As Featured in The Map Is Indestructible by O.G. Rose
Is the word “truth” just a confusing simile?
What do I say when I say, “That is true” to someone? If when I say, “That is true,” I mean, “That is proven,” then there is little meaningful difference between the words “true” and “proven,” and the terms are repetitive and can risk causing confusion. Ultimately, if the word “true” cannot be isolated to mean something by itself, then arguably the word should not exist (at least not in philosophy, but perhaps not anywhere). Signifiers that cannot be isolated, especially when they cause confusion, fundamentalism, and so on, are signifiers that likely should be deconstructed.
What is true can often be proven, but ultimately, considering the work of Karl Popper and the problem of certainty discussed throughout the works of O.G. Rose, what we can prove isn’t that which we can be certain about (for ultimately, we can only be certain about vast generalities like “I am experiencing,” “I am thinking,” etc.), only confident. What we prove is that which we can be confident about, but if when we say, “x is true,” we mean “I am confident in x,” then the terms “true” and “confident” are similes, and arguably the word “true” should be done away with, because it implies certainty in a world where only confidence is possible. The term doesn’t seem to add enough value to justify risking the ways it can be mislead, encourage intellectual overconfidence, and so on.
“Truth,” “true” — these are very powerful words that carry mystical, vague, philosophical, and metaphysical connotations that can cause countless confusions. If a meaning for the world “truth” cannot be isolated, and if that meaning doesn’t prove notably valuable, it might be best to do away with words like them (the rewards simply don’t justify the risks). However, from the point that “truth implies certainty in a world where confidence is far more relevant,” does it follow that thus “truth” is a bad word? We can at least say fairly that “what is true” is “that which is deserving of confidence”; thus, what is true is that which we should be confident “toward,” even though “that which is true” isn’t merely “that which is deserving of confidence.” Truth entails confidence but isn’t reducible to confidence (“confidence” is in a way “practical-ly certain,” but “practical” isn’t “technical”).
I
If when I say, “x is true,” I mean “x is a fact,” there is little difference between “fact” and “true.” Facts are “facts” within a network of assumptions about what constitutes actuality, and for me a possible distinction with “truth” is that it refers to this entire network (or “factview”). A fact is “that rock is that rock,” we might say; a truth, “that rocks (such as that rock) make me feel happy.” This is a crude generalization, and admittedly “truths” and “facts” seem nearly identical; if they’re not, the difference seems slim, where “truth” includes “facts plus relations between facts” while the word “fact” doesn’t include the relations.
We might say that worldviews and world-views (“views of the world”) exist dialectically, constantly refining and redefining one another; likewise, so do facts and truths. Truths seems to be the ideas we project on(to) facts in order to understand them, to make them meaningful. A fact is a thing that is itself regardless observation, while a truth of a fact includes our “take on” that fact. All well good, but the problem is that if I say “x-thing is ‘a cat,’ ” I am instantly making x what it is not in of itself, but rather what x is “to me.” Hence, it could be argued that there are no facts for humans, just interpretations (a point we might associate famously with Nietzsche), so truths and facts are at best different kinds of interpretations, but both interpretations all the same. As there is no certainty, only confidence, there are arguably no facts, only truths (worldviews of world-views) (and arguably there are no facts precisely because there is no certainty). Yet that said, it doesn’t follow that just because x-fact is an interpretation of x-thing that therefore x-fact is nothing like x-thing: to say they’re nothing alike would also require certainty, the very lack of which inspires the claim that interpretations aren’t absolutes.
If a drop a tennis ball, it hits the floor, and jumps back into my hand, I could argue the ball hasn’t gone anywhere, and yet the earth is moving, so in a real sense the ball doesn’t return to the same spot. Relative to me it does, but not relative to the planet. There is no such thing as absolute space; likewise, there is no such thing as absolute understanding, only conditional interpretation. But does that mean “truth” distinct from “fact” is impossible? No, only that if the word “truth” is meaningful, it also includes those conditions within its frame, which is to say its inclusion of relations includes that which defines and gives those relations their qualities.
It would seem “truths” and “facts” are both interpretations, but perhaps differ on terms of confidence, and if not that, perhaps truths are “interpretations of interpretations” while facts are only “interpretations.” There seems to be different levels of interpretation, and the higher “toward” subjectivity we travel up the iteration chain, the more we move away from facts to truths. The interpretation “x is a cat” is easier to convince a collective of, and thus is a fact, while the “interpretation of an interpretation” that “x is a cat that is beautiful” is more difficult to convince a collective, and thus is a truth. Hard to say.
At what point does a fact transition into a truth (double interpretation) and a truth into a fact (single interpretation)? Jonathan Rauch in his book Kindly Inquisitors might offer us a key if we apply his distinction between beliefs and knowledge. Using his language and points, we could say that a fact relies on experience, but ‘only the experience of no one in particular.’¹ In other words, when it comes to facts, ‘particular persons are interchangeable’: facts are ‘what would anyone have seen […]’² ³ Considering Raugh, facts are matters of knowledge, while truths are matter of belief, and though both knowledge and beliefs can be equally correct, they are not equally tested or testable, and thus the difference between facts and truths is the degree to which we have (justified) “reason to believe” they are (at least to some degree) universally applicable. Hence, we return to an earlier point: the difference between belief and knowledge, truths and facts, is confidence (better yet, “collective confidence”). A fact is a premise we have more reason to treat like something we can be certain of, while a truth is something we have reason to treat only like we can be confident in it (though ultimately neither are things we can be truly certain about unless in regard to vast generalities like thinking and perceiving themselves).
Truths are indeed interpretations of actuality, but experiencing those truths is contingent upon who the person is, what the person is doing, and so on. Facts, on the other hand, are interpretations that others have reason to share thanks to say falsification. Yes, relative to those who hold a given truth, that truth is “practically indistinguishable” from a fact (like merged rivers), but in the space between people (“the breaks”), the difference between “fact” and “truth” is clearer. Both are interpretations, but an interpretation that has been tested is one we have “more reason to believe” is like actuality than an interpretation which hasn’t been tested, even though both might be equally true. Hence, the difference between facts and truths is falsification, and what has been tested is that which we have reason to treat as if “practically certain” than that which we cannot test, even if a given fact and a given truth are both equally correct.
Should we strive to make all truths like facts? Yes, but this doesn’t seem to always be possible. It seems all tested ideas are at least truths until someone attempts to falsify them (a particular test), but if they can’t be falsified, they can remain truths (assuming no internal contradictions are revealed, reasons to disown them, etc.). However, truths that do pass tests of falsification suddenly become facts. Does this mean the supposed “truths” are taken down from say being “relational” to being “thing-ified” and made into points? Is that a downgrade? That’s not the right word: the truths are seen in the right frame, like we adjusted the focus of a pair of glasses. We didn’t make something vanish or appear: we adjusted our focus to see them better. Falsification is lens-adjustment, we might say, making things vanish that aren’t there or refining how we see them.
II
Premises that are tested are premises where there is justification to ascent to them: what lacks justification totally is that which cannot meaningful deemed either a truth or a fact. Hence, to say, “That is true,” is to say, “That is justified,” to some degree, even though facts and truths are not justified in the same way. And also note that “justified” isn’t a simile for “cannot be wrong”; rather, to say, “x is justified,” is to say, “We have reason to think it is right” (or at least more right than wrong).
What are “truth tests” as distinct from “fact tests” of falsification? We might call these “lived tests,” but here I only want to note that the Christian (for example) who believes in Christ has, in his or her own way, come to hold these beliefs thanks to tests he or she has self-imposed. The fighter for human rights has experienced events that have made that individual conclude it is better to believe human rights are true than nonexistent (even though the truths cannot be factualized). And so on: truths are indeed tested, just not like facts are — assuming truths and beliefs aren’t tested, only scientific ideas, has contributed to misunderstandings. No, premises tested and justified by “lived tests” shouldn’t be treated with equal confidence as premises tested through falsification, but it would also be an error to believe truths are outright undeserving of any confidence at all. They might be wrong, but not self-evidently wrong.
But that brings us to a question: Is a fact still a fact or a truth still a truth if the fact and truth are wrong? If not, then we can safely say that neither “fact” nor “truth” are words which are a simile for mere “interpretation,” for at the very least, they must be “right interpretations,” while interpretations can be either right or wrong. But how can we tell which interpretations are right from those which are wrong, and if truths and facts are both accurate, why draw a distinction between them? Well, even if this follows, they still differ on grounds of verification: a truth is a correct, testable interpretation worthy of confidence, while a fact is a correct, falsifiable interpretation worthy of “practical certainty.”
But surely this cannot be right, because how can we know a truth or fact is correct without certainty? We cannot, so perhaps what we must settle with is that a truth is a testable interpretation that we have more “reason to think” is true than false (and thus worthy of confidence), while a fact is a falsifiable interpretation, which by virtue of being falsifiable, has garnered reason to trust in it. A mere interpretation, on the other hand, is that which we have equal reason to think is right or wrong, or even more reason to think it is wrong than right. It is upon the probability of wrongness that it seems possible to draw lines between “truth,” “fact,” and “mere interpretation,” even though all these acts are ultimately kinds of interpretations.
Does the word “truth,” in referring to “a testable though not falsifiable interpretation that we have reason to believe is correct,” add enough value to justify the risks involved in using such a weighty word? Perhaps not, but so far, it seems we might be isolating a phenomenon that needs some word for it, though ultimately perhaps a new word should be created, if only perhaps to shake off all the layers the word “truth” has accumulated over the years, like barnacles on the bottom of a ship. Hard to say.
III
Does the statement “that is true” mean “I believe that”? Are the words “truth” and “belief” similes? We have in this section linked together belief and truth, but belief seems to be a disposition “toward” a truth as opposed to truth itself. Also, “belief” seems to be necessary to describe how other people understand and experience a person’s truth: I experience your truth as a belief, as you experience my truth the same way. Something similar could be said about “fact” and “knowledge,” though arguably there seems to be more distinction between “belief” and “truth” than “fact” and “knowledge,” precisely because falsification makes facts more universally acceptable.
On the question of belief, the statements “that is true” and “that is my truth” seem to have radically different meanings. “That is true” seems to refer to something like small slices of reality, while “that is my truth” seems to refer to an entire person’s framework for understanding the world. “Truth,” in this context, seems indistinguishable from “worldview” (or ideology, Jungian myth, etc.), yet “true” doesn’t seem to have nearly as much to do with worldview, and it is this confusing use of “truth” as opposed to “true” which seems to be at the heart of much of our conversation about the notion of truth in general. The word “true” seems aligned with “fact,” but “truth” leaves an entirely different flavor in the mouth.
The statement “that is my truth” and “that is my worldview” seem repetitive, and considering this, there is an argument to be made that we shouldn’t use the word “truth” in this way, and instead stick with “worldview,” considering all the weight the word “truth” carries and likely confusion it causes, especially if we’re going to continue using statements like “this is true.” Still, if we were to try to draw a meaningful distinction between “worldview” and “truth” (a distinction I cannot claim to have held throughout my other works), perhaps we could say that a person’s “truth” is the sum total of a person’s truths (in a similar way perhaps a person’s “science” is the sum total of a person’s “facts”), while a person’s worldview is the sum total of everything — truths, beliefs, facts, etc. — by which a person makes the world intelligible and meaningful. Perhaps not, but here we only need to note that though the word “truth” seems to be a simile for “worldview” (as it also seems identical with “ideology”), a distinction still seems needed (as between “truth” and “true”).⁴ A truth is the foundation of a worldview, but “worldview” seems to refer to the combination of truth and rationality.
IV
To determine if “truth” has an isolatable meaning, it may prove helpful to ask if there are limitations on what can be considered true meaningfully and distinctly. And generally, it would seem in addition to the distinctions already laid out between “truths” and “facts,” truths refer to abstractions, while facts refer to non-abstractions, but of course that begs the question of if anything isn’t an abstraction to some degree…
The number one is an abstraction, while a lone cat seated on a porch is concrete. Yes, technically, if I am referring to a collection of atoms, biological parts, etc. as a “cat,” I am creating an abstraction, and in this sense as everything is an interpretation, so too everything is an abstraction, but not everything is equally observable in the world across multiple people (without human interference), coordination of which is then possible relative to via communication (suggesting a philosophical importance in language). I will never see the number one outside playing with a ball, but I could see a playful cat (or a playful “collection of things that make up the thing referred to with the signifier ‘cat’ ”), as can other people who met the “condition” of being in the same place and time as me with their eyes open. Yes, I could draw the number one on a sheet of paper, but this mark would never (meaningfully) appear without a subject: a human has to draw it. Considering this, a distinction can be considered between an observable and un-human-arising phenomena, and a non-observable and human-requiring phenomena, and though relative to us everything intelligible is ultimately an abstraction (and interpretation), as a truth is a double interpretation compared to a fact, so a truth is “doubly abstract.” And considering this (and technicalities aside lest this discussion becomes overly-difficult to follow), it seems fair to say that truths at least deal more with abstractions than do facts, and so moving forward, we will mostly just use the word “abstraction” to signify “non-observable and human-requiring phenomena.”
If we accept this distinction, considering what has already been argued, a truth might be a testable abstraction, while a fact is a falsifiable non-abstraction. Is there no such thing as a falsifiable abstraction? That depends: do we think love can be falsified or only tested? Do we think the existence of numbers, categories, human rights, names, conclusions, ideas, etc. can be falsified or only tested? Certainly, if we ask, “Can abstractions be submitted to the scientific method?” the answer is no, but “falsification” and “the scientific method” don’t seem identical even if closely related. Perhaps the question is this: if something is only falsifiable to me, is it truly falsifiable or only testable? “No one in particular,” to use Rauch’s phrase, is needed to (attempt to) falsify the speed of light, but only I can falsify if I indeed love my wife (suggesting an opening for “the problem of internally consistent systems”). No one but me can even justifiably accept the initial premise that “love exists between me and my wife” except me and my wife (though others may think they can and can have certain degrees of confidence in their assessment), while no one in particular is needed to accept the existence of light.
But can only I test the existence of numbers? These are abstractions and yet so concrete that it seems erroneous to say they cannot be falsified, but it doesn’t seem like they can be, precisely because they can’t be observed. I can falsify that there are “three cups on a table,” but not “the existence of the number three in of itself.” From the fact off “three cups on a table,” I can give myself reason to assent to the truth that “the number three exists (in some way),” but I cannot from three cups make a fact of three’s existence. Numbers seem to be truths, not facts, though is it a fact or a truth to say, “There is one cup on that table?” The statement, “There is one cup on that table,” is a “correct mixture” of a truth and a fact (or least correct insomuch as we have “no reason to think” it is not so), while the statement “there is a cup on that table” would consistent only of facts (unless that is one wants to argue that the word “a” is actually identical with a numerical word like “one,” but though that argument might be made, I will avoid it here). This lexiconic nitpicking hints at why it has proven so difficult to meaningfully isolate the word “true,” and also how and why facts and truths regularly mix and inform one another.
From facts I can derive reason to believe in truths, as I can test truths with facts, but I cannot ultimately falsify truths. Why this is so is explored in “The Map is Indestructible” by O.G. Rose; here, I will suggest that if I believe in human rights, even if I watch a million people treat one another like animals, I have no obligation to therefore conclude humans right, dignity, and then corresponding principles like justice, have no reality. The facts may suggest they do not, but I decide if the facts even apply, and may just as easily decide that no amount of facts will deconstruct an abstraction I believe is true. Does this mean I am irrational? No, given that I have reason to believe my abstraction is in fact true and/or makes the world a better place; in other words, given that I have tested it.
If I decide no amount of facts will make me stop believing in human rights, since I have observed how much better society functions when it practices human rights, I am justified to “close my mind” to facts against what to me is the truth of human rights. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have reason to believe “it is true that society is better with justice,” even if there are facts that give me reason to believe (the truth) that “justice is a fantasy” (which points to topics of “Tragic Sociology” which Belonging Again orbits). I can falsify if someone has been shot during an act of bigotry, but I cannot falsify (from this) that “justice matters.” I can test if “justice matters” by comparing societies that have virtues of justice with societies that don’t, comparing how often people treat each other well versus poorly, and so on, but ultimately the premise is beyond the reach of falsification (and who decides what metric I should by?). I can falsify the speed of light, but only test the importance of justice (which is arguably a good thing, because evil people, for their own advantages, may otherwise delight in ever-falsifying justice).
For both facts and truths can be ascribed to by a collective, but it would seem the weight and power of truths is more contingent upon collective assent than facts. Rocks don’t cease falling if no one believes rocks fall, but if no one in a city believes murder is wrong, then even if in a “divine sense” murder is still wrong, it will practically be the case that murder isn’t wrong (and the difference between “murder” and “killing” will become meaningfully indistinguishable). The act of rocks falling doesn’t change based on what people think (even if the meaning does), nor does the act of a knife stopping a heart beat change based on philosophy, but what happens to people who kill one another shifts based on how the society thinks. What happens to a rock thrown in the air doesn’t change even if our acknowledgement does.
We might say the causality of truths is different from the causality of facts, for the causality of facts is “given” (at least so much as the laws of nature are “given”), while the causality of truths is “contingent,” and seems contingent upon what the collective thinks. If I think murder is wrong but no one else does, it is unlikely that those who (I think) murder will be practically treated differently from those who (I think) only kill. The practical consequences of truths are collectively shaped far more than the practical consequences of facts, which perhaps hints at another way we can discern facts from truths: if the practices and consequences of x change based on who and how many people believe in x, then x is likely more a truth than a fact. If everyone believes in the truth of x and that x causes y, then the causing of y by x will be practically indistinguishable from a fact of b causing c. Collectives can make truths practically facts, and considering this, collectives can practically hide the difference, contributing to our confusion until the collectives fail.
Abstractions can be true, while actualities can be facts, even if both somehow on the same “ontological gradient,” and even though both truths and facts are kinds of interpretations. As we shouldn’t conflate “interpretation” with “wrong,” we likewise shouldn’t assume all abstracts are equal or that an abstraction is that which isn’t like actuality: again, saying, “x-abstraction is nothing like x-actuality,” would require certainty, a rare possibility. Perhaps the moral law is part of the very fabric of the cosmos in some divine way, and perhaps the same could be said of all truths: even though to us truths exist “over” facts, perhaps relative to God, facts exists “over” Truths and we just hope the “truths” we put “over” facts are like the Truths under them (and only God would know if they are or are not). Hard to say; also, relative to God, perhaps there are only “facts” because from God’s ontology all possible things can be experienced with the same degree of actuality (Capital-F-Fact might be a better term than capital-T-Truth).
V
If when I say, “That is true,” I say, “That is meaningful,” there is no distinct meaning between “true” and “meaningful,” and perhaps the word “true” should be discarded. “Meaning” is admittedly a dangerous word: it’s often as loaded and weighty as the word “truth” and can be used to mean just as many different and varying phenomena. It could said that the meaning of a thing in the world is that thing in the world (that cat means cat), but in this context, the word “meaning” seems indistinguishable from “identity.” It could be said that if I hit a baseball, it means the ball will fly through the air, but in this context “meaning” and “result/causality” seem repetitive. To determine if “truth” and “meaning” are distinct, we must first decide if “meaning” is even meaningful.
Does the fact that a book is resting on the nearby desk mean anything? As argued in “Is-ness/Meaning” by O.G. Rose, “what a thing is” cannot to some degree be separated from “what a thing means,” for everything is necessarily interpreted to humans: atoms are interpreted into cats even though atoms unto themselves are not cats, for example. That paper was using the word “meaning” like the word “interpretation,” and though I think that’s fair to do (though I’m admittedly biased), in this paper, I think it would be useful to explore if “meaning” and “interpretation” can be isolated from one another (though in every day speech maintaining any discovered distinction or technicality could prove overly-onerous). Everything that exists, relative to humans, is necessarily an abstraction, an interpretation, and a meaning, though as we’ve explored through defining apart “fact” and “truth,” there might be reason to, and value in, drawing technicities between these terms as well.
With “On Thinking and Perceiving” by O.G. Rose in mind, there is perhaps a difference between “interpretation as sensory experience” and “interpretation as abstract thought.” To derive the meaning “cat” from atoms is to experience something that I can touch, feel, see, and so on, while to derive the meaning “my cat” from a cat would be experience something that I cannot touch, feel, see, and so on (for there is no “my” that exists independent of people). “Interpretation as sensory experience” is more like a “perception,” while “interpretation as abstract thought” is more like a “meaning,” and though in a way both are meanings as both are interpretations, maintaining this distinction will prove practically useful in this paper for moving forward. Thus, a “meaning” cannot be perceived by human senses, even though it might organize, move, and influence human beings, while a (technically interpretative and abstract) perception can be experienced by the senses (though that doesn’t mean “the un-sensed” is less real — it depends on what we mean).
Thus, in a sense, facts are meaningless. The meaning of a fact would be the experience of a fact itself, and thus facts don’t have meaning, only identity. This isn’t to say that the fact x doesn’t mean something for me (at least causally) — if a rock is falling toward me, this means I need to get out of the way, etc. — but rather to say fact x doesn’t have meaning to and in itself. I give facts meaning, for I give the world truths.
Truths are meaningful more than identities, and so we might ask if there is something distinct we can identify between “truths” and “meanings” at this point? Admittedly, I’m struggling to see how: once we define “truth” from “fact,” “truth” and “meaning” seem almost similes. Is that the end of our journey then? Have we concluded “truth” is a worthless word? Well, yes, if the word “meaning” proved itself less weighty and dangerous than the word “truth,” “true,” and so on, but I don’t believe that is the case. We have indeed determined that “truth” and “meaning” are similes, but neither word is less prone to cause confusion, senses of mysticism, or the like. Hence, if we stop here, our journey will be of small advance.
VI
Does a fact become a truth when it is understood into a meaning? It would be erroneous to say the fact of “a rock is on the desk” becomes “my sister wants me to have that rock,” for the fact doesn’t cease to exist like a caterpillar arguably ceases to exist in becoming a butterfly. The fact certainly seems to vanish, for I necessarily experience it “covered” by a truth, in the same way that perception just seems to be thinking, for the moment I think about something perceived, it’s dressed in thought (as explored in “On Thinking and Perceiving” by O.G. Rose).
Facts change based on how the perceivable world changes, but nothing in the sensory world has to change for my truths to shift if I choose to maintain them. Facts are constantly shifting due to causality and spacetime, but there is no necessary change that truths must undergo if I do not will them to change, which might suggest the existence of free will, even if not total will. Truth is primarily bound by my will, and nature insomuch as I choose for my will to be influenced by nature. The very fact that a person can observe facts counter to his or her worldview and continue to ascribe to that worldview — the fact that a person can want to believe something is true despite the evidence — suggests degrees of freedom and distinction because of us and our environment.
I might choose to change my truths based on how the facts change, but I don’t have to change them: while facts must be changeable with time and causality, truths can be as constant as the person holding them so wills. The causality of truth is bound to the will; the causality of fact, more so nature. Yes, nature influences human will as human will shapes nature, but there is nothing nature can do to force human will to shift and change. Likewise, facts cannot force meanings upon us, but we can force meanings upon facts and live as if a given meaning and a given fact are one and the same (as humans can live as if perception and thinking are identical). Will defines meanings from identities, facts from truths, and just as easily humans can will to live “as if” facts and truths are identical, possibly causing confusion (at which we humans often seem experts).
VII
Facts have sensory identity and necessary causal consequences, while meanings don’t have direct sensory identity and only have contingent causes and effects (as determined by will). Facts are meaningless and causal, while truths are meaningful and willed.⁴ Still, something can only be true if it is at least possible for a thing to be experienced. This clarification may seem to leave a door wide open, for since it’s possible that I be someone else’s son, doesn’t this mean it’s possibly true? Yes, but it’s not true, because it’s not actually possible only hypothetically possible. A hypothetical isn’t a truth, even if it’s possible and helps clarify something true. What is true has to be possible, but what is possible isn’t necessarily true. But how can we tell the difference between “hypothetical” and “possible truth” that doesn’t bring in facts and proof? It doesn’t seem possible, and so “possible truth” to be distinct from “hypothetical” (perhaps only retrospectively) requires the facts which can threaten to replace it (in striking us as “all we need” and more concrete). In this way, facts save “truth” from being indistinguishable from “hypothetical,” and yet the use of facts perhaps for a “truth” can train us into habits of treating truths as irrelevant and avoidable. (Thought without tension isn’t thinking.)
A truth is possibly an experience that only one person in the world ever has, while a fact cannot possibly be an experience that only one person can undergo. Yes, perhaps I’m only the person in the world to ever see a given cup left on a given table, but it is not the case that “I” am necessary to experience that fact: anyone else could be the only person there just as easily. Yet it is possible for there to be a truth that if I didn’t exist, that truth wouldn’t exist either: that is what makes truth unique and arguably good yet also dangerous (for bad truths are hard to stop people from believing). Truths must be experienceable, but not universally or noncontingently experienceable like facts. Truths seem to become facts as facts seem to become truth in the act of experiencing and understanding a thing, similar to how perceiving and thinking so readily blend, but facts and truths are distinct. Failure to catch how our experience of the world primes us to forsake the distinction between facts and truths can lead to misunderstanding and erring on the side of map-totalization and/or map-proliferation.
Can God be experienced? To some degree, if God exists, then indeed God can be, even if not totally; at the very least, the effects of God are experienced, in the same way the effects of natural laws are sensed, even if natural laws themselves are never directly seen. To say truths are experienceable isn’t to say that truths are concrete, for humans do indeed experience abstractions: I experience “(the fact of) that cup” as “my cup,” in the same way I often experience perception as thinking. Experience is often conflated with positivism, empiricism, and science in general, treating “experiences of abstractions” to be the same as “experiences of illusions.” But if I experience words, thoughts, meanings, etc., then I experience abstractions, and to call these “illusions” is difficult to understand.
Since truths are abstractions, and thus matters of interpretation, truths are also matters of imagination, as pointed out by Bernard Hankins. To further the distinction between truth and fact, we might say that truths are primarily matters of “imaginative interpretation,” while facts are primarily matters of “sensory interpretation” (though constantly overlapping). Truths are things I imagine, and as it’s strange to say abstractions are illusions, it’s likewise strange to say imagination is illusionary. Without imagination, abstractions seem impossible, and thus words are matters of imagination, and how odd would it be to say words are illusions? What would that even mean? Certainly, imagination can generate illusions and falsities, but to say all matters of imagination are nothing “like” reality or relevant would require certainty, which is mostly impossible. Furthermore, are “corresponding imaginings” or “truth imaginings” impossible?
Without imagination, if there was only “image-ing,” as Bernard Hankins puts it, life would get boring and even incomprehensible: if all we experienced was a parade of unconnectable facts — cat, rock, cup on table, sky overhead — life would be meaningless and “a flashing of images” like a montage, but unlike a montage that we can see and instantly be filling with connections and meanings (as Alex Ebert discusses), this montage would be utterly unconnected. Without interpretation, abstraction, and imagination, facts couldn’t be linked together (into something greater than themselves and yet not independent of them): fragments would be all. For now, we will call this reality “Autonomous Montage.”
“Autonomous Montage” would be “object-ified,” made to be a collection of objects that even lacked words to refer to them (a rock in of itself isn’t a “rock,” per se). An “object-ified” world would be one in which the distinction between the world and randomness (that can’t even be known as “random”) would be meaninglessness (incapable of becoming a truth). It is considered wrong to “objectify,” yet an “Autonomous Montage” would be an objectified world we can associate with “being real” and “being education” (unable to keep the facts from eclipsing truths which truths need to not be “mere hypotheticals”…).
When a doctor tells us that we need to change our diet, but we don’t “put/imagine” the advice into practice, Bernard asks, “What’s the point?” Likewise, if we experience facts but these facts don’t contribute to ideas that we then live, what’s the point? Facts that don’t inform truths are facts that we won’t care much about (though do note that our truths should be informed by facts even if not limited by them, a strange balance), and if we don’t care about them, facts will be “practically indistinguishable” from things that don’t exist at all. Bernard Hankins also notes that ideas make ideals possible (idea(l)s), and that while facts are made of matter, truths matter. If nothing mattered and there were no truths, we wouldn’t even care about the difference between “facts” and “truths”: facts matter because non-facts (truths) matter.
Since truths cannot exist without people, this means the facts of the word only matter because people exist; without them, who cares? Yet in stewarding truths into the world’s dirt, humans make those facts hard to determine (in blurring them into fact/truth(s)): the act of making facts matter is the same act that makes the facts hard to know. Without imagination, meaning would be impossible, and in imagination generating truth, it simultaneously generates meaning. This meaning makes us care about facts, and yet it simultaneously makes facts hard to know. In wanting there to be meaning, somewhere to go, we can create the locked doors we want to open.
Facts are interpreted by the senses into categories the brain can understand, but facts aren’t imagined; rather, relational, they are imagined with truths and meanings (and stories, considering the truths and meanings tend to be kinds of stories). Hankins describes facts like a road and truths like the weather: he says that though the road is constant, the weather changes, transforming the overall experience. Yet earlier it was said that facts must change causally, while truths don’t necessarily have to change — am I changing my tune? Well, in one since, facts must change, and so they are constant, precisely because nature is constant. Change is constant, and so not ultimately “change” at all (a strange paradox). On the other hand, there are no “laws of mind” that force truths to change this way or that: they are “unbound,” and so capable of meaningful change. Considering this, at least for here, perhaps we could say the earth is its collection of facts while the world is its collection of truths, and that while the earth is constant, the world changes. The world is created, while the earth causes, and the human is found where there is creation and causation together, threatening one another.
Truths are matter of subject(ivity), we might say; facts, object(ivity). Subjectivity is what makes facts matter (and even “facts” as opposed to just “examples of Autonomous Montage”); likewise, subjectivity makes us care about objectivity (and “objectivity” even itself/meaningful), yet subjectivity is what makes objectivity impossible to access with certainty.F Subjectivity makes us like women who are pregnant, as Hankins argues, wanting the child to come out, but when it doesn’t as we think the child should, our longing can lead to insanity. Subjectivity can make us feel like there is an objectivity there we should reach, but it is precisely what makes us feel this that places what we feel like reaching out of reach. Subjectivity creates a “lost object” without which there might not be desire or the possibility of drive, considering Lacan. If objectivity was accessible without subjectivity, we wouldn’t care about it: it wouldn’t feel lost, like something we need to regain.
With Kafka’s “Before the Law” in mind, in being “toward” something, I construct a locked door in front of it (the doors I can construct are locked). Because there is now a door, there is something I can enter, and thus something I can want to enter — something that can drive me crazy with a desire to break-through. Through confidence, testing, and falsification, at best, I can perhaps construct the door out of glass, perhaps making it “practically irrelevant,” but regardless what I do, the door will be locked and a possible source of frustration (and yet it’s possible that if I could enter through the door, what I found on the other side would be no different from the side from which I came). And if I didn’t make doors, life would be meaningless. We are all doormakers, or life isn’t worth living. (But on this “Popular Kantian”-point, that doesn’t mean we can’t move forward through “The Modern Counter-Enlightenment” or Hegel — as explored in The Absolute Choice)
VIII
Facts are things that must be the case to be themselves (versus “a thing mistaken as a fact”), and so we cannot say meaning “a fact might be wrong”; instead, it’s better to say, “A notion might be a fact” (the word “fact” must align strongly with actuality). In this way, “a fact” cannot be a fact and possibly wrong, while “a truth” can possibly be misinterpreted, misunderstood, or incomplete. But wouldn’t that make “truth” and “falsity” similes? It would seem that way, but a “falsity” is “completely wrong” (perhaps the only possible “totality” left after Gödel), while a “truth” is “incompletely actual.” Isn’t the “actual” by definition “complete?” That’s the paradox: even if that was so, finite humans couldn’t access or experience “the complete,” so in what sense could “completeness” be “actual” for us? Only abstractly, the opposite of actual.
A truth is that which isn’t so much “wrong” as it is “incomplete,” but every truth could be wrong if it was treated as complete and/or “the whole story.” To deal with truth then is to deal with tension, which we must deal with or we will be left with an “Autonomous Montage,” but because fact doesn’t have this same tension, it’s understandable why we might turn to fact over truth as the basis of epistemology (fact also feels more democratic and communal, and yet “Autonomous Montage” can remove the possibility of community, oddly).
Facts can’t be wrong, while truths can be in that they can be treated as “complete” while actually “incomplete,” so what do we say when say, “That is true?” Well, perhaps we say, “That is enough like actuality, even though incomplete, to be treated as more actual than not.” The word “truth” if valid seems like it must always entail a certain “incompleteness” and/or “openness,” and basically to say, “That is true,” is to say, “It is valid to maintain ‘this/x’ degree of openness and closedness to actuality.” It’s a statement regarding a degree of filtration (to speak of “incomplete” is to be of a filter more than a wall, which brings Beatrice to mind): if I believe it is true my wife loves me, I am saying that I “ought” to stay “open to the world” as a situation in which “my wife loves me.” Perhaps I am wrong or misunderstand the “incompleteness” and/or “uncertainty” I am “toward,” but regardless I am saying I “ought” to be “toward” the world “as if” it is thus, that this is my best posture toward what I can never fully know with certainty (like faith), only “incompletely.” This might turn out to be wrong or a “bad bet” (precisely because the future is open), and yet I might still have been justified to take this posture.
The word “truth” might best be associated with “a posture toward incompleteness,” while “facts” are what I weigh in deciding “the best posture toward incompleteness” (even if I’m wrong). If this is so, “truth’ only has distinct meaning where there is “lack/excess,” and where there is otherwise, the language of “fact or not” seems better (hence why a loss of metaphysics might correspond with a loss of any language other than “fact”).
IX
Truths and thoughts are not possible in pure perception; likewise, facts are not possible in pure thought (you can think about your idea of a rock, but not think a rock that is actually in the world). Likewise, wrongness/rightness are only possible in thought, while only “is-ness” is possible in perception. From this, it would follow that unthinkable thoughts are impossible, as are thinkable facts (and yet we must think facts). And unless thoughts can be unspeakable or impossible to represent (at all), then there is no such thing as an ineffable or unrepresentable truth (though that isn’t to say there cannot be truth which cannot be totally captured by human means of expression).
What is abstract cannot be unconditional if for any reason, because the abstraction requires the existence of humans to even exist, while actualities can be non-conditional in just being themselves. A fact/truth (like “my cup”) is (non)conditional, conditional in its truthfulness while nonconditional in its facticity (even if abstractly mediated). If I say, “This is true,” to refer to a whole fact/truth, then I speak imprecisely and should rather say, “This is a truth/fact” (human and paradoxical). If referring to a cup, I might say, “This is a fact”; if referring to my ownership of the cup (“This is mine”), I might better say, “This is true”; if referring to both the cup and my ownership of it, I should say, “This is true and factual.” If I am referring to a cup, I am speaking from a world-view; if I am referring to ownership, I am speaking from a worldview; if discuss “my cup,” I speak from a (world)view. A (world)view is from what we seem to always be speaking, just like we always seem to exist in a state of thinking/perceiving (not just one or the other), though worldview and world-view are not identical, but rather like two rivers that merge but separate here and there before merging again. Will I actually speak like this in everyday life? No, but it’s always good to know when you’re in the wrong…
Admittedly, it is impractical to abandon the use of the word “true” from our language except when used in the extremely technical sense laid out here; however, if we at least know the technicalities exist, perhaps we can have a better grasp on what we’re trying to say, even if we’re not speaking correctly. This in mind, to conclude, when I say, “x is true,” I say:
“X is an interpretation that isn’t falsifiable and only deserving of confidence, but there is still reason to believe that my interpretation of x does in fact correspond with actuality (incompletely), even though due to its inability to be falsified, truths cannot be considered matters of knowledge but only belief, as Jonathan Rauch discusses. X is not merely an interpretation though, seeing as there is ‘reason to believe it is correct,’ while a mere interpretation would be an understanding where there was equal reason to believe it was right or wrong. X is a testable abstraction even if not falsifiable, and for (what I consider) good reason, I believe it is useful and/or “good,” though it should be acknowledged that the practical consequences of x are deeply impacted by the collective. X is meaningful, for it seems truth is meaning, though x lacks sensory identity and its influence on materiality is contingent on the will of those who ascent to x. Still, x is something I experience, even though that experience might be mine and mine alone, and it is imaginative and subjective, though that doesn’t mean x is illusionary; rather, x helps make (a) fact(s) both meaningful and hard to access. It is possible for x to be wrong, for it is contingent and not a fact in of itself, which is to say x is part of a worldview, not just a view of the world. But the way x-truth can be wrong distinct from a straight falsity is precisely in being an incompleteness that can come to be “practically complete” to us and yet not the whole story. Upon this earth, we live meaningfully in our worlds, and our worlds could be ‘incompletely actual’ and hence true though different, hence the word ‘truth’ doesn’t have to mean the end of Pluralism. In a world of lack/excess, ‘truth’ is a word of ever-participation, valid even if (un)finished.”
.
.
.
Notes
¹Rauch, Jonathan. Kindly Inquisitors. The University of Chicago Press. Paperback Edition, 1994: 52.
²Rauch, Jonathan. Kindly Inquisitors. The University of Chicago Press. Paperback Edition, 1994: 53.
³Rauch, Jonathan. Kindly Inquisitors. The University of Chicago Press. Paperback Edition, 1994: 55.
⁴Please note here considering the use of “truth,” a distinction could also be drawn between “truth” and “truths,” but the “s” could add considerable confusion, for suddenly “truths” seems more like “facts.” Pluralizing “truth” could be a mistake.
⁵Could a distinction be drawn here between “proved,” “proof,” “provable,” etc.? What is “proved” is that which is tied to necessity, and by definition that means it is based on something necessary (like facticity), but does that mean the “provable” is always based on necessity? It seems like it has to be in some sense, but then we could ask if “proven” and “experienced” are similes Perhaps not — perhaps I only “prove” something that I make “reasonably undeniable,” while I can “experience a truth” that is still “reasonably deniable.” But does that mean a difference is in that “truth is reasonably deniable” (coherent and unconfirmable), while “rationality is reasonable undeniable” (coherence and somewhat circular)? Is this highlighting “the problem of internally consistent systems?”
.
.
.
For more, please visit O.G. Rose.com. Also, please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
