User:Melmohor
Philosophy: English summary.(by El Mohor Mehdi)
Chapter 1 : foreword and interview
1.1 . What is the truth?
The truth corresponds to the reality at a given moment. It evolve with time.
1.2. Our truth.
Until now, it is the scientific truth that is the more successful but each of us has got his own convictions. By example, faith in god. Lots of people are sure of god’s existence while others don’t think so. We can say that education has a very big influence on our truth. Our truth would be the one of our parents. However, several persons find very innovative answers to their questions. So they can give a better version of the truth. It isn’t the result of education any longer but it becomes a kind of freedom, thus one of the realities. Actually, the truth is bond to the personality of each of us.
1.3 . True truth.
There is no true truth. There is just one true truth bond to space and time in which we are. We can decide that one thing is true for us. For example: if I say “I love my husband”, it is a truth for me. There is not only the will, there is also the feelings, and I must take a personal decision so that it will become a truth which is mine. This truth is totally separated from the scientific truth which is really more concrete and objective. So a true truth is always bond to someone. But, we can say that every woman loves her husband. Then, this truth can be generalised.
1.4 . THE truth.
Several true truths can exist and a well-determined person must choose his. There is also different truths but then for different people.
1.5 . “The truth is true” if and only if the truth is true.
It is the “if and only if” that says the truth can’t be true. It is only true for a given space-time. One of the goals of man is to reach the truth but it’s impossible, he can only approach it.
Chapter 2: introduction
Man needs knowledge. The scientific look for the origin of human instead of worrying about his future. The philosophers who we will analyse try to explain the origins and the conceptions of the reality and the truth.
In the texts we read, we find two kinds of beliefs: those who are for the correspondent reality (Tarski and the Circle of Vienna): a “subject” world would be bond to an “object” world. And those against this correspondent reality (Rorty and Putnam). According to them, we must try to approach, by different visions of the truth, an objective reality which escapes from all kinds of prejudices,… Lots of people are looking for an absolute truth? Does it exist? It’s difficult to answer this question, some people say “yes”, the others say “no”. It’s like the question of god, does he exist? To offer the truth, we must prepare people to receive it. The information that earth is spherical took a long time to spread. We also must spread the concepts of truth progressively.
In this analyse, we will try to show that man is just human and that he has imagined everything he thinks. We will speak about the concept of truth and its origin. To conclude, we will propose you the notion of truth that, according to us, seems to be the most plausible.
Chapter 3: all our concepts are human.
Truth was born with man and evolved with him. In each human mind, the truth would be the same for all of us. The problem is to define what are the criteria to say that something is true or false. After that, it’s possible to give a definition of the truth. These criteria depend of our values. Indeed, “the real world depends on our values” wrote Putnam. Then we can say that facts and values are bond. Every person has got his own valour, so the truth is different for each of us. Another reason to say that, is our perception by senses. The absolute truth is unreachable because we try to find it by our senses, which are distorting. Rorty is against the correspondent-truth and we agree with him. According to him, the postulate of truth is inside each man and is his own one.
Chapter 4: why was the truth born? Which false ideas have we got about it?
All the things that make the concept of man were only born of what we felt of the world that surrounded us. Actually all our concepts come from or imagination and we represented them into our mind because we needed to at a moment in the history of mankind. What do the truth represent exactly for man and what did he do with it? His notion of truth became bigger each time he found an answer to his questions. When man wanted to share his knowledge, he created the language. However, the different peoples didn’t have the same explanation for one phenomenon, so they couldn’t be all true. To explain the world, several people invented gods, and the others invented an absolute energy. Their beliefs were their truth. According to Platon, we shouldn’t explain the world but find it. He said that the search after the truth was to find the supreme cause. After that, we would be able to explain everything.
Chapter 5: “p is true” if and only if .
The theory of metalanguage allows us to understand our problematic. This theory maintains that, if a proposition isn’t true in the language, it is in the metalanguage. Now we can have an idea on the truth by correspondence: it supposes a dualism, a subject and an object. The object is human because we must think it to refer to it, and thought is bond to subject. Then we can’t separate subject and object. Another problematic is that every thing we call truth is only an appearance. We do agree with the materialists, the concept of truth was born of human will and is not the shadow of another world. Here is why we chose this point of view: -the theory saying that the notion of truth would be born of human will, is really more plausible that the one saying that the truth forced itself upon us -we are against those who believe too much in the existence of an absolute. -only someone who tackle this problem with materialists eyes is able to find a solution -science can exist and be useful only if we establish criteria to say that one thing is true or not. However, we must be careful and distinguish the problem of knowing what is true and the problem of truth itself. What can be qualified of true? According to Rorty, knowing which affirmations are true is not a question of usefulness in what we maintain. The society considers two truths: science and all the things which are bond to ethics. Now, we can't hope to find a metaphysic truth, an absolutely true truth. So we must create a new concept based on a usefulness criterion. But Rorty omitted to define what was useful for scientific truth. The circle of Vienna approach science with an empiric point of view. According to them, a proposition is only accepted if it can be justified rationally. We think that we must tackle the question of «what is true» like the pragmatics (Rorty and Putnam),But it is very theoretic. At a practical point of view, we must do like the circle of Vienna and consider their methods like a set of values, which represent something very useful for the need of our society.
Chapter 6: what is the relation between this report and the profession of the engineer?
The main gaol of the engineer is to develop high technologies for the society. He must satisfy the request of his customers and use technological tools to create a practical product that could be directly used by them. We can say that the truth of the engineer is the set of his technological tools. It is with a practical product that the engineer answers to a practical request. Then, which aspects of the truth interest the engineer but the practice? What we wrote in this report can help the engineer to see how he must consider and manage his knowledge.
Chapter 7: conclusion
To answer the question : “Is the truth true if and only if the truth is true ?”, we had to define the notion of truth. So we tried to approach it by the best way. We looked for ideas near several philosophers and to be honest, all their versions seemed to us to be incoherent. It proves that it is impossible to find an absolute truth. But, how must we prove that the truth is true if and only if the truth is true? We just can’t, so our answer is : “no”. Then, we decided to use the ideas of Putnam, Rorty and also of the circle of Vienna to find a human truth, relative but not absolute. According to us, human truth is a variable notion. It depends on the society. The truth is a practical issue.
El Mohor Mehdi