The Truth Coin

   I started on this topic from an entirely different tact, and, well, got tar-babied.  If you’re unfamiliar with that term, it comes from the complied works of African-American folktales near about 1880’s and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris.  The narrator of the tales is named Uncle Remus.  In the particular tale I am referring to, there was a doll of tar and turpentine used to entrap Br’er Rabbit.   The more that Br’er Rabbit fought the Tar-baby, the more entangled he became.  So then, that was the case with me and the topic of Truth.

    In the not so distant past of the Western world, society relied on the premise that truth, the big T had a correspondence to fact, or evidence, existing in the real world.  If you could prove a fact, so it would go, it was considered to be proven to be absolutely true.  But some disagreed with that formula, and one was the German Philosopher Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (26 April 1889-29 April 1951).

   Not to do any disservice to his complete thesis I suggest reading his work On Certainty, at http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/wittgenstein03.htm.  In effect, for my purposes, Wittgenstein made a profound observation that opened my eyes to another way of looking at truth.  You see, I had been schooled in the concept that there was an ultimate-no-kidding-absolute truth out there and it was the glue that kept all of the other supporting truths of our universal understanding in place; kind of like gravity.  But Wittgenstein took a different vista.  He addresses that society’s language was more like a game, and to derive meaning from any communication one must realize that it is a game of meaning. Along with that, one must be familiar with the references used to make a proposition a shared truth.

     From there it’s a step toward understanding that his premise was for truth to be understood we must have knowledge of what is being professed.  Truth was not so much about knowledge, but in showing (as in doing). Only then would certainty be revealed as truth.  Knowledge, he posited, always included doubt.  So to turn a phrase, when you doubt, you seek knowledge, but that will only dispel some doubt while at the same time introduce more doubt.  With truth in particular, we learn it by living.  In that way we are certain without having to resort to being told what a truth is, or what it is not.  In effect, Wittgenstein offered us a point of view about truth that was fresh.  He, in effect, said that truth was subjective to the context of the language it is presented.

   The example he used was one introduced in an essay by fellow philosopher G.E. Moore where he, (Moore) labored to refute skepticism.  Moore submitted that some beliefs about the world are absolutely certain and those are beliefs were common sense.  He used the argument of saying “I know this is my arm” as absolute proof of an inarguable truth.  Wittgenstein demonstrated that adding ‘I know” did not add or subtract from the truth of the arm belonging to the one claiming it.  Wittgenstein’s truth was one of self evidence and that the certainty was in the living proof, so then, subjective.

   Whew, that was like running class five rapids.  What does all of that stuff there mean?  OK…

  What I wished to convey is my understanding of truth being something that isn’t learned through lining up facts.  Those are employed to reduce possibilities of doubts.  Yet, that process introduces more doubts than were present, (or necessary), because every fact is made suspect to being false as well and only obscures the initial effort to make certain a proposition of truth.  Truth is certain when it cannot be exhaustively proven by fact but rather is known by having life experience that tells you a proposition is true.  “I am here”  “I breath”  “I love.”  These are shown, and resist a scientific qualification of words to prove.  Most important, what makes any proposition true or false then, in the language game, are mixed into the context of how a proposition is used. “This is my body” can be accepted as a true certainty under normal living circumstances without debate.  There are situations where that could be proven false but would require alternating a host of supporting propositions such as you are no slave, there is no combat cutting off limbs and people claiming trophies, et al.  In closing, I would like to add that I’ve accomplished my task of revisiting phrases I used in my prior post.  The ultimate effort to deem anything as being true or false is subject to my point of reference, and yes, my choice.  Just as it is in the real world you and I share.  The challenge and thrill of that liberty is the real power it presents right into each of our laps.