What if
someone mixed up the words TRUTH and BELIEF and KNOW?
How many
times have you or someone you’ve known confused these words and used one when
they really meant the other? For
example, have you heard someone declare emphatically that they KNOW something
was absolutely TRUE, when in fact it was their own opinion? They replaced the word Belief with the word
KNOW.
This happens
on a regular basis. We see it all the
time as people battle verbally about some subject that they have strong
emotions regarding. Both sides are just
as emphatic that they KNOW the facts about the issue. The issue could be religious, political,
scientific, or even about relationships.
Especially relationships! Yet both sides are in complete opposition to
each other. How can this be? How can two opposing sides both declare that
their opinion is the correct opinion and the other is the fabrication?
People
instinctively understand that by declaring they KNOW something is TRUE has a
lot more persuasive power than to humbly explain that they only BELIEVE
something is TRUE. They resort to the
use of the word KNOW in order to make a stronger case for their cause.
It’s evident
that both sides cannot be TRUE. It’s
possible that one side is true. Or it’s
possible that the other side is actually true.
It’s possible that both could be wrong!
But it’s impossible that both could be correct.
Well,
actually that’s not exactly true either.
Both sides in opposition could be correct! From their different vantage points, they may
be seeing a side of the issue that other is incapable of seeing. The issue may be more complex than either
opponents are able to recognize from their individual perspectives. Combining their separate vantage points
together may yield a new perspective that reveals further details about the
debated issue and sheds further light on the subject.
However,
that synergistic vantage point could never be achieved so long as both sides
are entrenched in their pride and unwilling to acknowledge that what they
declare they KNOW is nothing more than a BELIEF. And BELIEF can be wrong. By using the word BELIEF in our assertions,
we open our minds up to the possibilities of recognizing new vantage points
that may be presented to us at some future point in time.
In moments
of honest reconciliation, the opposing parties would admit that their stance is
mere BELIEF. This creates the scary
possibility that their side might be in the wrong. The other party might be actually correct. However it allows the mind of the individual
to begin to consider something new and to see the issue from another angle.
Here is one
example of mixing up TRUTH and BELIEF:
Imagine someone
gets up at the stand for the purpose of giving an inspirational speech. Maybe it is at a Graduation Ceremony or maybe
it is at a regular church service. And
they say something to the effect of “Never be afraid to stand up for your Beliefs!” We hear this so many times that it is
ingrained in our culture. Repeating the
phrase “Stand up for your Beliefs!” is an American Tradition.
There is a
problem with that phrase. The problem is
that your Beliefs can be in error. And
my Beliefs can be in error too. So we
have everyone grandstanding for their errant beliefs because their culture has
taught them to be Confident, Wish on a Star and just “BELIEVE!!!” “You gotta stand up for yourself!” “If you believe it than it’s true for you!” So no
one backs down. No one reconsiders. No one examines the evidence. They can’t do it because pride won’t allow
it. No one shuts up and listens. They’ve been taught that taking a stand is a noble virtue but that listening,
reconsidering and changing your mind is weak.
However, in
all reality it takes greater strength to be humble and consider your opponents
viewpoint. It takes the greatest
strength of all to admit your error and correct your ways and give
acknowledgment to that group you formerly considered to be your opponent.
What if the
rally phrase were this: “Never be afraid to stand up for TRUTH!”
What would
happen if that were the battle cry? Well, the first thing that would happen is
that people would ask, “What is Truth anyway?”
Now, we begin to search and ponder and consider. Now we begin to look at our BELIEFS and
consider whether these sacred cows really measure up to Truth. We find ourselves having to figure out what
COULD even be considered in the category of TRUTH.
So that’s
one thing to avoid. The mixing up of
words like TRUTH and BELIEF and KNOW.
How about reverence and obedience in Primary and on up?
ReplyDeleteI had not thought of that one Morgan, but I think I can see what you mean. It's a lot like having a Sustaining Vote which in practice is not a vote at all but rather an Oath of Loyalty. Only kings demand an oath of loyalty! Does that training to accept such an anti-freedom rule begin in our childhoods as we tell them to sit down, fold your arms, do what I say because it is "Reverent"?
ReplyDeleteI am posting the following comment here. It comes from someone who tried to post a comment but the blogsite didn't accept it for some reason. I won't include the name now, but will if the author would like that later. I appreciate the in depth thoughtfulness and the counterpoints. Counterpoints and oppositional lines of thinking are always welcome!
ReplyDeleteWhat you seem to have going here is a book. I’ll admit that I have a hard time getting through it because of the distance of our respective conceptual frames. I keep coming back to your early post on truth- not because I agree- I don’t in anyway agree but I at least have some entry point into the conversation there, and here. So I respectfully offer the following:
In trying to reason through a reply I grabbed our previous facebook posts and reread some-but not all of those- they surprising add up to 50 pages of reading. What becomes clear to me in that back and fourth is that we fall prey to a kind of “naive realism,” an underlying assumption that one’s point of view is logical and that if one (me or you) was simply able to present the information that led us to our conclusion then the “other,” (as a rational actor,) would be moved to come to the same conclusion. What I am trying to point out here is how our own point of view ends up feeling like logic itself, like the rational itself. This establishes a false dichotomy where my view is sense and the “other’s” view nonsense. I think we agree on this point and how I understand what you are getting at with the distinction between “belief” and “KNOW.” I will try to develop this a little because I think could shed light on where we disagree which is in your confidence in so called “Truth.” I will attempt to demonstrate how claims about “Truth” are in fact post-hoc rationalization. And I will also try to convince you to switch your language to “Provisional World-view”
In answer to your question “What is Truth anyway?” I offer your definition from your earlier post on the topic: “Truth is things as they really are.”
ReplyDeleteThis question is properly an epistemological concern. That is ‘how do we know what we know,’ or rather what counts as evidence for knowledge? The answer you give falls dangerously close to being circular, with the “really” in the second phrase as a stand-in for he term ‘Truth.’ Truth is as Truth does or Truth = Things /AS/ Things = ‘really are’(Truth). So more explicitly A = B as B = A therefore A. Without getting into identity theory what is missed is everything that lay outside the term itself. How are you able to claim beyond Truth is Truth beyond the circular that truth has some relationship to the world- what is your evidence for the “really.” Further can you test such a claim without assuming the premise. For example the assumption that the “really’ is identical with itself- that is that it follows the Law of Non-contradiction something that is challenged by contemporary physics.
See what I did there at the end?? How I slipped in the appeal to authority? Hehe-- But more seriously- what is at issue here is fundamentally one of reception. How do you know what you know: Verifiability. What counts as evidence? When considering evidence one of the following must necessarily hold. Forgive me for using the term “Truth,” in the following formulation. It could be replaced with any place-holder (X) for the case to be made. It is a case about our relationship to knowledge.
1-Truth presented as True.
2- Truth presented as a Lie (untruth which differs from non truth).
3- A Lie presented as True.
4- A Lie presented as a Lie (untruth).
Further:
1-Truth presented as true but understood as a lie.
2-Truth presented as true and understood as true.
3-Truth presented as a Lie but understood as true.
ETC….lets call this formulation the
ReplyDelete“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” Or maybe just the “Seven Ages” for short or SA for shorter.
The question of “truth”, the question of “really”, the question of “things.” The big unstated assumption that runs throughout is one about reception. That is why the knowers so quickly make the ‘appeal to authority’ even in their very verbiage “I know,” and that is what SA challenges. Am I a thing that can ascertain such a broad category as “things as they really are?” What does it mean to assert that you are such a thing, given the enormity of the question, ignoring that we are animals, ignoring the vast scale of time and space.
So to sum up: SA demonstrates that we are always already dealing with presentation when we are confronting epistemological questions. Another way to formulate “presentation” here would be Illusion. SA demonstrates that we are always already dealing with the dynamic illusion of intersubjectivity- this goes beyond the human of course since we are merely another object in the Universe, we are an object among objects. As such, and without assuming LNC provisionality is the only option. I think that the other problems you are talking about here are downstream from this- that is can you imagine the absurdity of “standing up for” a provisional world-view? “I’m ready to fight and die for the case that I may or may not be right and that I may or may not have all the evidence to prove such and that I may or may not have understood such evidence. And that the laws of nature may just be a habit that is localized in time and space to this region of the multi-verse which may or may not exist but we will never know because of the apparent speed limit of light photons which at small enough scales change the very things we are measuring by the very fact of them being so small leading to highly counterintuitive results like things being in two-places at once and did I mention quantum entanglement, or that nothing touches but is really made out squiggles squiggling in eleven dimensions?”