Truth is not that Pretty

Truth, in the eyes of a painter named Francois Lemoyne, was not George Washington admitting that he chopped down the apple tree.  In the eyes of Francois Lemoyne, truth was a startlingly white and slightly chubby woman with no clothes on.  Mind you, truth was not the nasty, all-sprawled-out type of naked girl.  Truth was the coy and shrinking away sort of naked.

I once wrote in a poem that “truth is finicky.”  I meant, of course, that truth may at times be a moving target.  I must tell you, that barely begins to define what I discovered when I drifted over to Wikipedia to read about truth.  Apparently, way back when humans were still roasting squirrels for dinner on sharpened sticks, the ever-present philosophers adopted truth as a favored subject of study and argument.    

As a side note, I would like to mention that philosophers have cleverly devised a way to make a living at universities by not agreeing about anything.  They call this “reasoned debate.”   I am not certain of the exact manner in which they connected a paycheck to argument, but I am very proud of them for doing so nonetheless.

I wish I had done that.

Over the years, philosophers have made a substantial mess out of truth.  In order to track their disorder, philosophers have created an array of truth “theories” to which various camps subscribe.  Some of the theories are termed “Substantive theories.”  Socrates, the famous Greek philosopher, espoused to subordinate theory now called “Correspondence” theory.  In this theory, you can assign truth to real stuff, as example a garden rake.  To illustrate, I might hold forth a rake and proffer the statement: “In truth, this is a garden rake.”  If I am actually holding a garden rake as I make the pronouncement—this is then a knowable truth and you may put me to work in your corn patch.  If, contrarily, I am holding a banana and I espouse that it is a rake, you may check to see if my eyes are dilated and then send me a paycheck in care the Philosophy Department at Hegman University.

More recent theories about truth often fit into the “Minimalist,” sometimes called “Deflationary,” category.  These theories are often difficult to decipher.  A great deal of study may be required.  As I read through the information provided on Wikipedia relative to deflationary reasoning on truth, I rather got the impression that truth was meaningless in this realm of perception.  I stopped reading about truth when I reached the following sentence written under the “Redundancy” theory:

            …making the assertion that “Snow is white is true” is equivalent to asserting that “snow is white.”

That stopped me cold in my tracks.  I thought and thought and thought.  The statement made so much sense it did not make any sense at all.  I decided right then and there that I need a new way to make a living. 

One other thing:  I actually think truth is cute enough and I would like to sleep with her.

 

--Mitchell Hegman