Today scarce a moment goes by without us hearing the phrase ‘fake news’. A couple of decades ago a TV comedy show popularised the phrase “I don’t believe it!” Today a comedy quiz show goes by the name “Would I lie to you ?” A century ago a newspaper editor declared that ‘Opinions are free but facts are sacred.” Not long after, George Orwell warned that “Myths which are believed in tend to become true” and invented the slippery word ‘Newspeak.’
Since then, the emergence of the climate change that was initially described as a ‘theory’ later came to be shown to be a ‘fact.’ Meanwhile, some deny the ‘fact’ of climate change by saying that they rather like how the weather is getting better. And therein is a misconception.
And before, during and after all these examples, there has been the evolution of life on earth. Some say, ‘Ah! But evolution is just a theory. I believe in creation.’ To make matters worse, in our times we hear people say such things as “It’s true for me.” Or, “I’m living my truth.” What could that possibly mean ?

In this introductory seminar to the course we’ll begin examining the question of truth. What is truth and what makes something true ? Associated with this question are the issues of ‘fact’ and - what fact is often contrasted with - ‘value’. Sometimes, though, ‘fact’ is contrasted with ‘theory’, and to confuse more, we declare that we believe facts to be true and believe theories to be true. Enough to make the brain explode. So how can we untie this seemingly impossible knot ?

One approach is to see the confusion as largely a matter of defining words more carefully. We’ll call this a ‘language or linguistic approach.’ But we’ll soon see that whilst this may shine a light on the matter, there’s still more clarifying that needs to be done. A second approach is a ‘conceptual approach’, that is rather than just focus on definitions of the words, we look at the concepts (or organising ideas) behind each truth claim. (That last phrase - truth claim - is a good example of philosopher-speak. Why not just say ‘truth’, why add ‘claim’ ?).

In order to help us unpick these knots we can turn to some classic philosophers to help us. In this seminar we’ll discuss, inter alia [amongst other things] :

  • Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.

  • David Hume’s ‘An enquiry concerning human understanding.’ Section IV Sceptical doubts concerning the operations of the understanding.’