Correspondence View Of Truth In D&C 93:24?

[zerinus]

What Zerinus does not say is that when all that is said and done, the theory of truth left after that correction to allow personal "revelation" to be a justified mechanism to achieve what can be called "knowledge" is no longer a correspondence theory, but I think he implies that.

The philosophical formulations of correspondence theory defines what truth is; they do not define how it is known. Adjusting the theory to incorporate the element of "knowability" into it does not cause it to stop being a correspondence theory.

The philosophical formulations of the theory fail in the face of the most serious criticism because they ignore, or are unaware of, the spiritual aspects of truth and knowledge. In the spiritual sphere truth is identified, or associated, with light, which is immediately discernible and knowable without the intermediary of a "cognition". In the natural world we "know" things by a series of deductive and inductive logical steps, which is what in that article is called a "cognition". In the spiritual sphere, truth is not known in that way. It is "seen," spiritually speaking, as it is. To search for truth in the spiritual sphere is like shining a light in a dark room to look for something. The brighter your light, the better and quicker are your chances of finding what you are looking for. That is the process of receiving revelation. It is possible to develop that gift to the point that you can know anything you want to know. Joseph Smith had developed that gift to a very high degree, and that is how he received his revelations. The philosophers are not aware of that aspect of knowledge, therefore they are not able to defend the correspondence theory against its most serious criticism.

[mfbukowski]

The philosophers are not aware of that aspect of knowledge, therefore they are not able to defend the correspondence theory against its most serious criticism.

...And therefore render correspondence as a useless way to look at truth

With that added, I think we actually agree.

[Brade]

I've come to believe that Mormons ought to be pragmatists about truth, as mfbukowski is, and give up common sense notions of the meaning of 'true', 'truth', etc. I don't use 'common sense' derogatively here. I think mfbukowski's view is, as he says, well enough supported by Alma 32 and perhaps other statements on the nature of truth by Mormon authorities.

mfbukowski, I would sincerely like to understand how you resolve apparent contradictions like the following. If believing that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Michael the Archangel' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehovah' works in Bob's life, then it's true that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Michael the Archangel' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehovah'. On the other hand, if believing that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Jehova' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Michael the Archangel' works in Tom's life, then it's true that Jesus is one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehova' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Michael the Archangel'.

I hope you accept that I don't mean any hostility by the question, and I hope you can respond to the question in the same spirit.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Brade

[CV75]

...And therefore render correspondence as a useless way to look at truth

Am I following this?

Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come, and:

Knowledge is subjective experience, so:

Truth is subjectively experiencing reality, and:

(According to Alma), “what is real” is found “in here” (not “out there”), so that:

God, who is real, is experienced from within and:

His revelations, doctrines, covenants, testimonies, ordinances, etc. are His observable means to prompt and train mortal beings to experience the internal, immortal world, meaning:

The mortal experience is a tool of immortal experience to bring about advancement in the latter (or advancement in experiencing what is real), and:

God is revealed through means external to the individual, but He can only be experienced internally, making:

The revelations about the truth not being the same as the truth itself.

[cdowis]

This analogy may be useful.

We are riding on a train and have limited movement in our particular coach. We have little or no awareness of what is "outside" the train -- we have some awareness of the "outside"(quantum physics) and events in the universe but they are little understood.. As far as we can conceive of reality, the train only moves forward, not back or sideways.

[zerinus]

...And therefore render correspondence as a useless way to look at truth

With that added, I think we actually agree.

Well thank you for your comment, but I don't agree. The correspondence theory still remains the most correct way of looking at the truth. The fact that modern revelation underpins that theory and makes it more intellectually robust, does not render the theory itself redundant. I fail to see the logic of that argument. How can something that bolsters a theory make it redundant?

[Cobalt-70]

Well I think that is an arguable point at best.

http://plato.stanfor...rrespondence/#1

I think it is a tad older than you think it is.

What the Stanford encyclopedia is addressing is the fact that, in the 20th century, some philosophers looked back and (mis)read Plato's or Aristotle's writings as being Correspondence texts. But to say that Plato and Aristotle were proto-Correspondence ontologists is presentism. It would be just about as easy to go back and (mis)read Plato and Aristotle in support of almost any other modernist flavor of truth, be it coherentist, pragmatist, or relativist. This exercise is no more theoretically sound than the practice of every Evangelical preacher trying to read his own modern political views within the sayings of Jesus.

[mfbukowski]

I've come to believe that Mormons ought to be pragmatists about truth, as mfbukowski is, and give up common sense notions of the meaning of 'true', 'truth', etc. I don't use 'common sense' derogatively here. I think mfbukowski's view is, as he says, well enough supported by Alma 32 and perhaps other statements on the nature of truth by Mormon authorities. mfbukowski, I would sincerely like to understand how you resolve apparent contradictions like the following. If believing that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Michael the Archangel' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehovah' works in Bob's life, then it's true that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Michael the Archangel' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehovah'. On the other hand, if believing that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Jehova' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Michael the Archangel' works in Tom's life, then it's true that Jesus is one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehova' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Michael the Archangel'. I hope you accept that I don't mean any hostility by the question, and I hope you can respond to the question in the same spirit.

Good question, no hostility intended.

If those are his beliefs, he should found a church which believes that, or start one himself.

That wasn't too hard was it?

[Cobalt-70]

I take it to mean more that he sees correspondence as inadequate and that the implicit theory of truth Joseph was advocating- which arguably is similar to the Swedenborgian view also propounded by William James- both of which affirm that in certain ways, revelation is a "valid" way of knowing certain kinds of truths, that this implicit theory was what correspondence was missing as a theory of truth.

Phew. That was a long sentence. In other words, correspondence does not allow a mechanism for revelation to be rationally justifiable, but Joseph's view, Swedenborg's view, and James' view correct this central flaw in correspondence.

What Zerinus does not say is that when all that is said and done, the theory of truth left after that correction to allow personal "revelation" to be a justified mechanism to achieve what can be called "knowledge" is no longer a correspondence theory, but I think he implies that.

At least that was my understanding of what he said.

I disagree that Joseph Smith had a theory of "truth." Rather, he had a theory of "knowledge," which was basically a mystical theory. To Smith, according to D&C 93:24, truth was a derivative of knowledge, which in turn was a form of magical illumination. None of this has anything whatsoever to do with the correspondence theory of truth. I could just as easily (mis)read the esotericism of D&C 93 as a coherence theory modified by mysticism, than as a correspondence theory modified by mysticism.

This is how my (mis)reading would go. Keep in mind that this is a deliberate misreading, so don't take it seriously:

1. Smith believed that Jesus was the true light that illuminates every person (D&C 93:2).

2. There is only one Jesus, and this Jesus is the source of everything that is, and is the repository for the whole of all truth (v. 26).

3. Because Jesus is one, and Jesus is the spirit of truth, "all truth may be circumscribed into one great whole" (to quote David O. McKay).

4. Because all truth can be circumscribed within a grand whole (i.e., the spirit of Jesus), all its parts must be coherent.

5. Therefore, Joseph Smith revealed the coherence theory of truth in 1833.

[mfbukowski]

Am I following this? Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come, and: Knowledge is subjective experience, so: Truth is subjectively experiencing reality, and: (According to Alma), “what is real” is found “in here” (not “out there”), so that: God, who is real, is experienced from within and: His revelations, doctrines, covenants, testimonies, ordinances, etc. are His observable means to prompt and train mortal beings to experience the internal, immortal world, meaning: The mortal experience is a tool of immortal experience to bring about advancement in the latter (or advancement in experiencing what is real), and: God is revealed through means external to the individual, but He can only be experienced internally, making: The revelations about the truth not being the same as the truth itself.

Yep, By Jove, I think he's got it!

Remember the word "revelation" really has two meanings, one means the subjective experience of receiving a revelation ( a feeling, a vision, burning in the bosom etc) and the other meaning of the word includes linguistic characterizations of some other person's experience of revelation.

So when we read Isaiah, we read the author's (whoever that was) linguistic characterizations of what he thought/felt/saw/whatever written in his language several thousand years ago, translated umpteen times and perhaps revised marginally, redacted, chopped, and reconstituted by hundreds of generations of scholars and then seen through our eyes which are culturally vastly different than the author's.

It's kind of like the relationship between a clucking chicken and a chicken nugget. Some resemblance but not much!

What is "the moon"? Is it:

"That cold-hearted orb that rules the night,

and removes the colors from our sight,

so red is grey and yellow white

but we decide which is right

And which IS an illusion". - Moody Blues

a linguistic, poetic characterization, or the scientific characterizations of it's mass, velocity, composition, etc?

Which is the "true" view of the moon?

It is both and neither. Both descriptions serve their purpose in their contexts.

The revelations about the truth not being the same as the truth itself

That is true about all linguistic expressions of revelation, or all linguistic expressions. I would put it differently. I would say:

"Language or sentences about something are not the EXPERIENCE itself".

There is a gap there which can never be bridged. There was a philosopher named Wittgenstein who was arguably a mystic; he called that gap the "unspeakable", because literally, like the taste of salt or the color of red, when it comes right down to it, the experience can never "be put into words".

[mfbukowski]

What the Stanford encyclopedia is addressing is the fact that, in the 20th century, some philosophers looked back and (mis)read Plato's or Aristotle's writings as being Correspondence texts. But to say that Plato and Aristotle were proto-Correspondence ontologists is presentism. It would be just about as easy to go back and (mis)read Plato and Aristotle in support of almost any other modernist flavor of truth, be it coherentist, pragmatist, or relativist. This exercise is no more theoretically sound than the practice of every Evangelical preacher trying to read his own modern political views within the sayings of Jesus.

I missed that part of the article. Could you show me where it says that? Or are you disagreeing with the article?

[mfbukowski]

This analogy may be useful.

We are riding on a train and have limited movement in our particular coach. We have little or no awareness of what is "outside" the train -- we have some awareness of the "outside"(quantum physics) and events in the universe but they are little understood.. As far as we can conceive of reality, the train only moves forward, not back or sideways.

I once was cruising in a 747 at 40000 feet on a cross-country trip, and suddenly became aware of a fly buzzing around the cabin, doing his usual fly-business just as if he was NOT flying 600 miles an hour at 40000 feet.

And there I sat, thinking about how smart I was compared to the fly, not being aware that I was just about as dumb about what was "real" as he was.

[mfbukowski]

Scientific fact:

Pluto is a planet

[Cobalt-70]

A pragmatic theory of truth sees language as an instrument used for specific purposes, so there is a scientific context for speaking about things, a religious context for speaking about things etc. Alma 32 reflects a pragmatic theory of truth and is indeed a pretty good explanation of it. When we exercise faith, or try a principle, we get back "feedback", find out that the principle works for us, and become "justified" in believing the principles we have tried.

I disagree that Alma 32 has anything to do with the pragmatist theory of truth. The chapter does not argue that truth is what "works." Rather, it argues that a "perfect knowledge" of The Truth (in an absolute sense, apparently) may be obtained through a mystical experiment.

[Cobalt-70]

I missed that part of the article. Could you show me where it says that? Or are you disagreeing with the article?

The article says, "The correspondence theory is often traced back to Aristotle's well-known definition of truth...." I don't disagree at all with that fact. But it is only modernists who are doing this "tracing" and hoping that the rest of us will take them seriously.

[mfbukowski]

The article says, "The correspondence theory is often traced back to Aristotle's well-known definition of truth...." I don't disagree at all with that fact. But it is only modernists who are doing this "tracing" and hoping that the rest of us will take them seriously.

So it's a conspiracy by modernists? They have gotten together and decided to revise the history- or are you saying that the article misstates the history?

[mfbukowski]

I disagree that Alma 32 has anything to do with the pragmatist theory of truth. The chapter does not argue that truth is what "works." Rather, it argues that a "perfect knowledge" of The Truth (in an absolute sense, apparently) may be obtained through a mystical experiment.

Ok

I disagree. I think most here would agree with me, but that doesn't have much relevance really.

[CV75]

"Language or sentences about something are not the EXPERIENCE itself".

There is a gap there which can never be bridged. There was a philosopher named Wittgenstein who was arguably a mystic; he called that gap the "unspeakable", because literally, like the taste of salt or the color of red, when it comes right down to it, the experience can never "be put into words".

Cool! (and thank you for the reply even though it isn’t exactly about what to properly call this approach to truth).

Taking this a step further, I might say that “mortal/temporal experience” is the “language or sentences” about “immortal/eternal experience” and not the “unspeakable/indescribable” immortal experience itself (reality).

The scriptures, the rites and so forth that God reveals as part of our mortal experience can be easily seen and shared between people no matter how spiritual they are. They are not eternal in and of themselves, but they are designed to introduce us to and familiarize us with the immortal experience. The link between experiencing the two is faith, and perhaps more fundamentally, the light of Christ. Personal revelation, conversion, and becoming one with God are part of the immortal experience and cannot be fully shared through the language of mortal experience because they are not temporal in nature.

To me, this all supports how plan of salvation shows how we needed to gain the mortal experience in order to obtain the full immortal experience that God enjoys.

[mfbukowski]

I've come to believe that Mormons ought to be pragmatists about truth, as mfbukowski is, and give up common sense notions of the meaning of 'true', 'truth', etc. I don't use 'common sense' derogatively here. I think mfbukowski's view is, as he says, well enough supported by Alma 32 and perhaps other statements on the nature of truth by Mormon authorities.

mfbukowski, I would sincerely like to understand how you resolve apparent contradictions like the following. If believing that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Michael the Archangel' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehovah' works in Bob's life, then it's true that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Michael the Archangel' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehovah'. On the other hand, if believing that Jesus is one and the same person as the Bibical character called 'Jehova' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Michael the Archangel' works in Tom's life, then it's true that Jesus is one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Jehova' and is not one and the same person as the Biblical character called 'Michael the Archangel'.

I hope you accept that I don't mean any hostility by the question, and I hope you can respond to the question in the same spirit.

I just re-read this and maybe I did not give you a very good answer before. I think that you were asking "If these people have different ideas of what is true, we cannot determine from their statements which really IS true", or something like that.

Is that what you were looking at? Who is actually "correct" in their beliefs?

A consequence of a pragmatic point of view, is that we cannot determine from the data, which of these is correct.

I see even asking the question is a sort of category mistake, like asking "Is it true that courage is red or blue? Surely it cannot be both!"

Religious beliefs are not justified by objective evidence, but by subjective evidence- what works for an individual, to make their lives better according to what they define as "better".

I personally believe that IN PRINCIPLE there IS a "correct" (objectively correct, observable) answer to whether or not Jesus is the same person as Michael or not, but that answer is in principle not knowable, except by perhaps revelation- which is subjective and possible the revelation reports may differ from person to person. It is similar to knowing with certainty that there exist species which as yet are unknown, but exactly what they are is unknowable.

So the question becomes more "What beliefs are justified"? rather than "What propositions are true"? I think that this question is important for both religion and for science- since science is also is more concerned with justification that with truth.

Is light a wave or particle? Which is "true"? Is Michael the same person as Jesus? Which is "true"? The answer to both depends on your purposes in asking the question and which set of "data" you choose to use.

Edited December 29, 2011 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Cool! (and thank you for the reply even though it isn’t exactly about what to properly call this approach to truth).

Taking this a step further, I might say that “mortal/temporal experience” is the “language or sentences” about “immortal/eternal experience” and not the “unspeakable/indescribable” immortal experience itself (reality).

The scriptures, the rites and so forth that God reveals as part of our mortal experience can be easily seen and shared between people no matter how spiritual they are. They are not eternal in and of themselves, but they are designed to introduce us to and familiarize us with the immortal experience. The link between experiencing the two is faith, and perhaps more fundamentally, the light of Christ. Personal revelation, conversion, and becoming one with God are part of the immortal experience and cannot be fully shared through the language of mortal experience because they are not temporal in nature.

To me, this all supports how plan of salvation shows how we needed to gain the mortal experience in order to obtain the full immortal experience that God enjoys.

[Vance]

WOW!!!

What an interesting thread I missed during the holidays.

Thanks to Bowman for getting it started and to all contributors.