1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,540 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. If you were with 2 00:00:02,540 --> 00:00:04,820 us last time, you'll remember we started exploring 3 00:00:04,820 --> 00:00:08,119 the tricky landscape of truth with Simon Blackburn 4 00:00:08,119 --> 00:00:10,800 as our guide. Right. We looked at that basic 5 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,179 terrain, that sort of philosophical battleground. 6 00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:17,039 Exactly. This big conflict between wanting absolute 7 00:00:17,039 --> 00:00:21,000 objective truth and, well, recognizing that things 8 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:23,820 get messy, that interpretation matters. Blackburn 9 00:00:23,820 --> 00:00:25,660 really set up the high stakes, didn't he? That 10 00:00:25,660 --> 00:00:29,260 whole ideological war over facts, reason, authority. 11 00:00:29,879 --> 00:00:32,500 He did. But now we're moving deeper. We're getting 12 00:00:32,500 --> 00:00:34,619 into the really complex territory with Michael 13 00:00:34,619 --> 00:00:37,399 P. Lynch's big anthology, The Nature of Truth. 14 00:00:37,700 --> 00:00:39,640 Yeah, this one's different. It's not just a guide. 15 00:00:39,759 --> 00:00:41,759 It's packed with the primary sources themselves. 16 00:00:42,299 --> 00:00:44,439 We're talking about the philosophical heavyweights, 17 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:47,520 old and new, all wrestling with this fundamental 18 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,240 question. And Lynch frames it so well right from 19 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:52,359 the start. He reminds us just how incredibly 20 00:00:52,359 --> 00:00:55,000 hard it is to pin down this concept. It seems 21 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,119 so basic, truth, but it's so abstract. You mentioned 22 00:00:58,119 --> 00:01:01,070 Voltaire. Yeah. Voltaire's quip that truth seems 23 00:01:01,070 --> 00:01:05,150 only definable by, well, platitudes, like saying 24 00:01:05,150 --> 00:01:07,590 a true statement just reports the facts as they 25 00:01:07,590 --> 00:01:09,849 are, which sounds simple until you try to unpack 26 00:01:09,849 --> 00:01:13,109 it. And then there's that eternally echoing question 27 00:01:13,109 --> 00:01:17,090 from Pontius Pilate. What is truth? It sort of 28 00:01:17,090 --> 00:01:18,769 hangs over this whole discussion. It really does. 29 00:01:19,049 --> 00:01:21,090 But Lynch doesn't just leave us with historical 30 00:01:21,090 --> 00:01:25,269 anecdotes. He pushes us immediately toward the 31 00:01:25,269 --> 00:01:27,799 core philosophical forks in the road. That's 32 00:01:27,799 --> 00:01:30,480 key. He lays out the two big starting points 33 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:32,980 for basically every debate that follows. First, 34 00:01:33,099 --> 00:01:35,739 does truth even have a nature? Is there something 35 00:01:35,739 --> 00:01:38,299 substantial there to define? And second. And 36 00:01:38,299 --> 00:01:40,859 second, if it does have a nature, what kind of 37 00:01:40,859 --> 00:01:43,140 nature is it? What are its properties? OK, let's 38 00:01:43,140 --> 00:01:44,900 dig into that distinction because it seems like 39 00:01:44,900 --> 00:01:47,400 that second question, what kind of nature is 40 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:49,159 what really drove a lot of the classic philosophers? 41 00:01:50,280 --> 00:01:52,599 Lynch calls their ideas substantive theories, 42 00:01:52,780 --> 00:01:54,980 right? Exactly, substantive theories. They all 43 00:01:54,980 --> 00:01:56,939 start from this deep -seated assumption that 44 00:01:56,939 --> 00:01:59,459 truth isn't trivial. It's a really important 45 00:01:59,459 --> 00:02:02,359 fundamental property, a genuine feature of things, 46 00:02:02,459 --> 00:02:04,379 maybe of propositions, maybe of the world itself. 47 00:02:04,719 --> 00:02:07,849 And it needs explaining. It needs a complex, 48 00:02:07,950 --> 00:02:10,509 detailed explanation. Precisely. These are the 49 00:02:10,509 --> 00:02:12,370 theories that try to figure out the connection 50 00:02:12,370 --> 00:02:15,949 between, say, a true belief and the world outside 51 00:02:15,949 --> 00:02:18,069 that belief. They're wrestling with realism, 52 00:02:18,210 --> 00:02:20,289 with objectivity. They want to know what's the 53 00:02:20,289 --> 00:02:22,330 actual mechanism. How does a belief become true? 54 00:02:22,590 --> 00:02:24,990 Right. So before we dive into those specific 55 00:02:24,990 --> 00:02:27,650 substantive theories, let's quickly revisit that 56 00:02:27,650 --> 00:02:29,810 background tension we mentioned, the one Blackburn 57 00:02:29,810 --> 00:02:32,150 highlighted, that kind of philosophical fault 58 00:02:32,150 --> 00:02:34,330 line. The absolutism versus relativism thing. 59 00:02:34,509 --> 00:02:38,169 Yeah. That ancient war. Because it seems to rumble 60 00:02:38,169 --> 00:02:40,090 underneath all these different theories. It really 61 00:02:40,090 --> 00:02:42,750 does. You've got the absolutist side insisting 62 00:02:42,750 --> 00:02:44,810 there's objective fact out there. And it's what 63 00:02:44,810 --> 00:02:46,969 controls whether our beliefs are right or wrong. 64 00:02:47,189 --> 00:02:49,250 They're the ones standing on objective fact, 65 00:02:49,349 --> 00:02:53,370 holding up reason and objectivity as like truth's 66 00:02:53,370 --> 00:02:55,750 essential partners. Yeah, they demand transparency, 67 00:02:55,849 --> 00:02:58,030 a universal standard. They think that's the only 68 00:02:58,030 --> 00:03:01,919 way to actually find or certify truth. And then 69 00:03:01,919 --> 00:03:05,219 the relativist pushback. They look at that insistence 70 00:03:05,219 --> 00:03:08,199 on plain universal fact and think, well, sometimes 71 00:03:08,199 --> 00:03:10,599 that feels a bit rigid, maybe even conservative. 72 00:03:10,919 --> 00:03:13,939 Or just not equipped to handle how messy interpretation 73 00:03:13,939 --> 00:03:17,479 really is in the world. They worry that objectivity 74 00:03:17,479 --> 00:03:19,840 might just be an illusion we construct. Or that 75 00:03:19,840 --> 00:03:22,000 demanding one single truth is sometimes just 76 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:25,020 a power play, a way to impose authority. And 77 00:03:25,020 --> 00:03:27,979 this whole conflict feeds directly into the first 78 00:03:27,979 --> 00:03:31,189 major theory we need to tackle. The correspondence 79 00:03:31,189 --> 00:03:34,610 theory. For ages, this has been the sort of default 80 00:03:34,610 --> 00:03:37,030 intuitive view. The common sense idea. Right. 81 00:03:37,189 --> 00:03:39,849 And often philosophers arrived here specifically 82 00:03:39,849 --> 00:03:42,409 because they rejected its main classical rival, 83 00:03:42,610 --> 00:03:45,270 which was the coherence theory. Okay. So correspondence. 84 00:03:46,490 --> 00:03:49,110 Bertrand Russell gave us one of the most systematic 85 00:03:49,110 --> 00:03:51,550 modern versions, didn't he? He's trying to nail 86 00:03:51,550 --> 00:03:54,169 it down after pushing back against those idealist 87 00:03:54,169 --> 00:03:56,610 coherence guys. He was. And Russell was very 88 00:03:56,610 --> 00:03:59,150 clear about what any decent theory of truth must 89 00:03:59,150 --> 00:04:01,969 do. He had these three core requirements. What 90 00:04:01,969 --> 00:04:05,030 were they? OK, first, any theory of truth has 91 00:04:05,030 --> 00:04:08,599 to allow for the opposite. Falsehood. Truth needs 92 00:04:08,599 --> 00:04:11,120 a contrast. Seems obvious, but it's crucial. 93 00:04:11,530 --> 00:04:14,090 Makes sense. Second, truth has to be a property 94 00:04:14,090 --> 00:04:16,670 of something like beliefs or propositions or 95 00:04:16,670 --> 00:04:18,810 statements. It's not a property of, you know, 96 00:04:18,829 --> 00:04:20,649 chairs or trees themselves. Okay, a property 97 00:04:20,649 --> 00:04:23,290 of representation. Exactly. But third, and this 98 00:04:23,290 --> 00:04:25,629 is the absolute core of correspondence truth, 99 00:04:25,730 --> 00:04:28,550 must be a property that depends entirely on the 100 00:04:28,550 --> 00:04:30,920 relation between that belief. that representation, 101 00:04:31,220 --> 00:04:34,459 and things outside the belief itself. Something 102 00:04:34,459 --> 00:04:36,920 external to the mind determines truth. That's 103 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:39,360 the heart of it. My belief is true not because 104 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:41,959 of how it feels to me or how well it fits my 105 00:04:41,959 --> 00:04:43,839 other beliefs, but because of how it relates 106 00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:46,540 to the world out there. Which brings us to that 107 00:04:46,540 --> 00:04:50,500 classic formulation. A belief is true if it corresponds 108 00:04:50,500 --> 00:04:53,939 to a fact. Simple, right? Well, that's where 109 00:04:53,939 --> 00:04:55,819 it gets tricky, isn't it? This is why it's not 110 00:04:55,819 --> 00:04:57,779 just a platitude, like Lynch warned, because 111 00:04:57,779 --> 00:05:00,660 the moment you try to make that precise, problems 112 00:05:00,660 --> 00:05:02,680 erupt. Okay, so what's the main challenge? What 113 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:05,639 makes correspondence to a fact so difficult? 114 00:05:06,089 --> 00:05:08,329 Well, there are two huge ones, really. First, 115 00:05:08,589 --> 00:05:11,430 what exactly is a fact? And second, what does 116 00:05:11,430 --> 00:05:14,129 correspondence actually mean? What kind of relation 117 00:05:14,129 --> 00:05:16,449 are we talking about? Let's take fact first. 118 00:05:16,750 --> 00:05:19,009 Yeah. How do you define it without just saying, 119 00:05:19,069 --> 00:05:21,209 oh, a fact is the thing that makes a true sentence 120 00:05:21,209 --> 00:05:23,189 true? Yeah. Because that's completely circular. 121 00:05:23,370 --> 00:05:25,709 Exactly. You define fact in terms of truth, truth 122 00:05:25,709 --> 00:05:27,689 in terms of fact. You haven't explained anything. 123 00:05:27,829 --> 00:05:30,689 And then it gets worse. What about complex beliefs? 124 00:05:30,889 --> 00:05:34,379 Right. Like your example. Caesar crossed the 125 00:05:34,379 --> 00:05:38,399 Rubicon in 49 BC and was assassinated five years 126 00:05:38,399 --> 00:05:41,800 later. Is that one belief corresponding to one 127 00:05:41,800 --> 00:05:45,040 big complex fact in the world? Or does it correspond 128 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:48,199 to two separate simpler facts? Right. And how 129 00:05:48,199 --> 00:05:50,420 do those simple facts combine to make the complex 130 00:05:50,420 --> 00:05:52,720 fact? Russell himself wrestled with this stuff 131 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:55,060 intensely. He tried to argue. for something called 132 00:05:55,060 --> 00:05:57,819 logical atomism, the idea that the world is built 133 00:05:57,819 --> 00:06:00,160 from simple, irreducible facts. Like atoms of 134 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:02,720 reality? Kind of, but then you run into the nasty 135 00:06:02,720 --> 00:06:05,500 problem of negative facts. What about my belief 136 00:06:05,500 --> 00:06:07,680 that the cat is not on the mat? Does there have 137 00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:11,060 to be a weird, shadowy, negative fact out there, 138 00:06:11,139 --> 00:06:14,199 the cat not being on the mat fact, for my belief 139 00:06:14,199 --> 00:06:17,910 to correspond to? It seems bizarre, right? Or 140 00:06:17,910 --> 00:06:20,389 is the truth of my negative belief somehow grounded 141 00:06:20,389 --> 00:06:22,310 in all the positive facts about where the cat 142 00:06:22,310 --> 00:06:24,949 is, which exclude it being on the mat? It gets 143 00:06:24,949 --> 00:06:27,370 incredibly complicated. Defining fap started 144 00:06:27,370 --> 00:06:29,629 to look even harder than defining truth. Wow. 145 00:06:30,149 --> 00:06:32,689 It's kind of mind -boggling that the most basic 146 00:06:32,689 --> 00:06:35,670 intuitive idea truth is matching reality runs 147 00:06:35,670 --> 00:06:38,529 into these fundamental logical hurdles just trying 148 00:06:38,529 --> 00:06:41,269 to define its own terms after centuries of thought. 149 00:06:41,470 --> 00:06:43,910 It really is. Now, as we said, Russell championed 150 00:06:43,910 --> 00:06:46,069 correspondence partly because he was actively 151 00:06:46,069 --> 00:06:48,550 rejecting its main rival at the time, the coherence 152 00:06:48,550 --> 00:06:50,990 theory. OK, so what's the coherence view? Coherence 153 00:06:50,990 --> 00:06:53,509 theorists argue that a belief is true if and 154 00:06:53,509 --> 00:06:56,230 only if it coheres fixed consistently and logically 155 00:06:56,230 --> 00:06:59,629 with a larger specified body of beliefs. Usually 156 00:06:59,629 --> 00:07:01,990 this means something like the entire system of 157 00:07:01,990 --> 00:07:04,569 human knowledge or an ideally rational set of 158 00:07:04,569 --> 00:07:07,129 beliefs. So truth is about internal consistency 159 00:07:07,129 --> 00:07:09,490 within a belief system, not external matching. 160 00:07:09,769 --> 00:07:13,079 Exactly. But Russell and other realists found 161 00:07:13,079 --> 00:07:15,360 this totally insufficient as the fundamental 162 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:18,360 nature of truth. Why? What were their big objections? 163 00:07:19,180 --> 00:07:21,199 Russell had a couple of really powerful ones. 164 00:07:21,279 --> 00:07:23,680 First, he argued there's just no good reason 165 00:07:23,680 --> 00:07:26,339 to think that only one possible coherent system 166 00:07:26,339 --> 00:07:28,920 of beliefs could exist. Ah, the multiple systems 167 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,339 problem. Right. He used this great thought experiment. 168 00:07:32,100 --> 00:07:36,199 Imagine a really, really skilled novelist. Someone 169 00:07:36,199 --> 00:07:39,180 with an amazing imagination. Okay. could that 170 00:07:39,180 --> 00:07:42,040 novelist invent an entirely fictional past for 171 00:07:42,040 --> 00:07:45,079 the world? A complete history, internally consistent, 172 00:07:45,500 --> 00:07:47,800 maybe even explaining all the evidence we see 173 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:50,420 now, but completely different from the actual 174 00:07:50,420 --> 00:07:53,139 past. Seems possible, yeah. Like a super elaborate 175 00:07:53,139 --> 00:07:55,819 conspiracy theory or alternate history. Exactly. 176 00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:58,860 Both the novelist's fake history and the real 177 00:07:58,860 --> 00:08:00,899 history could be perfectly coherent internally, 178 00:08:01,300 --> 00:08:03,560 but only one of them actually happened. Only 179 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:06,480 one corresponds to reality. So coherence alone 180 00:08:06,480 --> 00:08:09,500 can't be true. So internal consistency might 181 00:08:09,500 --> 00:08:12,160 be a good sign, maybe a test for truth. But it 182 00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:14,759 can't be the definition of truth itself if multiple 183 00:08:14,759 --> 00:08:16,959 conflicting systems can be equally coherent. 184 00:08:17,199 --> 00:08:20,399 That's precisely Russell's point. Coherence is 185 00:08:20,399 --> 00:08:23,240 often a test, maybe even a great test, but not 186 00:08:23,240 --> 00:08:26,120 its nature. Or think about science. You might 187 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:29,160 have two competing scientific hypotheses. Both 188 00:08:29,160 --> 00:08:31,899 explain all the known data. Both are internally 189 00:08:31,899 --> 00:08:34,460 consistent. Right, until a new experiment comes 190 00:08:34,460 --> 00:08:36,419 along. Yeah, until we find that decisive evidence. 191 00:08:36,500 --> 00:08:39,100 But the fact that multiple coherent systems can 192 00:08:39,100 --> 00:08:42,679 exist simultaneously means coherence can't be 193 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:45,279 the defining feature of truth for a realist. 194 00:08:45,340 --> 00:08:48,440 Okay, that makes sense. But the coherence theorists 195 00:08:48,440 --> 00:08:51,240 didn't just roll over, did they? Thinkers like 196 00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:53,940 Ralph Walker pushed back hard against correspondence. 197 00:08:54,120 --> 00:08:56,600 What was their main line of attack? Walker and 198 00:08:56,600 --> 00:08:59,720 others really honed in on that separation correspondence 199 00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:02,340 creates between our thoughts and the external 200 00:09:02,340 --> 00:09:05,600 reality. They flipped the script. How so? Walker 201 00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:07,480 argued that if you think of thoughts and things 202 00:09:07,480 --> 00:09:09,919 as related only externally, if truth is just 203 00:09:09,919 --> 00:09:11,879 this sort of lucky alignment between an internal 204 00:09:11,879 --> 00:09:14,440 belief and an independent external fact, then 205 00:09:14,440 --> 00:09:16,440 how can you ever really have knowledge? What 206 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:18,580 do you mean? He suggested it makes knowledge 207 00:09:18,580 --> 00:09:22,399 seem purely accidental. Like luck. If your belief 208 00:09:22,399 --> 00:09:25,139 just happens, by chance, to match up with some 209 00:09:25,139 --> 00:09:27,120 fact out there that's totally separate from your 210 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:29,879 mind, how is that reliable? How can you be justified 211 00:09:29,879 --> 00:09:31,980 in holding that belief? It seems like a lucky 212 00:09:31,980 --> 00:09:35,179 guess. Hmm. So the connection feels too arbitrary. 213 00:09:35,500 --> 00:09:38,389 Too arbitrary, too external. And Walker also 214 00:09:38,389 --> 00:09:40,610 brings up perception. He points out that even 215 00:09:40,610 --> 00:09:43,330 our basic sensory experiences, color, sound, 216 00:09:43,549 --> 00:09:46,190 smell, aren't just raw data hitting us from outside. 217 00:09:46,389 --> 00:09:48,370 They're already structured and interpreted within 218 00:09:48,370 --> 00:09:51,330 our experience. So even the data we use to check 219 00:09:51,330 --> 00:09:54,019 for coherence is already internal. in a sense 220 00:09:54,019 --> 00:09:57,019 right so walker asks suppose we manage to build 221 00:09:57,019 --> 00:09:59,659 the most perfectly coherent systematic picture 222 00:09:59,659 --> 00:10:02,000 using all of our experiences including these 223 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:04,679 secondary qualities does the sheer coherence 224 00:10:04,679 --> 00:10:06,899 within that system actually prove it corresponds 225 00:10:06,899 --> 00:10:09,580 to anything truly outside it he's suggesting 226 00:10:09,580 --> 00:10:11,720 maybe it doesn't he's suggesting that if you 227 00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:14,710 put the nature of truth in one place external 228 00:10:14,710 --> 00:10:17,250 correspondence, and the test for truth somewhere 229 00:10:17,250 --> 00:10:20,330 else, internal coherence, you create this unbridgeable 230 00:10:20,330 --> 00:10:23,250 gap. You can never really justify the leap from 231 00:10:23,250 --> 00:10:25,490 your internal test results to the external state 232 00:10:25,490 --> 00:10:27,769 of affairs. It leaves you in a kind of philosophical 233 00:10:27,769 --> 00:10:30,769 limbo. Okay, so the classic theories are hitting 234 00:10:30,769 --> 00:10:33,750 some major walls. Correspondence struggles to 235 00:10:33,750 --> 00:10:37,490 define fact and correspondence without circularity 236 00:10:37,490 --> 00:10:40,950 or weirdness like negative facts. Coherence struggles 237 00:10:40,950 --> 00:10:43,649 with the multiple systems problem and that potential 238 00:10:43,649 --> 00:10:46,549 disconnect from external reality leading to the 239 00:10:46,549 --> 00:10:48,950 knowledge is luck charge. It really sets the 240 00:10:48,950 --> 00:10:50,889 stage for a big shift, doesn't it? Moving away 241 00:10:50,889 --> 00:10:54,330 from trying to define truth by its static metaphysical 242 00:10:54,330 --> 00:10:56,169 components, what it is, and towards thinking 243 00:10:56,169 --> 00:10:57,970 about it in terms of what it does, its function. 244 00:10:58,250 --> 00:11:00,269 And that brings us squarely into the territory 245 00:11:00,269 --> 00:11:02,970 of the American pragmatists in the late 19th 246 00:11:02,970 --> 00:11:05,340 and early 20th centuries. Absolutely. This was 247 00:11:05,340 --> 00:11:07,860 a move driven by a deep desire for clarity, but 248 00:11:07,860 --> 00:11:10,399 a different kind of clarity, not just abstract 249 00:11:10,399 --> 00:11:12,879 definition, but practical operational clarity. 250 00:11:13,480 --> 00:11:15,919 How do ideas actually work in our experience? 251 00:11:16,419 --> 00:11:19,080 Charles Sanders Pierce is a key figure here, 252 00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:22,320 one of the founders. He was looking for a more 253 00:11:22,320 --> 00:11:24,539 perfect clearness of thought, right? Something 254 00:11:24,539 --> 00:11:27,879 beyond just defining terms abstractly like Descartes 255 00:11:27,879 --> 00:11:30,629 did. Exactly. Pierce wanted meaning grounded 256 00:11:30,629 --> 00:11:34,169 in consequences, observable, practical, experimental 257 00:11:34,169 --> 00:11:36,809 consequences. What difference does this idea 258 00:11:36,809 --> 00:11:40,149 make in practice? And this leads to that core 259 00:11:40,149 --> 00:11:43,230 pragmatic maxim, the famous one. Our idea of 260 00:11:43,230 --> 00:11:45,509 anything is our idea of its sensible effects. 261 00:11:45,789 --> 00:11:48,110 That's the heart of it for Pierce. Can you give 262 00:11:48,110 --> 00:11:50,610 an example of how he applied that? Yeah. He famously 263 00:11:50,610 --> 00:11:53,110 used the example of transubstantiation from theology, 264 00:11:53,470 --> 00:11:55,429 the doctrine about the bread and wine in communion. 265 00:11:55,870 --> 00:11:58,529 Pierce basically said, look, if the wine continues 266 00:11:58,529 --> 00:12:00,909 to have all the sensible characteristics of wine 267 00:12:00,909 --> 00:12:03,190 taste, smell, appearance, chemical properties, 268 00:12:03,409 --> 00:12:05,889 then to say it's really metaphysically blood 269 00:12:05,889 --> 00:12:08,250 is just senseless jargon. Because there's no 270 00:12:08,250 --> 00:12:10,909 conceivable, practical, observable difference. 271 00:12:11,509 --> 00:12:14,570 Precisely. Our entire concept of wine is the 272 00:12:14,570 --> 00:12:17,730 sum total of its sensible effects. If there are 273 00:12:17,730 --> 00:12:20,309 no potential differences in experience or experimental 274 00:12:20,309 --> 00:12:24,409 outcome between idea A and idea B, then A and 275 00:12:24,409 --> 00:12:27,169 B are, for all practical purposes, the same concept. 276 00:12:28,009 --> 00:12:31,049 Beliefs, for Pierce, are essentially guides to 277 00:12:31,049 --> 00:12:33,669 action habits of expecting certain sensible results 278 00:12:33,669 --> 00:12:36,490 from certain actions in certain situations. Wow, 279 00:12:36,570 --> 00:12:38,509 that's intensely practical. It almost sounds 280 00:12:38,509 --> 00:12:40,590 like a philosophy built directly out of the scientific 281 00:12:40,590 --> 00:12:43,409 method itself. It's very closely tied. And that 282 00:12:43,409 --> 00:12:46,350 connection flows directly into his view of truth. 283 00:12:46,730 --> 00:12:49,269 So how does truth fit into this sensible effects 284 00:12:49,269 --> 00:12:52,549 framework? For Pierce, truth and reality aren't 285 00:12:52,549 --> 00:12:54,809 found in some static correspondence or perfect 286 00:12:54,809 --> 00:12:57,330 coherence right now. They emerge from the process 287 00:12:57,330 --> 00:12:59,470 of investigation carried out over the long haul. 288 00:12:59,629 --> 00:13:02,669 He defined truth with a capital T as the opinion 289 00:13:02,669 --> 00:13:05,370 fated to be ultimately agreed upon by all who 290 00:13:05,370 --> 00:13:07,690 investigate. Fated. That sounds deterministic. 291 00:13:07,830 --> 00:13:10,250 Well, it's about the ideal limit of inquiry. 292 00:13:10,889 --> 00:13:13,549 The idea is that if the scientific method, with 293 00:13:13,549 --> 00:13:15,730 its constant testing and self -correction, were 294 00:13:15,730 --> 00:13:18,429 pursued indefinitely, it would eventually converge 295 00:13:18,429 --> 00:13:22,090 on a single, stable set of beliefs. That final, 296 00:13:22,250 --> 00:13:25,730 unshakable consensus is truth. Reality is what 297 00:13:25,730 --> 00:13:27,889 that final opinion would describe. So it's not 298 00:13:27,889 --> 00:13:29,970 about what we agree on now, which could be wrong. 299 00:13:30,129 --> 00:13:32,049 No, absolutely not. It's about what we would 300 00:13:32,049 --> 00:13:34,169 inevitably agree upon if we could push inquiry 301 00:13:34,169 --> 00:13:36,970 to its absolute limit, ironing out all errors 302 00:13:36,970 --> 00:13:40,470 and biases. It tries to ground truth in the objective 303 00:13:40,470 --> 00:13:43,009 self -correcting process of the community of 304 00:13:43,009 --> 00:13:45,450 investigators. Okay, that's Pierce. Then we have 305 00:13:45,450 --> 00:13:47,210 William James, who's probably even more famous, 306 00:13:47,250 --> 00:13:49,870 maybe infamous, for his pragmatic take on truth. 307 00:13:50,049 --> 00:13:52,580 He really leans into the usefulness angle. James 308 00:13:52,580 --> 00:13:54,980 definitely emphasizes the practical utility, 309 00:13:55,279 --> 00:13:57,539 the cash value of ideas, as he sometimes put 310 00:13:57,539 --> 00:13:59,899 it. His view is often called an epistemic theory. 311 00:14:00,100 --> 00:14:02,960 Truth is tied to processes of knowing and verifying. 312 00:14:03,159 --> 00:14:06,659 So for James, true ideas are? True ideas are 313 00:14:06,659 --> 00:14:08,940 ones we can assimilate into our existing beliefs, 314 00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:11,899 ones we can validate, corroborate, verify through 315 00:14:11,899 --> 00:14:15,419 experience. Truth isn't a static property ideas 316 00:14:15,419 --> 00:14:17,799 have. It's something that happens to an idea. 317 00:14:18,039 --> 00:14:21,220 It becomes true, is made true by events, by its 318 00:14:21,220 --> 00:14:23,620 verification. And this verification is about 319 00:14:23,620 --> 00:14:26,860 whether it works. Essentially, yes. True ideas 320 00:14:26,860 --> 00:14:29,019 are the ones that work in the broadest sense. 321 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:31,100 They help us navigate experience effectively, 322 00:14:31,519 --> 00:14:33,899 move smoothly from one part of our lives to another, 323 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:36,860 predict future experiences, and generally lead 324 00:14:36,860 --> 00:14:39,320 to satisfactory results without causing frustration 325 00:14:39,320 --> 00:14:42,360 or contradiction. But critically, James stresses 326 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:45,320 this has to be over the long run and across the 327 00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:47,840 whole range of experience. It's not just about 328 00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,519 immediate short -term convenience. Right, but 329 00:14:50,519 --> 00:14:52,620 this is exactly where he gets hammered with the 330 00:14:52,620 --> 00:14:54,789 charge of relativism, isn't it? It is. The big 331 00:14:54,789 --> 00:14:57,429 critique is, if truth is just about usefulness, 332 00:14:57,590 --> 00:14:59,789 couldn't something be useful for me to believe, 333 00:14:59,870 --> 00:15:02,049 given my interests, but completely useless or 334 00:15:02,049 --> 00:15:04,429 even harmful for you to believe? Or couldn't 335 00:15:04,429 --> 00:15:07,309 a belief be incredibly useful for a whole society, 336 00:15:07,370 --> 00:15:10,350 say, a foundational myth that promotes social 337 00:15:10,350 --> 00:15:13,289 harmony, even if it's demonstrably false, according 338 00:15:13,289 --> 00:15:16,470 to historical evidence? Does its usefulness make 339 00:15:16,470 --> 00:15:19,460 it true for James? That's the million dollar 340 00:15:19,460 --> 00:15:22,100 question James constantly had to fend off. He 341 00:15:22,100 --> 00:15:24,559 tries to push back by emphasizing the public 342 00:15:24,559 --> 00:15:27,799 long term nature of working. But he also makes 343 00:15:27,799 --> 00:15:29,519 this really important distinction to try and 344 00:15:29,519 --> 00:15:33,179 handle it. He distinguishes between full verification 345 00:15:33,179 --> 00:15:36,139 processes, actually going out and directly checking 346 00:15:36,139 --> 00:15:38,720 every single detail of a belief and what he calls 347 00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:41,600 truths in a state of nascency or potential truths. 348 00:15:41,840 --> 00:15:43,820 OK, what does that mean? It means most of the 349 00:15:43,820 --> 00:15:46,379 truths we live by aren't fully directly verified 350 00:15:46,379 --> 00:15:49,259 by us personally. We operate on a huge network 351 00:15:49,259 --> 00:15:51,480 of credit essentially. We assume Japan exists 352 00:15:51,480 --> 00:15:53,860 without flying there to check. We trust the clock 353 00:15:53,860 --> 00:15:55,960 on the wall tells the right time without taking 354 00:15:55,960 --> 00:15:58,059 it apart. We take a lot for granted because it 355 00:15:58,059 --> 00:16:00,950 usually works out. Exactly. These beliefs function 356 00:16:00,950 --> 00:16:03,649 as if they were true because following them leads 357 00:16:03,649 --> 00:16:06,370 us reliably to the experiences we expect without 358 00:16:06,370 --> 00:16:09,230 clashing with other accepted truths. They work 359 00:16:09,230 --> 00:16:11,309 in the sense that the system holds together and 360 00:16:11,309 --> 00:16:14,110 guides us effectively. They are shortcuts that, 361 00:16:14,190 --> 00:16:17,399 on the whole, So it's about the system working, 362 00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,080 not just individual beliefs in isolation. Right. 363 00:16:20,139 --> 00:16:22,620 And James uses this whole pragmatic framework 364 00:16:22,620 --> 00:16:25,379 to make a really sharp break with the older rationalist 365 00:16:25,379 --> 00:16:27,899 tradition in philosophy. How so? What's the contrast? 366 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:30,759 He argues that rationalism, with its focus on 367 00:16:30,759 --> 00:16:33,500 abstract principles, logic, and necessary truths, 368 00:16:33,759 --> 00:16:36,539 is always looking backward. Backward to principles, 369 00:16:36,740 --> 00:16:39,519 to past eternity, trying to find truth in static 370 00:16:39,519 --> 00:16:42,539 contemplation, divorced from... practical consequences. 371 00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:45,559 And pragmatism. Pragmatism, James insists, faces 372 00:16:45,559 --> 00:16:47,600 forward. It looks to the future, to outcomes, 373 00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:50,220 to consequences and experience. He found the 374 00:16:50,220 --> 00:16:53,059 rationalist idea of some unconditional or transcendent 375 00:16:53,059 --> 00:16:55,639 reality that simply demands our agreement, regardless 376 00:16:55,639 --> 00:16:58,500 of practical payoff, to be frankly a meaningless 377 00:16:58,500 --> 00:17:01,559 abstraction. So if mirroring reality perfectly 378 00:17:01,559 --> 00:17:04,039 doesn't actually help us do anything or predict 379 00:17:04,039 --> 00:17:06,339 anything better, why should we care about it? 380 00:17:06,500 --> 00:17:08,940 That's exactly his challenge. The motive for 381 00:17:08,940 --> 00:17:12,140 seeking truth, for James, has to lie in the future 382 00:17:12,140 --> 00:17:14,440 consequences, the practical advantages it brings. 383 00:17:14,579 --> 00:17:17,160 He completely shifts the burden of proof away 384 00:17:17,160 --> 00:17:19,779 from just assuming correspondence is intrinsically 385 00:17:19,779 --> 00:17:23,380 valuable. That's a powerful shift. But OK, if 386 00:17:23,380 --> 00:17:26,380 pragmatism ties truth so closely to what works 387 00:17:26,380 --> 00:17:28,880 or what would be agreed upon at the end of inquiry, 388 00:17:29,099 --> 00:17:31,579 how does it really hang on to objectivity? It 389 00:17:31,579 --> 00:17:34,700 still feels perilously close to just saying truth 390 00:17:34,700 --> 00:17:36,960 is whatever we end up agreeing on. That's a fair 391 00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:39,559 concern, and it's something contemporary pragmatists 392 00:17:39,559 --> 00:17:42,279 have worked hard to refine. Cheryl Misak, for 393 00:17:42,279 --> 00:17:44,240 instance, offers a really sophisticated defense. 394 00:17:44,500 --> 00:17:47,880 She argues that pragmatism can maintain objectivity, 395 00:17:47,980 --> 00:17:49,859 but it needs to be careful about how it connects 396 00:17:49,859 --> 00:17:52,539 truth to inquiry. Not in an immediate way. Not 397 00:17:52,539 --> 00:17:54,519 in an immediate, indicative way. She says the 398 00:17:54,519 --> 00:17:57,079 pragmatists shouldn't say X is true because it 399 00:17:57,079 --> 00:17:59,440 fits our current evidence. That's obviously fallible. 400 00:17:59,599 --> 00:18:01,740 Instead, they need to use the subjunctive conditional. 401 00:18:02,180 --> 00:18:04,470 Okay, the subjunctive. What's the difference 402 00:18:04,470 --> 00:18:06,869 in practical terms? Can you give an example that 403 00:18:06,869 --> 00:18:08,849 seems like a crucial distinction? It's huge. 404 00:18:09,069 --> 00:18:11,049 The indicative conditional is about the present 405 00:18:11,049 --> 00:18:14,210 state. If it fits the evidence now, it is true. 406 00:18:14,769 --> 00:18:17,630 The subjunctive conditional is about a hypothetical 407 00:18:17,630 --> 00:18:21,630 ideal future state. A belief is true, if it would 408 00:18:21,630 --> 00:18:24,190 fit the evidence, and would withstand all further 409 00:18:24,190 --> 00:18:26,950 tests and revisions, were inquiry to be pursued 410 00:18:26,950 --> 00:18:30,490 ideally. indefinitely until no further recalcitrant 411 00:18:30,490 --> 00:18:33,849 experiences or reasons for doubt emerged. OK, 412 00:18:34,089 --> 00:18:36,869 so truth isn't defined by what we happen to think 413 00:18:36,869 --> 00:18:39,089 right now with our limited knowledge and biases. 414 00:18:39,230 --> 00:18:42,150 Exactly. It's defined by what we would be compelled 415 00:18:42,150 --> 00:18:44,930 to believe under ideal conditions of investigation 416 00:18:44,930 --> 00:18:47,609 if we could ever reach them. That's the key move. 417 00:18:47,809 --> 00:18:50,750 It places the ultimate standard outside our current 418 00:18:50,750 --> 00:18:53,750 finite perspective, thereby preserving objectivity. 419 00:18:54,190 --> 00:18:56,750 Truth becomes robust, something resistant to 420 00:18:56,750 --> 00:18:58,650 our whims because it's tied to the evidence and 421 00:18:58,650 --> 00:19:00,230 reasoning that would emerge in the long run. 422 00:19:00,410 --> 00:19:02,910 But does Missick think we're guaranteed to actually 423 00:19:02,910 --> 00:19:05,730 converge on one single truth? No, and this is 424 00:19:05,730 --> 00:19:08,450 important. She acknowledges that the expectation 425 00:19:08,450 --> 00:19:10,869 of convergence, the idea that there really is 426 00:19:10,869 --> 00:19:13,309 one right answer out there that ideal inquiry 427 00:19:13,309 --> 00:19:16,609 would find, is what she calls a regulative assumption. 428 00:19:17,089 --> 00:19:19,509 A regulative assumption. What does that mean? 429 00:19:19,650 --> 00:19:22,109 Think of it like this. Imagine you're a judge 430 00:19:22,109 --> 00:19:25,680 in traffic court. To even begin the process of 431 00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:28,220 figuring out what happened in an accident, you 432 00:19:28,220 --> 00:19:31,000 have to assume there is a single objective sequence 433 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:33,380 of events that actually occurred. Right. Otherwise, 434 00:19:33,500 --> 00:19:36,559 the whole trial is pointless. Exactly. That assumption 435 00:19:36,559 --> 00:19:38,779 that there is a discoverable truth of the matter 436 00:19:38,779 --> 00:19:41,500 is necessary for the practice of inquiry, for 437 00:19:41,500 --> 00:19:44,599 the trial to make sense. But, and this is the 438 00:19:44,599 --> 00:19:47,079 crucial part, the judges need to assume this 439 00:19:47,079 --> 00:19:49,359 doesn't magically guarantee that the truth is 440 00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:52,140 easily knowable. or that they'll definitely find 441 00:19:52,140 --> 00:19:54,119 it, or even that the world is always so neat 442 00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:57,660 and tidy. So we assume convergence to make inquiry 443 00:19:57,660 --> 00:20:00,619 possible, but we don't know for sure if it's 444 00:20:00,619 --> 00:20:03,579 metaphysically true. Precisely. The assumption 445 00:20:03,579 --> 00:20:06,420 guides the practice, but the pragmatist remains 446 00:20:06,420 --> 00:20:08,680 aware that our methods are fallible, and the 447 00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:10,859 world might be more complex than our assumption 448 00:20:10,859 --> 00:20:14,119 allows. It keeps pragmatism honest about the 449 00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:16,390 limits of investigation. Okay, we've covered 450 00:20:16,390 --> 00:20:18,730 a lot of ground, from correspondence trying to 451 00:20:18,730 --> 00:20:21,950 match the world, to coherence looking at internal 452 00:20:21,950 --> 00:20:25,670 fit, to pragmatism focusing on inquiry and practical 453 00:20:25,670 --> 00:20:28,230 outcomes. Now, the anthology takes another sharp 454 00:20:28,230 --> 00:20:30,970 turn, right, into the 20th century's analytical 455 00:20:30,970 --> 00:20:34,349 obsession with language. Yes, a major pivot. 456 00:20:34,509 --> 00:20:37,190 Instead of focusing primarily on the metaphysical 457 00:20:37,190 --> 00:20:39,930 property of truth, many philosophers started 458 00:20:39,930 --> 00:20:43,259 analyzing the word true itself. and how we use 459 00:20:43,259 --> 00:20:45,779 it. What job does that word do in our sentences? 460 00:20:46,079 --> 00:20:48,579 And Lynch highlights two really different linguistic 461 00:20:48,579 --> 00:20:51,579 approaches here. First, this famous dustup between 462 00:20:51,579 --> 00:20:54,400 P .F. Strawson and J .L. Austin. Right. This 463 00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:56,920 centers on the function of saying is true. Strawson 464 00:20:56,920 --> 00:20:58,980 was coming from a background related to redundancy 465 00:20:58,980 --> 00:21:01,359 theories. The idea that is true doesn't add much 466 00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:03,680 factual content. Like Ramsey saying it's true 467 00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:05,920 Caesar was murdered just means Caesar was murdered. 468 00:21:06,250 --> 00:21:09,410 Exactly. But Strawson gave this a specific twist. 469 00:21:09,609 --> 00:21:11,690 He argued that when you say something like, your 470 00:21:11,690 --> 00:21:14,670 statement is true, you're not actually describing 471 00:21:14,670 --> 00:21:17,930 the statement. You're not saying it has the property 472 00:21:17,930 --> 00:21:20,869 of corresponding to reality. So what are you 473 00:21:20,869 --> 00:21:23,109 doing, according to Strawson? You're performing 474 00:21:23,109 --> 00:21:25,880 a linguistic act. You're endorsing the other 475 00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:28,799 person's statement or granting it or conceding 476 00:21:28,799 --> 00:21:31,880 it. He suggested that saying that's true is often 477 00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:33,900 functionally equivalent to just saying ditto 478 00:21:33,900 --> 00:21:37,180 or yes or I agree. It's a performative utterance. 479 00:21:37,279 --> 00:21:39,880 Okay, so it's about the action you perform with 480 00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,400 the words, not the descriptive content. That 481 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:44,539 was Strawson's claim. But then J .L. Austin, 482 00:21:44,839 --> 00:21:47,099 the champion of ordinary language analysis, came 483 00:21:47,099 --> 00:21:49,579 back with a really sharp critique. What was Austin's 484 00:21:49,579 --> 00:21:52,839 counter? Austin agreed that, yes, often when 485 00:21:52,839 --> 00:21:54,940 we say your statement is true, we are performing 486 00:21:54,940 --> 00:21:58,299 an act like agreeing or conceding. No argument 487 00:21:58,299 --> 00:22:01,700 there. But he insisted it's also, and crucially 488 00:22:01,700 --> 00:22:03,900 at the same time, making an assertion about the 489 00:22:03,900 --> 00:22:05,900 original statement. So the performative part 490 00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:08,640 doesn't cancel out the descriptive part. Exactly. 491 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,079 Austin argued the performative function relies 492 00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:13,819 on the underlying descriptive truth -stating 493 00:22:13,819 --> 00:22:16,720 function. He called it TSDS. And he had this 494 00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:19,779 brilliant, simple counterexample to prove it. 495 00:22:19,980 --> 00:22:23,119 Which was? The look and see case, Austin says. 496 00:22:23,460 --> 00:22:25,960 Imagine someone makes a statement. You investigate. 497 00:22:26,019 --> 00:22:27,940 Maybe you look out the window and you see that 498 00:22:27,940 --> 00:22:31,599 their statement is true. But you don't say anything. 499 00:22:31,799 --> 00:22:33,960 You don't endorse it. You don't concede it. You 500 00:22:33,960 --> 00:22:37,359 just silently recognize its truth. Ah. So the 501 00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:39,779 truth exists independently of whether you perform 502 00:22:39,779 --> 00:22:42,960 the act of agreeing. Precisely. That silent recognition 503 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:46,819 shows the statement has a truth value. It corresponds, 504 00:22:47,140 --> 00:22:49,940 in Austin's view, to the facts before and independently 505 00:22:49,940 --> 00:22:52,180 of any linguistic act of endorsement you might 506 00:22:52,180 --> 00:22:54,660 perform later. You can't silently look and see 507 00:22:54,660 --> 00:22:57,859 an agreement or a concession. Those require speech 508 00:22:57,859 --> 00:23:00,660 acts. That seems pretty decisive against a purely 509 00:23:00,660 --> 00:23:02,980 performative view. It was a very powerful point. 510 00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:05,259 It showed that the truth predicate does seem 511 00:23:05,259 --> 00:23:07,079 to describe something about the statement itself, 512 00:23:07,180 --> 00:23:09,240 which enables the later performative use but 513 00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,630 isn't exhausted by it. Still, Strawson had some 514 00:23:11,630 --> 00:23:14,069 interesting points, too, especially about the 515 00:23:14,069 --> 00:23:17,349 concessive use. He did. Strawson pointed out 516 00:23:17,349 --> 00:23:19,529 that when we say things like, it's true that 517 00:23:19,529 --> 00:23:22,269 the economy is improving, but inequality is rising, 518 00:23:22,490 --> 00:23:25,309 the it's true that part often functions just 519 00:23:25,309 --> 00:23:27,690 like saying, although. Like, although the economy 520 00:23:27,690 --> 00:23:30,170 is improving, inequality is rising. Exactly. 521 00:23:30,230 --> 00:23:32,930 He argued that in these cases, it's true that. 522 00:23:33,279 --> 00:23:35,519 Dross isn't really adding a truth claim. It's 523 00:23:35,519 --> 00:23:37,720 more like a rhetorical device to signal you're 524 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:40,299 about to grant a point before making a contrasting 525 00:23:40,299 --> 00:23:43,059 one. It forces you to really examine the different 526 00:23:43,059 --> 00:23:45,599 jobs the word true does in our actual speech. 527 00:23:45,940 --> 00:23:48,380 So a fascinating debate about the nuances of 528 00:23:48,380 --> 00:23:51,480 ordinary language. But then we shift gears dramatically, 529 00:23:51,779 --> 00:23:54,240 moving from the somewhat messy world of everyday 530 00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:57,380 speech to the super precise logical world of 531 00:23:57,380 --> 00:23:59,880 Alfred Tarski. Yeah, a totally different approach. 532 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,359 Tarski was a brilliant Polish logician and mathematician, 533 00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:04,940 and he wasn't primarily interested in everyday 534 00:24:04,940 --> 00:24:07,359 language use. He was trying to solve a fundamental 535 00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:10,660 crisis within formal logic and mathematics. The 536 00:24:10,660 --> 00:24:13,660 paradoxes. The semantic paradoxes, yeah. Especially 537 00:24:13,660 --> 00:24:17,359 the infamous liar paradox. This sentence is false. 538 00:24:17,660 --> 00:24:21,480 Which ties itself in knots. If it's true, then 539 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,339 what it says must be correct, meaning it's false. 540 00:24:24,519 --> 00:24:26,960 But if it's false, then what it says is incorrect. 541 00:24:27,339 --> 00:24:29,920 meaning it's not false, so it must be true. Exactly. 542 00:24:30,099 --> 00:24:32,259 It creates a contradiction, and that's lethal 543 00:24:32,259 --> 00:24:35,180 for any formal system that aims for consistency. 544 00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,759 Tarski saw that this kind of paradox arises because 545 00:24:38,759 --> 00:24:41,920 natural language is semantically closed or universal. 546 00:24:42,319 --> 00:24:44,859 Meaning it can talk about its own truth or falsity. 547 00:24:44,980 --> 00:24:47,299 Right. It contains its own semantic predicates 548 00:24:47,299 --> 00:24:50,180 like is true and can refer to its own sentences. 549 00:24:50,980 --> 00:24:53,839 Tarski's solution was basically to say you can't 550 00:24:53,839 --> 00:24:55,579 allow that in a formally consistent language. 551 00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:58,759 So how did he fix it? His core move was structural. 552 00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,680 He insisted on a strict hierarchy of languages. 553 00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,160 You need to distinguish clearly between the object 554 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:05,720 language, the language you're talking about, 555 00:25:05,819 --> 00:25:08,119 and the meta language, the richer, more expressive 556 00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,119 language you use to talk about the object language. 557 00:25:10,319 --> 00:25:12,119 Okay, can you give an analogy? Think of it like 558 00:25:12,119 --> 00:25:14,960 a user manual for a complex machine. The manual, 559 00:25:15,259 --> 00:25:18,000 meta language. describes the machine's parts 560 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,640 and how they work . The manual needs to be written 561 00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:23,720 in a language that can refer to the machine's 562 00:25:23,720 --> 00:25:26,519 components, but the manual itself can't be one 563 00:25:26,519 --> 00:25:29,119 of the machine's components. If it were, you'd 564 00:25:29,119 --> 00:25:32,559 risk circularity and paradox. Got it. The language 565 00:25:32,559 --> 00:25:35,160 used for analysis must stand outside the language 566 00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,980 being analyzed. Exactly. The metalanguage has 567 00:25:37,980 --> 00:25:40,339 to contain the object language within it, plus 568 00:25:40,339 --> 00:25:43,099 the tools, like a truth predicate, needed to 569 00:25:43,099 --> 00:25:45,119 describe the semantics of the object language. 570 00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:47,720 Crucially, the truth predicate for the object 571 00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:50,039 language must belong only to the meta -language. 572 00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,319 And using this structure, he developed his semantic 573 00:25:52,319 --> 00:25:55,640 conception of truth. Yes. He defined truth not 574 00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,500 through vague ideas like correspondence or coherence, 575 00:25:58,619 --> 00:26:01,599 but formally and recursively, using the concept 576 00:26:01,599 --> 00:26:04,339 of satisfaction. Satisfaction. How did that work? 577 00:26:04,519 --> 00:26:07,319 It's a technical concept, but roughly. Think 578 00:26:07,319 --> 00:26:10,410 of a simple predicate like is blue. That predicate, 579 00:26:10,569 --> 00:26:13,509 or more formally, the sentential function x is 580 00:26:13,509 --> 00:26:16,450 blue, is said to be satisfied by all the objects 581 00:26:16,450 --> 00:26:19,210 in the world that are in fact blue. Turski showed 582 00:26:19,210 --> 00:26:21,650 how you could build up from satisfaction for 583 00:26:21,650 --> 00:26:23,809 simple predicates to satisfaction for complex 584 00:26:23,809 --> 00:26:26,950 sentences. For a complete sentence, which has 585 00:26:26,950 --> 00:26:29,769 no free variables like x, there are only two 586 00:26:29,769 --> 00:26:32,789 possibilities in his system. Either it's satisfied 587 00:26:32,789 --> 00:26:36,269 by all objects in the domain, if it's true, or 588 00:26:36,269 --> 00:26:38,589 it's satisfied by no objects, if it's false. 589 00:26:38,980 --> 00:26:41,980 So snow is white is true if the objects in the 590 00:26:41,980 --> 00:26:44,839 world satisfy that condition? Essentially, yes. 591 00:26:45,099 --> 00:26:48,220 It's true if it's satisfied by all objects under 592 00:26:48,220 --> 00:26:50,460 a suitable interpretation of satisfaction for 593 00:26:50,460 --> 00:26:53,420 sentences. This formal definition, constructed 594 00:26:53,420 --> 00:26:56,279 within the meta -language, successfully avoids 595 00:26:56,279 --> 00:26:58,480 the liar paradox by preventing sentences from 596 00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:00,220 talking about their own truth value directly. 597 00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:03,640 A major technical achievement. But what did Tarski 598 00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:05,559 himself think about the philosophical implications? 599 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:07,920 Did he think he'd finally solve the big questions 600 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:10,839 about realism or idealism? This is really important. 601 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,079 Tarski explicitly claimed his definition was 602 00:27:13,079 --> 00:27:15,380 completely neutral on those big epistemological 603 00:27:15,380 --> 00:27:18,599 and metaphysical debates. Neutral. How so? He 604 00:27:18,599 --> 00:27:21,299 saw himself as providing a formally correct and 605 00:27:21,299 --> 00:27:24,099 materially adequate definition of truth for certain 606 00:27:24,099 --> 00:27:26,720 kinds of languages, a definition that captured 607 00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,539 the basic intuition behind correspondence. Truth 608 00:27:29,539 --> 00:27:32,740 means saying of what is that it is, but did so 609 00:27:32,740 --> 00:27:34,839 in a way that was mathematically rigorous and 610 00:27:34,839 --> 00:27:37,339 avoided paradox. But he wasn't claiming this 611 00:27:37,339 --> 00:27:39,559 technical definition settled whether reality 612 00:27:39,559 --> 00:27:43,200 is mind dependent or independent. No. He argued 613 00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:45,619 his semantic conception was compatible with various 614 00:27:45,619 --> 00:27:48,420 philosophical stances. Whether you were a realist, 615 00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:51,279 an idealist, or an empiricist, you could, in 616 00:27:51,279 --> 00:27:53,559 principle, adopt his formal definition of truth 617 00:27:53,559 --> 00:27:56,500 for your language. He provided a tool, a consistent 618 00:27:56,500 --> 00:27:59,500 framework, not a final metaphysical answer. Okay, 619 00:27:59,539 --> 00:28:02,079 so Tarski gives us this powerful formal tool, 620 00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,099 but explicitly stays neutral on the deep metaphysical 621 00:28:05,099 --> 00:28:07,599 stuff. And maybe that neutrality, combined with 622 00:28:07,599 --> 00:28:09,339 all the headaches that the substantive theories 623 00:28:09,339 --> 00:28:12,190 like correspondence and coherence ran into, Maybe 624 00:28:12,190 --> 00:28:14,190 that paved the way for the next major movement. 625 00:28:14,309 --> 00:28:15,950 I think that's exactly right. It leads directly 626 00:28:15,950 --> 00:28:18,490 into what's arguably the dominant view in much 627 00:28:18,490 --> 00:28:21,150 contemporary philosophy of truth, deflationism 628 00:28:21,150 --> 00:28:23,970 or minimalism. Deflationism. The name suggests 629 00:28:23,970 --> 00:28:27,809 they think previous theories were kind of inflated, 630 00:28:27,829 --> 00:28:31,450 puffed up. Precisely. Minimalists like F .P. 631 00:28:31,450 --> 00:28:33,750 Ramsey back in the day and more recently Paul 632 00:28:33,750 --> 00:28:36,529 Horwich essentially argue that philosophers have 633 00:28:36,529 --> 00:28:38,990 made truth into a much bigger, more mysterious 634 00:28:38,990 --> 00:28:41,630 deal than it actually is. The whole problem might 635 00:28:41,630 --> 00:28:44,390 stem from assuming truth is some deep, substantial 636 00:28:44,390 --> 00:28:46,950 explanatory property in the first place. So what 637 00:28:46,950 --> 00:28:50,029 is truth for a minimalist? Well, Ramsey had that 638 00:28:50,029 --> 00:28:52,869 famous observation saying it is true that Caesar 639 00:28:52,869 --> 00:28:55,430 was murdered. Adds nothing significant over just 640 00:28:55,430 --> 00:28:58,329 asserting Caesar was murdered. The is true part. 641 00:28:58,660 --> 00:29:01,500 seems redundant in terms of content. Okay. Building 642 00:29:01,500 --> 00:29:03,799 on that, Horridge's minimal theory argues that 643 00:29:03,799 --> 00:29:06,019 the property of truth is entirely captured by 644 00:29:06,019 --> 00:29:08,759 or constituted by all the non -aradoxical instances 645 00:29:08,759 --> 00:29:11,359 of what's called the equivalent schema, or ES. 646 00:29:11,599 --> 00:29:14,359 The equivalent schema. That's the P is true if 647 00:29:14,359 --> 00:29:16,960 and only if P thing. Exactly. The proposition 648 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,640 that snow is white is true if and only if snow 649 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:21,819 is white. The proposition that grass is green 650 00:29:21,819 --> 00:29:24,460 is true if and only if grass is green. And so 651 00:29:24,460 --> 00:29:26,559 on for every proposition P that doesn't lead 652 00:29:26,559 --> 00:29:30,289 to paradox. So, For the minimalist, the entire 653 00:29:30,289 --> 00:29:33,630 nature of truth is just this collection of simple 654 00:29:33,630 --> 00:29:36,890 equivalences. There's no deeper property like 655 00:29:36,890 --> 00:29:39,589 correspondence or coherence needed. That's the 656 00:29:39,589 --> 00:29:42,970 core idea. Truth is considered an insubstantial 657 00:29:42,970 --> 00:29:45,690 property. Its entire meaning and function are 658 00:29:45,690 --> 00:29:48,869 exhausted by these ES instances. But if truth 659 00:29:48,869 --> 00:29:52,289 is so insubstantial, if it is true, adds no real 660 00:29:52,289 --> 00:29:55,450 content, why do we even have the word? Why do 661 00:29:55,450 --> 00:29:57,869 we need a truth predicate at all? Ah, that's 662 00:29:57,869 --> 00:30:00,130 the crucial question for deflationists. Their 663 00:30:00,130 --> 00:30:02,950 answer is that the truth predicate serves a vital 664 00:30:02,950 --> 00:30:06,089 logical or expressive function, even if it doesn't 665 00:30:06,089 --> 00:30:08,470 name a deep property. An expressive function. 666 00:30:08,710 --> 00:30:11,230 Like what? Give us an example. The classic example 667 00:30:11,230 --> 00:30:13,789 is generalization. Suppose you admire someone's 668 00:30:13,789 --> 00:30:16,130 judgment immensely, maybe a religious leader 669 00:30:16,130 --> 00:30:18,509 or a scientist. You want to endorse everything 670 00:30:18,509 --> 00:30:20,569 they believe about a certain topic, even things 671 00:30:20,569 --> 00:30:22,430 they haven't said yet or things you haven't heard. 672 00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:24,900 You can't list out every single proposition they 673 00:30:24,900 --> 00:30:27,640 hold. Proposition 1 is right. Proposition 2 is 674 00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:30,400 right. Proposition 3 is right. Especially if 675 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,319 it's potentially an infinite list. Right, that's 676 00:30:32,319 --> 00:30:34,339 impossible. But the truth predicate lets you 677 00:30:34,339 --> 00:30:36,539 do it easily. You just say, everything the Pope 678 00:30:36,539 --> 00:30:39,700 says about theology is true, or all of Einstein's 679 00:30:39,700 --> 00:30:42,349 later theories are true. You're using is true 680 00:30:42,349 --> 00:30:45,430 to generalize over a potentially huge, even infinite 681 00:30:45,430 --> 00:30:47,589 class of propositions without having to state 682 00:30:47,589 --> 00:30:50,970 each one individually. So it's a tool for endorsing 683 00:30:50,970 --> 00:30:53,130 or asserting collections of sentences indirectly. 684 00:30:53,450 --> 00:30:55,589 Exactly. It's a device for managing assertion 685 00:30:55,589 --> 00:30:58,390 and agreement on a large scale, not for describing 686 00:30:58,390 --> 00:31:00,829 a profound metaphysical link between language 687 00:31:00,829 --> 00:31:03,730 and world. OK, that's minimalism. It sounds clean, 688 00:31:03,910 --> 00:31:06,470 almost elegant in its simplicity, but it feels 689 00:31:06,470 --> 00:31:08,529 like it leaves something out. Maybe this idea 690 00:31:08,529 --> 00:31:11,910 that truth is just this thin, logical. device, 691 00:31:11,970 --> 00:31:14,210 it seems to clash with our intuition that truth 692 00:31:14,210 --> 00:31:16,250 in science feels different from truth in ethics, 693 00:31:16,410 --> 00:31:18,410 for example. And that's precisely the reaction 694 00:31:18,410 --> 00:31:20,930 that fuels the next major contemporary movement, 695 00:31:21,269 --> 00:31:24,309 truth pluralism. Thinkers like Michael Lynch 696 00:31:24,309 --> 00:31:27,289 himself, Crispin Wright, Gila Sher, they push 697 00:31:27,289 --> 00:31:29,730 back against minimalism's deflationary view. 698 00:31:29,970 --> 00:31:32,750 So what's the core idea of pluralism? Pluralism 699 00:31:32,750 --> 00:31:35,589 generally holds that while truth might be a single 700 00:31:35,589 --> 00:31:38,190 concept or play a single functional role across 701 00:31:38,190 --> 00:31:40,990 the board, The property that makes a belief or 702 00:31:40,990 --> 00:31:44,089 statement true, the property that realizes truth 703 00:31:44,089 --> 00:31:46,690 can be different in different areas of discourse. 704 00:31:46,930 --> 00:31:49,450 Okay. Unpack that. Different realizing properties. 705 00:31:49,710 --> 00:31:52,869 Yeah. So for statements about the physical world, 706 00:31:52,950 --> 00:31:55,230 maybe the property that makes them true is something 707 00:31:55,230 --> 00:31:58,029 like correspondence to physical facts. That works 708 00:31:58,029 --> 00:32:00,190 well there. Right. But what about statements 709 00:32:00,190 --> 00:32:04,809 in ethics or aesthetics? Or mathematics. Does 710 00:32:04,809 --> 00:32:07,109 it really make sense to say a moral claim like 711 00:32:07,109 --> 00:32:10,049 torture is wrong is true because it corresponds 712 00:32:10,049 --> 00:32:13,150 to some weird moral fact floating out there in 713 00:32:13,150 --> 00:32:15,210 the universe? That seems problematic. Yeah. Yeah. 714 00:32:15,230 --> 00:32:17,829 The negative fact issue earlier. Exactly. So 715 00:32:17,829 --> 00:32:20,609 the pluralists suggest that in domains like morality 716 00:32:20,609 --> 00:32:23,390 or mathematics, truth might be realized by a 717 00:32:23,390 --> 00:32:25,630 different kind of property altogether, maybe 718 00:32:25,630 --> 00:32:28,049 something epistemic related to justification 719 00:32:28,049 --> 00:32:31,069 or proof. And Crispin Wright proposed a specific 720 00:32:31,069 --> 00:32:33,210 epistemic property for this role, didn't he? 721 00:32:33,329 --> 00:32:35,930 Especially for areas where correspondence seems 722 00:32:35,930 --> 00:32:38,650 awkward. He did. Wright developed the idea of 723 00:32:38,650 --> 00:32:41,430 super -assertability. Super -assertability. What 724 00:32:41,430 --> 00:32:44,309 is that? Roughly, a statement is super -assertable 725 00:32:44,309 --> 00:32:46,509 if it's currently warranted based on our evidence 726 00:32:46,509 --> 00:32:48,950 and methods. And it would remain warranted no 727 00:32:48,950 --> 00:32:50,809 matter how much more information we gathered 728 00:32:50,809 --> 00:32:52,970 or how much our methods improved in the future. 729 00:32:53,210 --> 00:32:56,150 It would withstand all possible future scrutiny 730 00:32:56,150 --> 00:32:59,410 without defeat. So it's like ideal, indestructible 731 00:32:59,410 --> 00:33:03,490 justification. Kind of. For right, in domains 732 00:33:03,490 --> 00:33:06,009 like ethics, where correspondence is dubious, 733 00:33:06,210 --> 00:33:08,650 maybe that property super -assertibility is what 734 00:33:08,650 --> 00:33:11,990 constitutes truth. A moral claim is true if it 735 00:33:11,990 --> 00:33:14,069 would be endorsed by ideally rational inquiry 736 00:33:14,069 --> 00:33:16,269 in the long run. That gives you an objective 737 00:33:16,269 --> 00:33:19,369 standard for non -scientific truths without forcing 738 00:33:19,369 --> 00:33:21,839 them into a potentially inappropriate correspondence 739 00:33:21,839 --> 00:33:24,859 box. That's the appeal. It allows for objectivity 740 00:33:24,859 --> 00:33:28,119 and realism about, say, morality, but tailored 741 00:33:28,119 --> 00:33:30,599 to the nature of moral discourse. Okay, so that's 742 00:33:30,599 --> 00:33:32,960 Wright's approach. But other pluralists have 743 00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:35,160 different models. Keila Schur, for instance. 744 00:33:35,359 --> 00:33:38,079 Right. Schur offers what she calls a more moderate 745 00:33:38,079 --> 00:33:40,980 version of pluralism. She's a bit wary of making 746 00:33:40,980 --> 00:33:43,400 the realizing properties too radically different, 747 00:33:43,500 --> 00:33:46,140 which might risk fragmenting the concept of truth 748 00:33:46,140 --> 00:33:48,700 entirely. So she tries to maintain more unity. 749 00:33:49,069 --> 00:33:52,430 Yes. Her approach tries to balance unity and 750 00:33:52,430 --> 00:33:55,029 diversity. She actually argues that all truths 751 00:33:55,029 --> 00:33:57,849 can, in a broad sense, fall under the correspondence 752 00:33:57,849 --> 00:34:01,750 principle. But, and this is key, she thinks correspondence 753 00:34:01,750 --> 00:34:05,650 itself isn't a single monolithic relation. It's 754 00:34:05,650 --> 00:34:08,090 more like a complex network of different relations 755 00:34:08,090 --> 00:34:10,670 and principles that connect thought to reality 756 00:34:10,670 --> 00:34:12,670 in various ways depending on the subject matter. 757 00:34:12,909 --> 00:34:15,210 And she has a core idea underpinning this network. 758 00:34:15,409 --> 00:34:17,570 She does. It's what she calls the imminence thesis. 759 00:34:18,159 --> 00:34:21,219 She argues that truth fundamentally arises at 760 00:34:21,219 --> 00:34:23,579 the intersection of three basic aspects of human 761 00:34:23,579 --> 00:34:26,860 cognition. Imminence, our internal thoughts and 762 00:34:26,860 --> 00:34:30,159 representations. Transcendence, our ability to 763 00:34:30,159 --> 00:34:32,340 critically question whether things are as our 764 00:34:32,340 --> 00:34:35,019 thoughts represent them. And normativity, the 765 00:34:35,019 --> 00:34:36,800 standards that determine a correct answer to 766 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:38,820 that transcendent question. So truth emerges 767 00:34:38,820 --> 00:34:40,920 from this fundamental structure of how we think 768 00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:42,500 about the world and question our own thoughts. 769 00:34:42,639 --> 00:34:44,739 That's the idea. It provides a common conceptual 770 00:34:44,739 --> 00:34:47,699 source for truth across different domains, even 771 00:34:47,699 --> 00:34:50,000 if the specific ways correspondence works might 772 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,719 vary. And Michael Lynch, the editor of the anthology, 773 00:34:52,860 --> 00:34:55,539 he offers his own version too, right? Simple 774 00:34:55,539 --> 00:34:57,739 determination pluralism. He uses an analogy. 775 00:34:58,019 --> 00:35:00,940 Yeah, Lynch uses a really helpful analogy. The 776 00:35:00,940 --> 00:35:04,000 property of winning a game. Okay. Winning is 777 00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,719 a single general property. It's the goal state, 778 00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,360 the success condition. But the way you achieve 779 00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:11,840 that property, the specific actions or states 780 00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,219 of affairs that realize winning are completely 781 00:35:14,219 --> 00:35:17,010 different depending on the game. Right. Checkmate 782 00:35:17,010 --> 00:35:19,090 in chess is totally different from scoring more 783 00:35:19,090 --> 00:35:21,869 goals in football. Exactly. So Lynch suggests 784 00:35:21,869 --> 00:35:25,150 truth might be like winning a single overarching 785 00:35:25,150 --> 00:35:28,070 normative property or goal. But the property 786 00:35:28,070 --> 00:35:30,590 that determines or realizes truth in a specific 787 00:35:30,590 --> 00:35:33,969 domain, like physics or ethics or logic, could 788 00:35:33,969 --> 00:35:36,070 be different, just like the rules for winning 789 00:35:36,070 --> 00:35:38,659 are different for different games. Correspondence 790 00:35:38,659 --> 00:35:40,139 might be the rule for winning in the empirical 791 00:35:40,139 --> 00:35:43,079 facts game, while coherence or super -assertibility 792 00:35:43,079 --> 00:35:45,380 might be the rule for winning in the mathematical 793 00:35:45,380 --> 00:35:48,900 proof or moral justification game. That's quite 794 00:35:48,900 --> 00:35:51,059 intuitive. It keeps the general importance of 795 00:35:51,059 --> 00:35:53,539 truth while allowing for domain -specific differences 796 00:35:53,539 --> 00:35:55,960 in how it works. It definitely tries to capture 797 00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,099 the best of both worlds, avoiding the potential 798 00:35:58,099 --> 00:36:01,179 oversimplification of correspondence, but also 799 00:36:01,179 --> 00:36:03,760 avoiding the deflationist conclusion that truth 800 00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:06,860 isn't really a substantial property worth analyzing. 801 00:36:07,550 --> 00:36:10,809 OK, so pluralism offers ways to handle the diversity 802 00:36:10,809 --> 00:36:13,829 of truth. But there's an even more radical critique 803 00:36:13,829 --> 00:36:15,869 lurking at the end of the anthology, isn't there? 804 00:36:15,989 --> 00:36:19,170 One that takes Tarski's paradoxes and says maybe 805 00:36:19,170 --> 00:36:21,269 the problem isn't just formal languages. Maybe 806 00:36:21,269 --> 00:36:24,250 it's our concept of truth itself. Yes. This brings 807 00:36:24,250 --> 00:36:26,210 us to the really cutting edge and potentially 808 00:36:26,210 --> 00:36:29,969 quite unsettling territory of inconsistency theorists 809 00:36:29,969 --> 00:36:33,269 and conceptual engineering. Inconsistency theorists 810 00:36:33,269 --> 00:36:36,420 like Kevin Sharp. What's their basic claim? They 811 00:36:36,420 --> 00:36:38,400 argue that the problem isn't just that specific 812 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:41,420 sentences like the liar are paradoxical. They 813 00:36:41,420 --> 00:36:43,739 argue that the very rules governing our ordinary, 814 00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,780 everyday concept of truth, the fundamental principles 815 00:36:46,780 --> 00:36:49,260 that make the concept useful to us, like the 816 00:36:49,260 --> 00:36:52,340 equivalent schema, P is true if P, are themselves 817 00:36:52,340 --> 00:36:55,559 inconsistent. The concept itself is flawed, broken. 818 00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,500 That's the radical claim. They argue that when 819 00:36:58,500 --> 00:37:00,579 you combine the core principles governing how 820 00:37:00,579 --> 00:37:03,659 we use true, like the ES, which seems essential 821 00:37:03,659 --> 00:37:06,980 for generalization, with basic logic, you inevitably 822 00:37:06,980 --> 00:37:09,440 generate contradictions, not just the liar, but 823 00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:11,800 other related paradoxes like Curry's paradox. 824 00:37:12,159 --> 00:37:14,760 Their diagnosis is that our ordinary concept 825 00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:18,039 of truth has inconsistent constitutive principles. 826 00:37:18,179 --> 00:37:21,420 It's fundamentally defective. Wow. So if the 827 00:37:21,420 --> 00:37:24,320 concept itself is broken, what do they propose 828 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,539 we do? Just stop talking about truth? Well, that 829 00:37:26,539 --> 00:37:28,239 leads to the project of conceptual engineering. 830 00:37:28,579 --> 00:37:31,309 If the original tool... our concept of truth 831 00:37:31,309 --> 00:37:34,110 is flawed, maybe we should design and adopt new, 832 00:37:34,210 --> 00:37:36,590 better tools. Replace the concept. Essentially, 833 00:37:36,690 --> 00:37:39,110 yes. They propose developing replacement concepts, 834 00:37:39,409 --> 00:37:42,050 sometimes called elatheic properties, that can 835 00:37:42,050 --> 00:37:44,489 do some or most of the important jobs that our 836 00:37:44,489 --> 00:37:47,030 current concept of truth does, like allowing 837 00:37:47,030 --> 00:37:50,150 generalization, marking assertion, but are specifically 838 00:37:50,150 --> 00:37:52,670 designed to be logically consistent and paradox 839 00:37:52,670 --> 00:37:55,449 -free. Hasn't formal logic already kind of done 840 00:37:55,449 --> 00:37:57,309 this with things like Tarski and truth or truth 841 00:37:57,309 --> 00:38:00,110 in a model? Those are consistent technical notions. 842 00:38:00,409 --> 00:38:02,909 That's a great point. And inconsistency theorists 843 00:38:02,909 --> 00:38:05,530 would say, yes, formal semantics has developed 844 00:38:05,530 --> 00:38:08,030 consistent surrogates. The conceptual engineering 845 00:38:08,030 --> 00:38:10,829 project wants to take that further, perhaps even 846 00:38:10,829 --> 00:38:12,909 suggesting we should try to revise our ordinary 847 00:38:12,909 --> 00:38:16,369 usage to align with these cleaner concepts. Is 848 00:38:16,369 --> 00:38:18,570 that realistic? Can we just decide to replace 849 00:38:18,570 --> 00:38:21,980 a concept as fundamental as truth? This brings 850 00:38:21,980 --> 00:38:23,739 up the retentionism counter -argument, right? 851 00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,739 Alexis Burgess defends holding onto our existing 852 00:38:26,739 --> 00:38:30,519 concept. Exactly. Burgess represents the retentionist 853 00:38:30,519 --> 00:38:33,179 stance. He argues we should be extremely cautious 854 00:38:33,179 --> 00:38:35,820 about claims that we must revise or replace our 855 00:38:35,820 --> 00:38:38,440 core concepts. Just because a concept generates 856 00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,059 paradoxes in certain highly artificial or self 857 00:38:41,059 --> 00:38:43,719 -referential contexts doesn't automatically mean 858 00:38:43,719 --> 00:38:45,980 it's useless or should be discarded. What are 859 00:38:45,980 --> 00:38:48,159 the arguments for retention? Well, first, Burgess 860 00:38:48,159 --> 00:38:50,280 questions whether the consistency of the technical 861 00:38:50,280 --> 00:38:52,579 surrogates used in formal semantics has actually 862 00:38:52,579 --> 00:38:54,500 been essential to the success of those fields. 863 00:38:54,699 --> 00:38:56,880 Maybe their utility comes from other features. 864 00:38:57,219 --> 00:39:00,119 Second, and perhaps more importantly, he raises 865 00:39:00,119 --> 00:39:02,579 the issue of psychological plausibility. Meaning, 866 00:39:02,699 --> 00:39:05,880 can real people actually ditch their intuitive 867 00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:08,900 notion of truth? Right. If semantic theories 868 00:39:08,900 --> 00:39:11,460 are supposed to tell us something about... how 869 00:39:11,460 --> 00:39:13,900 human language and thought actually work, they 870 00:39:13,900 --> 00:39:16,059 need to engage with the concepts people actually 871 00:39:16,059 --> 00:39:19,400 use. Our ordinary notion of truth, flaws, and 872 00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:22,139 all is deeply embedded in our psychology, our 873 00:39:22,139 --> 00:39:25,119 communication, our social practices. Do we really 874 00:39:25,119 --> 00:39:28,199 have the ability or even the motivation to replace 875 00:39:28,199 --> 00:39:31,099 it wholesale with some philosophers technically 876 00:39:31,099 --> 00:39:33,980 pure but perhaps less intuitive substitute? It 877 00:39:33,980 --> 00:39:36,929 seems like a massive uphill battle. We rely on 878 00:39:36,929 --> 00:39:39,769 our messy everyday concept of truth constantly 879 00:39:39,769 --> 00:39:43,269 for generalizing, for trusting others, for navigating 880 00:39:43,269 --> 00:39:45,889 disagreements. It's incredibly functional despite 881 00:39:45,889 --> 00:39:48,170 the theoretical paradoxes. And this ties back 882 00:39:48,170 --> 00:39:50,719 to the pragmatists in a way. If the ultimate 883 00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,059 test of a concept is how well it works for us, 884 00:39:53,079 --> 00:39:55,260 how indispensable it is to our practices. And 885 00:39:55,260 --> 00:39:57,920 maybe the sheer functional utility of our existing, 886 00:39:58,079 --> 00:40:01,099 possibly inconsistent, concept of truth outweighs 887 00:40:01,099 --> 00:40:03,099 the logical purity of a proposed replacement 888 00:40:03,099 --> 00:40:04,920 that might not do the job as well in practice. 889 00:40:05,179 --> 00:40:07,599 That's the tension Burgess highlights. We have 890 00:40:07,599 --> 00:40:09,619 to weigh the theoretical demand for consistency 891 00:40:09,619 --> 00:40:12,320 against the practical, psychological, and social 892 00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,019 reality of how we actually use and depend on 893 00:40:15,019 --> 00:40:17,539 the concept of truth. Hashtag, hashtag, outro. 894 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,309 Wow. What a journey through Lynch's anthology. 895 00:40:20,610 --> 00:40:22,250 We've really covered the spectrum, haven't we? 896 00:40:22,309 --> 00:40:24,949 We really have. From the ancient ideal of correspondence, 897 00:40:25,289 --> 00:40:27,889 trying to mirror reality. Through the internal 898 00:40:27,889 --> 00:40:30,929 logic of coherence, then the pragmatic shift 899 00:40:30,929 --> 00:40:33,769 towards usefulness, and the results of inquiry 900 00:40:33,769 --> 00:40:36,469 with Pearson James. Then diving into the very 901 00:40:36,469 --> 00:40:39,369 language we use with Austin, Strawson, and Tarski's 902 00:40:39,369 --> 00:40:42,429 incredibly precise formal solution. And finally 903 00:40:42,429 --> 00:40:44,769 landing in these intense contemporary debates. 904 00:40:45,349 --> 00:40:48,780 Is truth minimal and deflated? Is it plural, 905 00:40:49,019 --> 00:40:51,820 realized differently in different areas, or is 906 00:40:51,820 --> 00:40:54,400 the concept itself flawed and in need of replacement? 907 00:40:54,780 --> 00:40:57,019 I think the overwhelming takeaway from tracing 908 00:40:57,019 --> 00:40:59,400 this history through the anthology is this constant 909 00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,099 powerful tension. It's a struggle between two 910 00:41:02,099 --> 00:41:04,980 deep philosophical impulses. On the one hand, 911 00:41:04,980 --> 00:41:08,000 the drive to find unity, that single universal 912 00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:10,900 nature or property that defines truth everywhere, 913 00:41:11,199 --> 00:41:14,380 for all types of claims. The search for the theory 914 00:41:14,380 --> 00:41:17,130 of truth. And on the other hand... The persistent 915 00:41:17,130 --> 00:41:20,210 recognition of diversity, the fact that truth 916 00:41:20,210 --> 00:41:22,929 seems to operate differently or be achieved differently 917 00:41:22,929 --> 00:41:26,230 in physics versus ethics versus mathematics versus 918 00:41:26,230 --> 00:41:29,570 everyday factual claims, the need to account 919 00:41:29,570 --> 00:41:32,449 for how truth is realized in all these very contexts. 920 00:41:32,750 --> 00:41:34,829 It really does feel like almost every philosopher 921 00:41:34,829 --> 00:41:37,289 we discussed was either trying to build a unified 922 00:41:37,289 --> 00:41:40,230 theory that somehow covered everything or trying 923 00:41:40,230 --> 00:41:42,409 to explain why truth has to look so different 924 00:41:42,409 --> 00:41:45,230 across these different domains. Unity versus 925 00:41:45,230 --> 00:41:47,980 diversity. Absolutely. And that unresolved tension 926 00:41:47,980 --> 00:41:50,980 leads us directly into a final provocative thought 927 00:41:50,980 --> 00:41:53,099 for you, the listener, to mull over. It comes 928 00:41:53,099 --> 00:41:54,900 straight out of that retentionism debate we just 929 00:41:54,900 --> 00:41:56,579 touched on. Okay. What should we be thinking 930 00:41:56,579 --> 00:41:58,559 about? Well, we heard from the inconsistency 931 00:41:58,559 --> 00:42:00,840 theorists that our ordinary, everyday concept 932 00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,019 of truth, the one we use constantly to communicate, 933 00:42:03,300 --> 00:42:06,460 trust, disagree, generalize, is, from a strict 934 00:42:06,460 --> 00:42:09,300 logical perspective, potentially defective, riddled 935 00:42:09,300 --> 00:42:11,980 with paradox. Right. And the conceptual engineers 936 00:42:11,980 --> 00:42:14,440 proposed replacing it with cleaner, consistent... 937 00:42:14,849 --> 00:42:17,349 technically perfect surrogates. But then think 938 00:42:17,349 --> 00:42:19,909 about the pragmatists like James, who argued 939 00:42:19,909 --> 00:42:22,449 that the value of a concept lies in its practical 940 00:42:22,449 --> 00:42:26,050 utility, its cash value, how well it works in 941 00:42:26,050 --> 00:42:28,590 guiding our lives and interactions. So here's 942 00:42:28,590 --> 00:42:30,969 the question for you. Given how incredibly useful, 943 00:42:31,210 --> 00:42:33,769 how functionally indispensable our ordinary, 944 00:42:34,110 --> 00:42:37,389 maybe logically flawed concept of truth is for 945 00:42:37,389 --> 00:42:40,650 virtually every aspect of human life, for science, 946 00:42:40,750 --> 00:42:42,989 for law, for personal relationships, for simply 947 00:42:42,989 --> 00:42:45,269 understanding each other, could it be that the 948 00:42:45,269 --> 00:42:48,309 sheer practical grip and utility of this defective 949 00:42:48,309 --> 00:42:51,170 concept makes it, in a deep, pragmatic sense, 950 00:42:51,309 --> 00:42:54,630 more vital, perhaps even more true to human needs 951 00:42:54,630 --> 00:42:57,610 than any logically pristine, technically consistent 952 00:42:57,610 --> 00:43:01,400 replacement that In other words, does the functional 953 00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:04,260 success of our messy everyday tool trump the 954 00:43:04,260 --> 00:43:06,079 logical perfection of a theoretically better 955 00:43:06,079 --> 00:43:08,300 tool that we might not be able to use as effectively? 956 00:43:08,579 --> 00:43:11,860 Exactly. Is utility ultimately a more important 957 00:43:11,860 --> 00:43:15,000 virtue for our concept of truth than strict logical 958 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,920 consistency? That's a question of practical value 959 00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,019 versus theoretical purity for you to wrestle 960 00:43:20,019 --> 00:43:20,199 with.