In the end, the idea that is perhaps best expressed in English by the word 'accurate' or 'accuracy', is the gold and final definition, in one form or another, for deciding whether any statement about reality is a meaningful statement about reality in four areas of human inquiry.
'Truth', in this context, is shorthand for the measure, way, or degree that any statement about reality is a meaningful statement about reality. That is, is indeed a statement about reality. The closest word to capturing the opposite meaning of 'reality' here is 'fantasy'.
Here are the four areas of inquiry referred to here.
It would be easy and perfectly appropriate to add to this list 'academic scholarship' and most other of the kinds of scholarship that are widely recognized as such by people well beyond those relatively few people who think of themselves as 'scholars in that area' and those of their followers who also think of them as 'scholars'. Go ahead, if you wish, and lump that kind of scholarship in with the four areas above. You won't be wrong. You'll just be less lazy than me.
Scholars are often something like crossover music hits that make the charts for the top 40 most popular songs in two genres of music, epistemological version of such things. Here, the genres are science and philosophy as thought of in this context -- as ideas about 'truth' that boil down to 'accuracy'.
I've been told there is a German world that's usually translated into English as 'discipline', and which names an area of knowledge work the Germans consider a distinctive mix of science and scholarship.
To most philosophers, 'truth' boils down to what it is to most scientists, only philosophers extend it's scope to at least include statements about reality that can be convincingly arrived at by deduction. Deduction is a strict form of logical reasoning that lies at the core of all common mathematics. In a logical sense, it does not admit logical flaw or error.
I think the 'best common sense' is well illustrated by George Rogers, who was a community leader, volunteer fire chief, business owner, master mechanic, and kid's favorite go-to adult that was kid-deployable for fixing flat bicycle tires.
Rogers had a way of using the facts he knew about all kinds of engines, cars, trucks, fire engines, etc. to find a solution or creative work around to nearly any mechanical or similar problem. That was his reputation in my home town, unpacked from the much more common, "He's a good mechanic", as that sentence was understood locally, and restricted to use.
When trying to usefully reason out anything much beyond anything he couldn't get his hands on, Rogers was more or less so unable to articulate what he thought about such things, that his reasoning could be easily seen and understood as a statement about his core values. He had a beautiful concept of his god, expressed in the Evangelical terms used in his church, which so struck me as Rogers unknowingly talking about his love for our town and the men, women, and kids in it.
There is actually a sense in which I can honestly see him as a philosopher with an uncommonly sophisticated and skillful way of applying his findings to practical applications. And not that bad of a philosopher, in the most general sense, at all. Surely he had a 'big picture' take on life that was remarkably effective at consistently doing things that made life better in so many ways for so many people in the community. And just as consistently, at avoiding wronging anyone.
Mysticism is the trouble-maker here, as it always is, especially for most of the clergy, leaders, and apologists of any of the world's major religious traditions -- in some ways, bar none.
Since so little is known about it that is actually knowledge by people -- even some scholars, in my opinion -- I won't get into it much here beyond this: 'Truth' in mysticism is a non-conceptual experience of reality as perceived without any distinction between the mystic who is experiencing the world and the world itself. From the point of view of the mystic, the 'two' are actually and ultimately the same thing.
A Zen proverb (most likely part of a haiku) goes something like this: "I see the flower, the flower sees me."
The lyrics to the popular song, "Amazing Grace" fit well enough in with some of the patterns the very few mystics who speak about their experiences tend to use when they do speak about them, that I think it's an odds-on bet the sea captain who composed the song and its lyrics was referring to his emotional understanding of what his experience meant to him.
That's not the same as a mystic talking about his or her experience that in someway suggests they are trying to communicate it's nature.
Almost all mystics then resort to using metaphors common in their different cultures. So very often, they themselves know that their use of words like 'God" are (as one mystic put it) "not a name for god, but an opinion about god." Most of us don't pick up on that, though many times, mystics state it, imply it, or leave pointed clues that that is precisely what they are dong.
The most important thing here is that mystics seem to be in some kind of consensus about what they have experienced, despite any and all of the differences between them as individuals living somewhere at sometime in human history. There are no other spiritual ideas that come as close to being universally accept as truths, by people claiming first hand experience of the reason for believing them to be truths, than the ideas of mystics.
Only likely exceptions are way too general to be seen as relevant in this context. 'Accuracy' is the essence of the issue here.
In sum, there is some notion of 'accuracy' that could be found at the core of how 'truth' applies to mystical statements.
My 2 cents.
Perhaps something to think about: In a representative democracy, a lack of a common notion of what 'truth' means, is a threat in every way to the lives, well-being, hopes, dreams, and ambitions of every citizen in whatever way or to whatever extent his or her take on what's true about reality can be thrown off the mark when it comes to him or her trying to vote or support something in favor of their own best interests and wisdom for input on how they should be governed.
The Lakota put to death any scout who lied to them. They did not have a sense of that as a legal death penalty in the way we do today. But they knew better than we do what truth meant to them as being able to live free and true to themselves.
Anyone who lies to you in such a way as to hinder, damage, or prevent your trying to get what you want out of life, is not your friend. Absolutely, not your friend. No friend ever wanted to turn his or her true friends into the fools of their nation; into the fall guys and pawns for himself or for someone else.
Not even on the internet. Not even on RF. If you wish, take into consideration here the nearly daily posts you see on this Forum that in one way or another, intentionally or unintentionally, might put some people off from seeking facts and fact-based advice on something important to them from the best, most reliable, most accurate sources of information in any society.
Lying or misinforming people about who it could be best for them to go to for getting a useful understanding of themselves or their world is morally the same as to risk blinding them.
'Truth', in this context, is shorthand for the measure, way, or degree that any statement about reality is a meaningful statement about reality. That is, is indeed a statement about reality. The closest word to capturing the opposite meaning of 'reality' here is 'fantasy'.
Here are the four areas of inquiry referred to here.
Science in the most accepted meaning of the word 'science' by researchers and workers in any field of knowledge that is not specifically targeted at producing practical technologies or useful gadgets, but is still very or even crucially useful to creating such things.
Almost all of the most influential theories of truth in philosophy, and also that branch of philosophy known as 'logic'.
The most universally consensual and insightful form of mysticism.
The 'best' common sense, if 'best' means anything in the way of a reliable guide for a person to go by.
Almost all of the most influential theories of truth in philosophy, and also that branch of philosophy known as 'logic'.
The most universally consensual and insightful form of mysticism.
The 'best' common sense, if 'best' means anything in the way of a reliable guide for a person to go by.
It would be easy and perfectly appropriate to add to this list 'academic scholarship' and most other of the kinds of scholarship that are widely recognized as such by people well beyond those relatively few people who think of themselves as 'scholars in that area' and those of their followers who also think of them as 'scholars'. Go ahead, if you wish, and lump that kind of scholarship in with the four areas above. You won't be wrong. You'll just be less lazy than me.
Scholars are often something like crossover music hits that make the charts for the top 40 most popular songs in two genres of music, epistemological version of such things. Here, the genres are science and philosophy as thought of in this context -- as ideas about 'truth' that boil down to 'accuracy'.
I've been told there is a German world that's usually translated into English as 'discipline', and which names an area of knowledge work the Germans consider a distinctive mix of science and scholarship.
Examples, I think, would be business management, finance, and public relations.
The public relations industry is where you go to buy propaganda services in those societies that allow propaganda services to be sold to individuals, rather than restrict them to a government monopoly. Most large corporations have in-house divisions for creating propaganda on their own, but they routinely buy the services of the public relations houses in order to ramp up performance and results.
Propaganda is not being used here as an euphemism for advertising. To be clear, I am talking about the word in its sense of 'the application of science to the task of usefully misleading people, and most often intended for a large-scale or mass audience. That is more or less the industry's understanding of 'propaganda'.
'Propaganda' is the word Edward Bernays, the leading founder of the American public relations industry, preferred in his earlier years to call 'public relations' when he wrote about it in magazine articles, gave speeches about it all across America to organizations such local chambers of commerce, rotary clubs, and so forth, and in his early books, such as Crystalizing Public Opinion and Propaganda, about how it could be used to control the voters in a democracy by a relative small group of well educated and technically skilled elites.
Bernays was convinced he was helping to turn America into a nation of benevolent leaders equipped and dedicated to governing the masses in the masses own best self-interests. Make of that as you wish in terms of the proverb, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Today, recognizing and accepting that propaganda decides a lot about what reality is for almost every American, and most people in any media saturated society, is one of the most important keys to understanding what people think 'truth' is -- both in the abstract, in what they see in their lives as true.
In the sciences, the notion that reality can be most meaningfully known as the best empirically reliable information -- 'accurate' information, in this context -- is what most -- but not all -- philosophers would think of as a suspiciously inflexible, and therefore annoyingly confining, definition of their sense of 'truth'.The public relations industry is where you go to buy propaganda services in those societies that allow propaganda services to be sold to individuals, rather than restrict them to a government monopoly. Most large corporations have in-house divisions for creating propaganda on their own, but they routinely buy the services of the public relations houses in order to ramp up performance and results.
Propaganda is not being used here as an euphemism for advertising. To be clear, I am talking about the word in its sense of 'the application of science to the task of usefully misleading people, and most often intended for a large-scale or mass audience. That is more or less the industry's understanding of 'propaganda'.
'Propaganda' is the word Edward Bernays, the leading founder of the American public relations industry, preferred in his earlier years to call 'public relations' when he wrote about it in magazine articles, gave speeches about it all across America to organizations such local chambers of commerce, rotary clubs, and so forth, and in his early books, such as Crystalizing Public Opinion and Propaganda, about how it could be used to control the voters in a democracy by a relative small group of well educated and technically skilled elites.
Bernays was convinced he was helping to turn America into a nation of benevolent leaders equipped and dedicated to governing the masses in the masses own best self-interests. Make of that as you wish in terms of the proverb, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
Today, recognizing and accepting that propaganda decides a lot about what reality is for almost every American, and most people in any media saturated society, is one of the most important keys to understanding what people think 'truth' is -- both in the abstract, in what they see in their lives as true.
To most philosophers, 'truth' boils down to what it is to most scientists, only philosophers extend it's scope to at least include statements about reality that can be convincingly arrived at by deduction. Deduction is a strict form of logical reasoning that lies at the core of all common mathematics. In a logical sense, it does not admit logical flaw or error.
The way I would put that is, deduction is terrifyingly difficult for this country boy, and simply out of the question as too likely to fail for use in creating opening gambits in order to pick up babes by means of my charming, babe glue wit. Plan B: Launch bragging about my three fulsome inches of woman-pleasing love rocket. Can't understand why I ended up single in life, given all that I have going for me, so far as discerning women must be concerned. Never met enough discerning women, is the most likely reason, I think. C'est la vie.
I think the 'best common sense' is well illustrated by George Rogers, who was a community leader, volunteer fire chief, business owner, master mechanic, and kid's favorite go-to adult that was kid-deployable for fixing flat bicycle tires.
(Because he always made time for kids and their tires, no matter how busy he was, excepting only he refused to pause when running to the fire station across the street to roll on a fire, unless the kid needed a fix to get home for lunch on time. He was a man, righteous and upright to his community, and there are damn few of us left like him these days. Especially since none of us still alive can find enough discerning women willing to do the chores necessary to carry on our righteousness. Especially, not the philosophically advanced versions of those chores. Gods! There just never are enough women with a truly committed interest in epistemology!)
Rogers had a way of using the facts he knew about all kinds of engines, cars, trucks, fire engines, etc. to find a solution or creative work around to nearly any mechanical or similar problem. That was his reputation in my home town, unpacked from the much more common, "He's a good mechanic", as that sentence was understood locally, and restricted to use.
When trying to usefully reason out anything much beyond anything he couldn't get his hands on, Rogers was more or less so unable to articulate what he thought about such things, that his reasoning could be easily seen and understood as a statement about his core values. He had a beautiful concept of his god, expressed in the Evangelical terms used in his church, which so struck me as Rogers unknowingly talking about his love for our town and the men, women, and kids in it.
There is actually a sense in which I can honestly see him as a philosopher with an uncommonly sophisticated and skillful way of applying his findings to practical applications. And not that bad of a philosopher, in the most general sense, at all. Surely he had a 'big picture' take on life that was remarkably effective at consistently doing things that made life better in so many ways for so many people in the community. And just as consistently, at avoiding wronging anyone.
Mysticism is the trouble-maker here, as it always is, especially for most of the clergy, leaders, and apologists of any of the world's major religious traditions -- in some ways, bar none.
Since so little is known about it that is actually knowledge by people -- even some scholars, in my opinion -- I won't get into it much here beyond this: 'Truth' in mysticism is a non-conceptual experience of reality as perceived without any distinction between the mystic who is experiencing the world and the world itself. From the point of view of the mystic, the 'two' are actually and ultimately the same thing.
A Zen proverb (most likely part of a haiku) goes something like this: "I see the flower, the flower sees me."
The lyrics to the popular song, "Amazing Grace" fit well enough in with some of the patterns the very few mystics who speak about their experiences tend to use when they do speak about them, that I think it's an odds-on bet the sea captain who composed the song and its lyrics was referring to his emotional understanding of what his experience meant to him.
That's not the same as a mystic talking about his or her experience that in someway suggests they are trying to communicate it's nature.
Almost all mystics then resort to using metaphors common in their different cultures. So very often, they themselves know that their use of words like 'God" are (as one mystic put it) "not a name for god, but an opinion about god." Most of us don't pick up on that, though many times, mystics state it, imply it, or leave pointed clues that that is precisely what they are dong.
The most important thing here is that mystics seem to be in some kind of consensus about what they have experienced, despite any and all of the differences between them as individuals living somewhere at sometime in human history. There are no other spiritual ideas that come as close to being universally accept as truths, by people claiming first hand experience of the reason for believing them to be truths, than the ideas of mystics.
Only likely exceptions are way too general to be seen as relevant in this context. 'Accuracy' is the essence of the issue here.
In sum, there is some notion of 'accuracy' that could be found at the core of how 'truth' applies to mystical statements.
My 2 cents.
Perhaps something to think about: In a representative democracy, a lack of a common notion of what 'truth' means, is a threat in every way to the lives, well-being, hopes, dreams, and ambitions of every citizen in whatever way or to whatever extent his or her take on what's true about reality can be thrown off the mark when it comes to him or her trying to vote or support something in favor of their own best interests and wisdom for input on how they should be governed.
The Lakota put to death any scout who lied to them. They did not have a sense of that as a legal death penalty in the way we do today. But they knew better than we do what truth meant to them as being able to live free and true to themselves.
Anyone who lies to you in such a way as to hinder, damage, or prevent your trying to get what you want out of life, is not your friend. Absolutely, not your friend. No friend ever wanted to turn his or her true friends into the fools of their nation; into the fall guys and pawns for himself or for someone else.
Not even on the internet. Not even on RF. If you wish, take into consideration here the nearly daily posts you see on this Forum that in one way or another, intentionally or unintentionally, might put some people off from seeking facts and fact-based advice on something important to them from the best, most reliable, most accurate sources of information in any society.
Lying or misinforming people about who it could be best for them to go to for getting a useful understanding of themselves or their world is morally the same as to risk blinding them.