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{{Quote|“People of every age seem to be in a sort of post-truth scenario here, where I get to pick my own facts. There are a lot of facts out of there, I get to pick the ones that I like, and I can go with those, and nobody can really tell me that those aren’t the facts because it’s my truth. Those are my facts, and don’t tell me they’re not.”
{{Quote|“People of every age seem to be in a sort of post-truth scenario here, where I get to pick my own facts. There are a lot of facts out of there, I get to pick the ones that I like, and I can go with those, and nobody can really tell me that those aren’t the facts because it’s my truth. Those are my facts, and don’t tell me they’re not.”
:— Robert Prentice,<ref>https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/Directory/Profiles/Prentice-Robert</ref> quoted in {{author|Gabrielle Bluestone}}’s {{br|Hype}}}}
:— Robert Prentice<ref>[https://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/Directory/Profiles/Prentice-Robert Robert Prentice], quoted in {{author|Gabrielle Bluestone}}’s {{br|Hype}}</ref>}}{{Quote|
All the lies I told to you: <br>
Some of them came true.
: — Chris Isaak, ''Move Along''}}
====Things and propositions about things====
{{Drop|M|ost conspiracy theories}} contain a grain of [[truth]]. There has to be ''something'' for the credulous to glom onto. [[Critical theory]]’s grain of truth, ironically, is “''there is no such thing as a grain of truth''”. Well, not ''quite'' — “it is true that there is no truth”  refutes itself, after all — but rather, that the very idea of “[[objective truth]]” makes no sense on its own terms. It is incoherent. There can be no [[objective truth]], the same way there can’t be a square triangle.


Most conspiracy theories contain a grain of [[truth]]. Some are completely true. There has to be ''something'' for the credulous to glom onto.
“Things” are properties of the universe. They have (we presume) temporal continuity,<ref>Though even temporal continuity is a function of language: computer code has no [[tense]], and therefore no temporal continuity.</ref> whether we see them or not, and whether we talk about them or not.<ref>[[David Hume]]’s causal scepticism put paid, centuries ago, to the idea that we can be sure about this.</ref> “Truths” are ''propositions'' about ''things''. Propositions put things into a relationship with each other: “the cat sat on the mat”. “Gordon is a moron”.  


[[Critical theory]]’s grain of truth, ironically, is “''there is no such thing as a grain of truth''”.  
“Propositions” are properties not of the universe, but of ''language''. They are prisoners of the language they are articulated in. They cannot exist outside it. Beyond it, they are only marks on a page.


Well, not ''quite'' — “it is true that there is no truth”  refutes itself, after all — but rather that the idea of “[[objective truth]]” is ''incoherent''.  There is no [[objective truth]], ''because the very idea makes no sense''.
“گربه روی تشک نشست”<ref>Translated from Persian into English: “the cat sat on the mat.”</ref>


“Things” are properties of the universe. They have (we presume) continuity, whether we see them or not, and whether we talk about them or not.<ref>[[David Hume]]’s causal scepticism put paid, centuries ago, to the idea that we can be sure about this.</ref> “Truths” are ''propositions'' about ''things''. Propositions put things into a relationship with each other: “the cat sat on the mat”. “Gordon is a moron”. “Propositions” are a property of language: they only exist within the framework of a language.
See?


Thus, things ''aren’t'' true or false: ''only propositions about things are''. Propositions are prisoners of the language they are articulated in. Beyond it, they are only marks on a page.  
Thus, “things” ''aren’t'' true or false: only “''propositions'' about things” are.  
====Analytic and synthetic and propositions====
{{Drop|B|ear with me}} for a brief technical interlude:it won’t take long. There are two kinds of propositions: [[analytic proposition|analytic]] and [[Synthetic proposition|synthetic]] ones. “Analytic” propositions are true by definition. Synthetic propositions tell us about the world beyond the language they are expressed in. Analytical propositions are ''mathematical'' statements; synthetic propositions as ''scientific'' statements.


“گربه روی تشک نشست”
{{quote|
A square is a regular polygon having four sides of equal length that are joined at right angles.}}


See?<ref>Translated from Persian into English: “the cat sat on the mat.”</ref>
This is ''analytically'' “true” because, in the language of Euclidean geometry, a polygon that does not meet those criteria ''is not a square''.  


Truths are propositions. Truths, therefore are a function of the language they are articulated in. A truth cannot “transcend” its language. It doesn’t make sense.<ref>This is not even to take the point that, thanks to the [[Goedel|indeterminacy of closed logical sets]], no statement in a natural language can possibly have a unique, exclusive meaning.</ref> There is the further difficulty that “language” itself is an indeterminate, incomplete, unbounded thing; no two individuals share exactly the same vocabulary, let alone the same cultural experiences to map to that vocabulary, let alone the same metaphorical schemes. It is what {{author|James P. Carse}} would describe as “dramatic” and not “theatrical”.<ref>In his {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> This makes the business of acquiring and communicating in a language — where meaning does not reside in the textual markes, but in the indeterminate cultural milieu in which the communication occurred — all the more mysterious. That we call it “communication”; that we infer from that a lossless transmission of information from one mind, is a deep well of mortal frustration.  
{{quote|
The cat is sitting on the dog’s mat.}}
 
The “truth” of this proposition, if it has one, depends upon the world beyond the logical axioms of the language in which it is expressed. If the cat is not sitting on the mat, or it is not the dog’s mat, the proposition is false.
 
It is, of course, trivially true that mathematical truths are true. When we talk about “objective truths”, we are talking about synthetic — ''scientific'' —propositions only.
====Objective truths====
{{quote|
Show me a cultural relativist at thirty thousand feet and I’ll show you a hypocrite. Aeroplanes are built according to scientific principles and they work. They stay aloft and they get you to a chosen destination. Aeroplanes built to tribal or mythological specifications such as the dummy planes of the Cargo cults in jungle clearings or the bees-waxed wings of Icarus don’t.
:—[[Richard Dawkins]], ''River Out of Eden'' (1995)}}
{{drop|W|hen commentators like}} Richard Dawkins exasperate about the post-truth world, the “clinchers” they come up with tend to be these kinds of basic propositions concerning the physics of inert objects.
 
We will note, but leave aside for now, that cultural relativists tend not to disagree about the behaviour of inert objects. They tend, rather, to dispute social, cultural, economic, historical and political truths. These are truths of an entirely different category, so even if Dawkins could make out his claim about aeroplanes — and I don’t think he can — it would hardly win the argument. 
 
But he’s raised this example, so let’s address it. His indubitable factual proposition could be one of three. If he can make any of them out he wins the argument. 
{{quote|
{{L1}}Aeroplanes work (they reliably fly); <li>
Aeroplanes are built according to scientific principles, or <li>
The scientific principles by which aeroplanes are built truthfully describe the universe. </ol>}}
Let
====“Transcendent truth”====
{{drop|A| truth cannot}} “transcend” the language it is expressed in, because that language gives the proposition meaning. It doesn’t make sense for the truth to transcend it's medium.<ref>This is not even to take the point that, thanks to the [[Goedel|indeterminacy of closed logical sets]], no statement in a natural language can possibly have a unique, exclusive meaning.</ref> There is the further difficulty that “language” itself is an indeterminate, incomplete, unbounded thing; no two individuals share exactly the same vocabulary, let alone the same cultural experiences to map to that vocabulary, let alone the same metaphorical schemes. It is what {{author|James P. Carse}} would describe as “dramatic” and not “theatrical”.<ref>In his {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> This makes the business of acquiring and communicating in a language — where meaning does not reside in the textual marks, but in the indeterminate cultural milieu in which the communication occurred — all the more mysterious. That we call it “communication”; that we infer from that a lossless transmission of information from one mind, is a deep well of mortal frustration.  


This is its debt to [[post-modernism]], and it is a proposition that contemporary rationalists find hard to accept, whether hailing from the right — see {{author|Douglas Murray}}’s {{br|The Madness of Crowds}} for an articulate example — or the left — see {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s patient and detailed examination in {{br|Cynical Theories}}.
This is its debt to [[post-modernism]], and it is a proposition that contemporary rationalists find hard to accept, whether hailing from the right — see {{author|Douglas Murray}}’s {{br|The Madness of Crowds}} for an articulate example — or the left — see {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s patient and detailed examination in {{br|Cynical Theories}}.
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The statement there is no truth is not an article of postmodern faith, by the way: you can trace it back as far as David Hume, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and Richard Rorty. I know, I know: all old, dead, white, men. And Nancy Cartwright.
The statement there is no truth is not an article of postmodern faith, by the way: you can trace it back as far as David Hume, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and Richard Rorty. I know, I know: all old, dead, white, men. And Nancy Cartwright.


If you accept the proposition that truth is a function of a sentence and therefore the language of that sentence comma for there to be a transcendent truth the language in which it was uttered would necessarily need to be complete, comprehensive, and itself true. The nearest linguistic structures that we have to to complete languages are those of mathematics and perhaps science. Yet we know that mathematics is a necessarily incomplete language something Colin from that we know that any natural language is necessarily incomplete semicolon and in the case of science we know with certainty that science is not what a complete and comprehensive statement of the laws of the physical universe. We haven’t solved the universe yet. There are large fundamental unknowns; dark matter; dark energy; the incommensurability of quantum mechanics and and special relativity. Even if the concept of transcendent truth were coherence we have nothing like enough information to access it. In the same way that the fielder does not have enough physical information to calculate the trajectory of a cricket ball, and therefore pragmatically approximates it, so we do not have anything like enough information to confidently predict the scientific performance of the universe and therefore we pragmatically approximate it.
If you accept the proposition that truth is a function of a sentence and therefore the language of that sentence, for there to be a transcendent truth the language in which it was uttered would necessarily need to be complete, comprehensive, and itself true. The nearest linguistic structures that we have to to complete languages are those of mathematics. Yet we know that mathematics is a necessarily incomplete language: from that we know that any natural language is necessarily incomplete; and in the case of science we know with certainty that science is not what a complete and comprehensive statement of the laws of the physical universe.  
 
We haven’t solved the universe yet. There are large fundamental unknowns; dark matter; dark energy; the incommensurability of quantum mechanics and and special relativity. Even if the concept of transcendent truth ''were'' coherent we would have nothing like enough information to access it. In the same way that the fielder does not have enough physical information to calculate the trajectory of a cricket ball, and therefore pragmatically approximates it, so we do not have anything like enough information to confidently predict the scientific performance of the universe and therefore we pragmatically approximate it.


Pragmatic approximations comma being provisional, contingent, and subject to revision at any time I’m are are more tolerant, plural and liberal than concrete scientific calculations.
Pragmatic approximations, being provisional, contingent, and subject to revision at any time are are more tolerant, plural and liberal than concrete scientific calculations.


The lack of a a coherent concept of transcendent truth is a a roadmap to tolerance, pluralism, and liberalism. It obliges us to treat as contingent anything we know comma to expect things to change and to be prepared for new and more effective ways of looking at the world. All it requires is that we substitute a certainty about how we view the world and ash that we see it as true with a pragmatism about how we view the world, seeing it as effective.
The lack of a a coherent concept of transcendent truth is a a roadmap to tolerance, pluralism, and liberalism. It obliges us to treat as contingent anything we know, to expect things to change and to be prepared for new and more effective ways of looking at the world. All it requires is that we substitute a certainty about how we view the world and ash that we see it as true with a pragmatism about how we view the world, seeing it as effective.
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