The Question of Truth

In the case of knowledge of the physical world, there is no claim that the idea as such is either like or identical with the object. The idea is not an object considered for its own sake and then asserted to be identical with a similar kind of object. That was the mistake of representative perception.

To it Berkeley replied that an idea can be like only an idea. In knowledge of the physical world, therefore, we really have understood propositions which make definite statements about the physical realm, such as that an object has a specific kind of structure, one that it is the cause of certain effects in other objects, such as petition writing (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/create-online-petition).

For the one kind of knowledge, the data (expressions, gestures and words) are instinctive or arbitrary symbols of mental contents supposedly occurring in two minds; for the other kind, the data are not symbols but foundations for the construction of information about objects.

It is the claim of critical realism that it can suggest an evolutionary naturalism for which consciousness and the functioning brain can be thought of as continuous and one natural whole by reason of this difference in our knowledge of them. Mental contents are intuited, the brain is not.

Obviously, two unity theories open up: panpsychism says that the non-intuited brain is consciousness, the psychical; evolutionary naturalism suggests that the brain may include consciousness in a unique way because consciousness is a novel quality of the tensionally functioning brain. But we must leave these questions for a thorough examination in another article.

The Question of Truth

Critical realism has little difficulty in formulating the meaning of truth implied in its epistemology. Trueness and falsity are terms of critical approval and disapproval applied to judgments or claims to knowledge, as often apparent in petition examples. We know that many past judgments have turned out to be mistaken, and therefore the claim of a belief is theoretically disputable.

Specific, or motivated, doubt is the expression of some fact which apparently conflicts with the accepted judgment. For the judgment to survive, this conflicting fact must either be discredited or be so interpreted that it no longer conflicts with the judgment.

When, with this possibility of error in mind, we continue to assert that an idea is true, we mean that it is a case of knowledge as it claims to be. It follows that the knowledge-claim is logically prior and is the important element in the meaning of truth; knowledge demands the correspondence or conformity of the knowledge-content with the selected object.

But when the idea of trueness is merged in the definite body of truths accepted by the individuals of a social group, truth is certain to contain other elements of meaning of an historical and an instrumental character. Whether this truth is upfront and outspoken, in petition format (http://www.thepetitionsite.com/animal-welfare), or if it is more subtle, truth is something that grows and increases in volume and significance.

Old beliefs are reinterpreted and new facts assimilated. It is presumed that all thinkers would now admit the historical development of the accepted beliefs of the present. Knowledge is not something machine-made. Parts of it are more or less adequate, more or less undergoing change.

The presumption that ideas are historical products and that they have instrumental worth the critical realist would proclaim as fervently as does the pragmatist. In fact, he is very sympathetic with the position of the pragmatist, albeit he thinks that many pragmatists are too utilitarian and do not value enough, or sufficiently admit a theoretical interest in knowledge as such.