truth as objective and good

Blake Daniel Brown
Paths to Knowledge/Sr. Seminar
31 January 2009

Truth: What is the Case?

In True to Life, Michael Lynch discusses the concept of Truth. From the beginning he argues that our understanding of truth affects both our personal and our political lives. Without going any further into the book, I reflected on that opening statement. I contemplated what I took to be true beliefs that I had and considered their implications for my life and prima facie agreed with Lynch. Then I delved deeper into the text and he began to discuss the four truisms of truth. My red flags immediately went up and my highly skeptic side came to the fore. Truth is “objective,” “good,” “worthy of inquiry,” “worth caring about for its own sake”; I was concerned because of the many possible pitfalls I thought of concerning each proposition. But I was intrigued, so I read on (plus, it’s an assignment, and I value the “good” of successful and rigorous studentship). In this post, I will discuss truth as “objective”, and truth as “good.”
“Truth is objective.” When I first thought of the objectivity of truth, I couldn’t help but immediately think in absolutes and universals, so I was worried. Lynch apparently holds the same worries though so I was calmed. What I took away from his discussion of the objectivity of truth was essentially that truth is something against which we measure and value. Though we do not know in most any case what the case is absolutely or universally, we are capable of approximating, and it is against lower case “t” truth that we approximate. We are taught, for example, in mathematics that two and two is four. Based on justifiable reasons, i.e. mathematical laws and principles, we can assert and maintain that when two and two occur together, their sum is four. We can tell someone that they are incorrect if they maintain anything else to be the case. Even though we don’t know if universally two and two is four (because we do not have a universal [Godly] perspective) we can justifiably say that according to mathematical laws and principles that two and two is four.
So we conceptualize truth as objective in the sense of reference. Referring to x given principle, or to x justified principle, then y. I have no problem with this, for the most part. Briefly, my problem with this notion is it appears to be asserted on an ineffable ground. What does this mean? We know two and two to be four based on mathematical laws, which are based on what? Consensus; scientific rigor? Maybe my concern is unwarranted, and in many ways I see how my concern is not necessarily a live problem; like, I still maintain that two and two is four anyway. For now, I will let my problem rest and continue on.
Lynch then discusses truth as good. He asserts truth as good based upon the evaluative dimension it necessarily entails. Basically, we value wrong ideas/beliefs as “bad” and right ideas/beliefs as “good.” Lynch discusses that “good” and “bad” aren’t necessarily moral categories; they can be cognitive categories also. Two and two equaling five is a bad cognitive idea/belief. Why? Because in real life two and two do not equal five, and it could even cause harmful side effects to maintain this as the case. In engineering and construction, we must adhere to the “good” cognitive principles of mathematics; otherwise buildings may be improperly constructed, leading to a cave-in or something worse.
What I continue to struggle with in Lynch’s text, is upon what grounds are these truths asserted? Is there an epistemological category I am unaware of that makes possible these assertions? Do we base truth on our experiences of trying out hypotheses until we find one in accord the desired outcome? Is truth based on semantics? Whatever the answer may be, I am interested in further study of this text, and further considerations of truth.