Part 2: What is truth?
Dan wrote:...which brings us to the second type of secular objection to Mormonism: The critics' basis for criticizing Mormonism on intellectual grounds, saying that it is untrue, is unsure, and its coherence needs to be demonstrated.
In meeting Dan's challenges, I think it is more helpful to deal with truth/falsity first, before moving on to morality. I'd also like to remind everyone based on how Dan framed his criticisms in the essay, the only burden we have to meet is to show a consistent model, not one that is superior to all other models.
I propose that truth is merely the linguistic representation of how the world really is. We can model this idea like this:
s is true if and only if p
For s we put a specification of a sentence(by quotation) and for p we get the sentence itself, so:
"Darth J is a man" if and only if Darth J is a man.
This is called disquotation because the right hand side of the sentence is the same as the left but the quotes are gone. The right hand side lays out the condition that is satisfied if the left hand side is true. In jargon, these are often called, "T sentences," but we need to tweak this criterion a bit, so as to allow for subtle distinctions between indexical statements and propositions.
First we need a name for those satisfied conditions and we'll call those facts. Second, we also require a verb for all the ways a sentences relate to those facts, we'll call that correspond. So with that in mind:
For any s, s is true if and only if s corresponds to the fact that p.
Now I'd like to quote the summary of John R. Searle's summary and defense of Correspondence theory of truth from his The Construction of Social reality:
John Searle wrote:1. "True" is the adjective for assessing statements (as well as, e.g., beliefs, that like statements have the mind-to-world or word-to-world direction of fit). Statements are assessed as true when they are trustworthy, i.e., when the way they represent things as being is the way that things really are.
2. The criterion of reliability is given by disquotation. This makes it look as if "true" is redundant, but it is not. We need a meta linguistic predicate for assessing success in achieving the word-to-world direction of fit, and that term is "true"
3. The assignment of "true" to statements is not arbitrary. In general, statements are true in virtue of conditions in the world that are not parts of the statement. Statements are made true by how things are in the world that is independent of the statement. We need general terms to name these how-things-are-in-the-world, and "fact" is one such term. Others are "situation" and "state of affairs."
4. Because statements determine their own truth conditions and because the term "fact" refers to that in virtue of which statements are true, the canonical way to specify the fact is the same as the way to specify the statement, by stating it. This specification requires a whole clause; hence, both statements and facts are specified propositionally, "the fact that..." and "the statement that...," but facts are not thereby linguistic in nature.
5. Because the identity of the fact is dependent on the specific features of the fact being the same as those specified by the corresponding statement and in virtue of which the corresponding statement is true, it is false to suppose that the context "the fact that p" must preserve identity of reference under the substitution of logically equivalent sentences for p.
6. What about the substitution of coreferring expressions? In some cases, substitution of coreferring expressions can preserve identity of fact. Because Tully was identical with Cicero, then intuitively, the fact that Tully was an orator is the very same fact as the fact that Cicero was an orator. Why? Because exactly the same state of affairs in the world makes each statement true, and "fact" is defined as that which makes a statement true.
But in general, substitution of coreferring definite descriptions does not yield reference to the same fact. Intuitively, the fact that Tully was an orator is a different fact from the fact that the man who denounced Catiline was an orator. Why? Because the latter fact requires that someone have denounced Catiline for it's existence, and the existence of the former fact has no such requirement.
7. Facts are not the same as true statements. There are several ways to demonstrate this. Here are two. First it makes sense to speak of facts functioning casually in a way it does not make sense to speak of true statements functioning causally. Second, the relation of a fact to statements is on-many since the same fact may be stated by different statements. For example, the same fact is stated by "Cicero was an orator" and "Tully was an orator."
8. Wherever there is disquotation there are also alternative ways of describing or specifying the facts. Thus the true statement "Sally is the sister of Sam" corresponds to the fact that Sally is the sister of Sam, but there are further things to be said, e.g., that Sally is female, and that Sally and Sam have the same father and mother. Many philosophical disputes are about the structure of facts, and in general these issues go far beyond dispuotation. For example, the philosophical disputes about color, and other secondary qualities, are about the nature of the facts that correspond to such claims as that this object is red, and the analysis of such facts require more than disquotation.
So there it is. Let's take a look at the rest of his comment on this:
Dan wrote:However, on a completely secularist, naturalistic view, it seems that "thoughts" are really merely neurochemical events in the brain, able (in principle, at least) to be described by the laws of physics. But the laws of physics are deterministic...
He's conflating Naturalism with Physicalism this time. but taking EA's observations in to account, I'll let it be. It still annoys me that he'd demand his opponents to know his faith and religion better if they kept making simple categorical mistakes.
Dan wrote:...such that, if "thoughts" are merely physical, it is unclear how we can really say that a conclusion follows from premises. Why? Because any given brain state seems to be causally determined by the preceding brain state. And it is hard, moreover, to see how the neurochemical condition of the brain can have a relationship of either truth or falsity with the atmosphere of a distant planet—or, for that matter, with anything else. A lump of cells is neither true nor false. It is not "about" anything else. It just is.
What ever point Dan was trying to drive home here, really loses its force by lack of explanation. How can a purely physical and completely material brain not have a relationship with truth or falsity but a brain with non-physical and indeterministic features have that relationship? What is preventing a conscious that is purely physical from distinguishing true state of affairs from false state of affairs?
