So, dear Reader, here we are again. It has been a while. Apologies. So many words and so little time.
Maybe a speedy revisit of where we left off: The Logical Positivists, enthralled by Hume’s distinction between two forms of knowledge and, therefore, two ways in which things can be true, decided that the meaning of propositions must be constrained by these two forms of truth. In other words, they proposed, that there were only two ways in which statements could have meaning. The first is that it can be shown that they refer to traceable objects in, and properties of, the real world. It is this theoretical position, the requirement of a direct and knowable relationship between the world and the language we use to speak of that world, which made them verificationists about meaning. The second way in which a proposition can have meaning is if does so by definition alone. In other words, there need be no traceable referencing to the observable world, but the proposition must be true by some sort of logical necessity. For examples please refer back to previous lessons.
But now there arises a slight problem. If you are a metaphysician and, for instance, some of your conclusions about the nature of reality refer to things which are not traceable, such as ‘free will’, then your propositions stand at risk of being regarded meaningless by verificationist types of theorists about meaning. Show me the free will you so lavishly speak of, they would say. Or, at least, describe to me what it would seem like if I found it. How would it behave, in what causal relationships would it be partaking, how would I recognise it, and it alone, if I were to find it? Please note, dear Reader, that verificationists do not require that all referents be observed and verified, merely observable and verifiable. Testable is the closest scientific term to this.
Now, let us imagine that I am a realist about certain objects such as chairs, tables and human beings. I am also a realist about some of their properties. I maintain that chairs and tables are a certain way in reality, irrespective how they are perceived to be. In other words, they have mind independent properties. Let us say that I maintain that they have the property of extension. I also maintain that human beings have the property of having free will. It is, thus, true of human beings that they have free will irrespective of the perception or opinion there may be of such things. Free will is real. If I were a moral realist I would hold that moral values are real (mind independent) properties of certain actions. It is the moral task of persons to either trace them correctly or not.
But if I want to maintain that free will is a real property of human beings I must be able to show, verify, this to be the case in order to make my proposition true. But what if I cannot do this? Well, the realist is compelled to say, then there is always the option of arguing the case. I can forward lavish arguments, working with intricate definitions of what humans are and what free will is taken to be and, by certain strokes of deductive genius, I could demonstrate, in a similar way to how mathematical proofs work, that humans can be reasoned to have free will. I can say, for instance: All animals with human brains have free will. All humans have human brains. Therefore, all humans have free will.
Perfect! Or not? Even though the deduction is perfect this certainly, I hope you agree, does not get us to having to accept that it has now been proven that humans actually have free will. So, what oh what, does the realist do then. He so wants to make his claim and for it to have, at least, a possibility of being true. He then appeals to another notion of truth. He says that it is quite possible that his claim could be true and that the speaker of that claim has no manner of knowing that he has spoken a truth. In other words, it is possible to say that it is now 12 o’ clock, even though I have no knowledge of the time, and nevertheless be saying a true thing. So, truth, the realist says, can transcend knowledge. Truth is, therefore, not constrained by knowledge. Furthermore, this take on truth is supported by logic in its classical form, holding that all propositions must either be true or false. And, of course, if truth is not something which depends on speaker knowledge (or even the possibility of it) then it certainly is the case that any propositions whatsoever, will in an ultimate sense, be either true or false. Regardless of human endeavours, successful or not, to know whether it is true or false.
And accepting this position on evidence transcendent truth means that propositions can have meaning based in their conditions for truth, just like the verificationists would have it, but with the one significant difference being that the meaning making criteria for some propositions have nothing to do with the speaker knowledge of the content of that proposition. Because truth is something derived from realms often unavailable to human cognition.
What do you think of evidence transcendent truth?
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