A Truth-minimalist Reading of Foucault

That we have culturally acquired certain concepts and beliefs, that many concepts that refer to or impose social or cultural classifications have their origin in intended or unintended declarative speech acts, that the institutional facts they intentionally and unintentionally create have a contingent existence and that it is not always fully transparent to us that the facts so created are institutional facts, were Foucault's key insights in his early work. I argue that these insights can be fully articulated, explored and discussed with a minimalist conception of truth in mind. His observations anticipate current "rediscoveries" of those insights by analytic philosophers. A minimalist about truth holds that these insights do not require a revision of our ordinary concept of truth. The flip side of my argument is that Foucault and his followers should not have grounded his views in a substantial revision of the concept of truth. Truth is and has always been "a thing of this world"; his idiosyncratic reconceptualizations of truth are not needed to explore social dimensions of belief systems, the way social facts emerge and the relevance of genealogies.

Some Characteristics of the Referential and Inferential Predication in Classical Logic

In the article we consider the relationship of traditional provisions of basic logical concepts and confront them with new and modern approaches to the same concepts. Logic is characterized in different ways when it is associated with syllogistics (referential – semantical model of logic) or with symbolic logic (inferential – syntactical model of logic). This is not only a difference in the logical calculation of (1) concepts, (2) statements, and (3) predicates, but this difference also appears in the treatment of the calculative abilities of logical forms, the ontological-referential status of conceptual content and the inferential-categorical status of logical forms. The basic markers or basic ideas that separate ontologically oriented logic from categorically oriented logic are the (1) concept of truth, the (2) concept of meaning, the (3) concept of identity, and the (4) concept of predication. Here, this differences are explicitly demonstrated by the introduction of differential terminology. From this differential methodology follows a new set of characterizations of logic.

Bycie – nie bycie, prawda – fałsz w koncepcji Arystotelesa

The basis of Aristotle’s arguments about truth and falsity is formulated syntactically according to the distinctions of ‘to be’ as the predicative affirmation - composition and, correspondingly, ‘not to be’ as negation – separation. As the nominal defining characteristic of falsity is contradic­tion, so of truth is non-contradiction. The expression of truth or falsity in the declarative sentence of affirmation or negation is a function of thinking as a human cognitive disposition under the semantic figures of categorical predication. In addition, we cite Aristotle’s more important texts on the true intellection of non-composites (indivisibles), the inves­tigation of truth and probability, the diagnosis of falsehood, the truthful­ness and lying. Finally, a mention of modern adaptations of Aristotle’s concept of truth.

Names at the Tip of the Nose

The problem of naming is not just any philosophical problem but rather central to classical ontology. The latter depends on the notion of names (onomata) as latching onto things (pragmata) in their essential being. As such, the name has traditionally been tied to the concept of truth as adequatio or correspondence between knowledge and being, intellect and thing, or proposition and reality. The author proposes to cast a side-glance at this massive philosophical problem, approaching it from the singular point of view of smells and their striking relationship to language.

Revisiting Rorty’s Notion of Truth

This paper is intended to explore the Rorty’s notion of truth and its vicinity and divergences with Putnam’s notion of truth. Rorty and Putnam, both the philosophers have developed their notion of truth against the traditional representational notion of truth but their strength lies in its distinctive characterization. For Putnam, truth is the property of a statement which cannot be lost but the justification of it could be. I will also examine the importance of Putnam’s idealized justificatory conditions without which he may succumb to the charge of relativism at the same time how does Putnam overcome the tension between metaphysical and relativistic stances of truth. For Rorty, truth is not representational rather it is social, which means the justification for a true belief is not external but internal to the community of believers. I would further examine how Rorty tries to dispel the charge of relativism which is hard to overcome. Finally, I shall try to defend the concept of truth which is free from metaphysical baggage and relativistic threats; and in this enterprise Rorty walks half the way and Putnam completes the journey.

Joachim Lelewel’s methodological ideas

The main aim of this paper is to capture the essence of a Polish historian Joachim Lelewel’s methodological ideas and their philosophical underpinning. For this purpose, I analyse his publication entitled History: Its Branching and What It Is Based On, which has thus far been overlooked in research. I propose a new perspective on Lelewel’s work, taking into account his European inspirations in the field of historical theory and his tendency to combine the contradictory research approaches of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. I address topics related mainly to the theory of historical cognition, the subject of historical study, source criticism, the concept of truth, historical interpretation, methods of historical analysis and selected rhetorical principles.

Evidence and Truth

This chapter interrogates the traditional—but not universally accepted—view that trials aim primarily at determining the truth of disputed propositions of fact, and that evidentiary rules ought to promote the realization of that goal. Truth is said to be a prerequisite for “rectitude of decision”—an objective only realized when courts correctly combine substantive law with true facts. The author examines this view by addressing the following questions: what do we mean by “truth” in the present context? Is truth the aim of a trial? What other roles or functions might the concept of truth have? How is truth related to justice? If the trial is a system for ascertaining the truth, how should evidentiary rules be designed?

Truth in Nietzsche’s and Dostoevsky’s Philosophy: A Comparative Study

The German philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche is one of the most significant thinkers whose work immensely impacted modern intellectual history. Likewise, the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky is an influential figure whose philosophy and contribution to literature is also huge. However, there are common grounds that these two prominent figures share, especially with the fact that they were contemporaries and influenced each other. The aim of this paper is to explore the connection between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky in terms of the concept of truth. Nietzsche’s concept of ‘perspectivism’, which he proposes in some of his works, will be linked to Dostoevsky’s novel Notes from Underground to show how these two prominent figures share a common ground in this respect.

Pragmatist Truth in the Post-Truth Age

It is commonly believed that populist politics and social media pose a serious threat to our concept of truth. Philosophical pragmatists, who are typically thought to regard truth as merely that which is 'helpful' for us to believe, are sometimes blamed for providing the theoretical basis for the phenomenon of 'post-truth'. In this book, Sami Pihlström develops a pragmatist account of truth and truth-seeking based on the ideas of William James, and defends a thoroughly pragmatist view of humanism which gives space for a sincere search for truth. By elaborating on James's pragmatism and the 'will to believe' strategy in the philosophy of religion, Pihlström argues for a Kantian-inspired transcendental articulation of pragmatism that recognizes irreducible normativity as a constitutive feature of our practices of pursuing the truth. James himself thereby emerges as a deeply Kantian thinker.