truth | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

Episode 195: Truth-The Austin/Strawson Debate (Citizen Edition)

July 22, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On two articles in the “ordinary language” tradition of philosophy called “Truth” from 1950 by J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson.

Is truth a property of particular speech acts, or of the propositions expressed through speech acts? Does truth mean correspondence with the facts, or does the word “fact” make this definition totally uninformative? Does saying “is true” add any information content to a sentence over and above just stating that sentence?

End song: “Troof” by Shawn Phillips, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #77.

Episode 194: Alfred Tarski on Truth (Citizen Edition)

July 8, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

On Tarski’s “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics” (1944), Hartry Field’s “Tarski’s Theory of Truth” (1972), and Donald Davidson’s “The Folly of Trying to Define Truth” (1977).

What is truth? Tarski gives a technical, metaphysically neutral definition for truth within a particular, well-defined language. So how does that apply to real languages? He thought he was defining truth (a semantic concept) in terms of more primitive (physical?) concepts, but Field and Davidson think that actually, truth as a general concept is indefinable, even though it’s still helpful for Tarski to have laid out the relations among various semantic concepts.

End song: “In Vino Vertias” by Sunspot; Mark interviewed Mike Huberty on Nakedly Examined Music #64.

Nietzsche the Hydra

November 23, 2013 by Randall Miron 3 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Thanks to Randall Miron for this post. Randall’s a long-time audio editor of ours and has been helping edit blog posts here recently as well.] In his short book Nietzsche, subtitled “Nietzsche’s Voices,” Ronald Hayman argues that, “Like Kierkegaard, who made copious use of pseudonyms and personae, Nietzsche was exploring his ambivalence.” This theme is touched on at Continue Reading …

The Leap of Faith: The Creative Element of Science

February 16, 2013 by Rob Graumans 44 Comments

[Editor’s Note: Thanks to new contributor Rob Graumans for this one!] Scientific realists are known to have a positive epistemic attitude towards the content of our best scientific theories and models. The exact interpretation of this philosophical tenet can, however, differ dramatically between each of its proponents. Some of these base their idea of the truthfulness of scientific realism upon Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 61: Nietzsche on Truth and Skepticism

August 15, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 80 Comments

On Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” (1873). What is truth? This essay, written early in Nietzsche’s career, is taken by many to make the extreme claim that there is no truth, that all of the “truths” we tell each other are just agreements by social convention. WIth guest Jessica Berry, who argues that that Nietzsche is a skeptic: our “truths” don’t correspond with the world beyond our human conceptions; all knowledge is laden with human interests.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Eco Locating Meaning

August 3, 2012 by Dylan Casey 5 Comments

Every now and then you find something that is, on the one hand, unexpected. The thought of it hadn’t occurred to you, neither as a fact found through the memes of popular culture nor as an extrapolation from your current knowledge. On the other hand, the discovery isn’t so much a surprise as simply new information that really just fits Continue Reading …

Topic for #61: Nietzsche on Truth

July 15, 2012 by Mark Linsenmayer 14 Comments

Listen to the episode. We discussed Nietzsche’s conception of truth as presented in his essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” written in 1873 but unpublished until after his death with guest Jessica Berry of Georgia State University, who published Nietzsche and the Ancient Skeptical Tradition just last year. This Nietzsche essay has been extremely influential for postmodernists, Continue Reading …

Foucault Was No Relativist

January 30, 2012 by Getty Lustila 9 Comments

[Editor’s Note: We’re pleased to have some more blog input here from Getty, the guest from our Hume/Smith episode, who wrote his undergrad thesis on Foucault and was in line to be a guest on this one himself. You can blame me for the image, which I found here.] Was Foucault a relativist about truth? Truth-relativism is the doctrine that Continue Reading …

Catherine Elgin on the Epistemic Efficacy of Stupidity

November 5, 2010 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

One of the chapters that I referred to from Nelson Goodman’s final book, Reconceptions in Philosophy and Other Arts and Sciences,was “The Epistemic Efficacy of Stupidity.” I’ve found that article online (I can’t swear it’s exactly the same as the version in Reconceptions, but it seems to have all the elements intact) here. It critiques both the correspondence and coherence Continue Reading …