole. Of course every human being varies.
While it's true that the universe is ever changing, that is not cause for disagreeing, rather just another facet of the absolute truth of the matter.
With human affairs it's determination is a little more difficult. For instance, as to an automobile accident, one might say, "she cut me off," and then the other, "he ran that light," While the absolute truth might be, "humans can't be trusted to either, pay attention, drive, or tell the truth, so you never really know with them. Of course that's just a very simplified example. In terms of human affairs, the absolute truth, in their words/language, would take up all the pages of all the books ever written and then some. Such is the web of discontinuity comprising the current human construct.
I would also say that as to the absolute truth as to human affairs, it would actually take another very long lived being of no human bias whatsoever, observing human history from it's beginning to our current time, that would actually be capable of outlining the absolute truth of human affairs. Of course this being would have to be privy to all that it is in being human, reading the thoughts of all humans from the beginning, watching their every move, knowing everything there is to know about all of them, everything they do, say and their motivations for doing such. That would be the only way the absolute truth of humanity could be outlined, without any bias that selfishness through the need to survive, in all kinds of situations, would afford. It is a complex web of deception that we each create, unconsciously even, such that we'd be the last to know, consciously. Often, if we could truly know, we would deny admitting it to ourselves.
Or so that's how I most honestly surely see us, on the whole. Of course every human being varies.