Today I worked from 12:45 to 5pm at the retail job. I am becoming more comfortable there with answering phones, getting items out of the back, helping customers with odd requests and things like that. After work I came home to my brother talking about a podcast where Sam Harris and Jordan B. Peterson have a 2 hour discussion about the meaning and application of the word truth. Sam believes that there are scientific facts that we call truths and Jordan believes that no matter the truth claim it must be put into a moral framework where it isn't "absolutely" true but merely "proximally" true. They go back and forth and I recommend listening to the entire thing if you like epistemology or semantics or you enjoy somewhat tedious philosophical conversations in general. You can watch the Youtube of it here.
My brother and I talked about what the word "true" means and how it isn't as simple as one might think. There are facts but facts can be overturned and what are the use of facts without a moral framework to guide where we search for and what we "should" do with facts. Is there an ultimate "truth" and if so how do we recognize it when we see it or can it truly be known at all? Jordan seemed to want to reserve the use of the word "truth" only for instances that can be argued that the consequence of that truth is beneficial to humans in a Darwinian or Pragmatic fashion. Sam seemed to be arguing that for the sake of conversation one has to grant a certain amount of "truth" to statements based on their scientific validity and accuracy and that it isn't necessary to look at every truth claim as a representation of a greater truth that can only be revealed by examination of the outcome toward humans.
For example: 2 + 2 = 4. That is either true or false (or unknown) but it doesn't seem to require an examination of higher moral truths to accept and even if humans did not exist wouldn't this be true? Maybe not. Maybe it is impossible to examine any statement without presupposing that a human is involved in some stage of its conceptualization, from thinking it to communicating about it and so on.
For example: The dog is blue. This statement is either true or false (or unknown) and it does not contain any moral content at all. It isn't good or bad that the dog is or isn't blue. So if the dog is blue then a rational person should accept the statement "The dog is blue" is simply true.
For example: It is immoral to steal. This is a moral statement and I think it is either true or false (or unknown) based on the moral framework that one uses to asses its validity. I think Sam would argue that there is a way to do this scientifically but I think he would also say that there may be holes in the scientific explanation that need to be filled in with reason, logic, and philosophy. He might also add that some subjective or "spiritual" considerations might be made in order to understand the statement's validity. What I gather from the podcast is that Jordan B. Peterson would say that the statement is either true or false based on whether or not it leads to an outcome that suits the survive-ability of the individual and the species. He might also say that this statement is void of context and therefore it is unrealistic to take it seriously as a case worth discussing. He might ask, "Who stole, why did they steal," or "what lead to them stealing" and such questions in order to assess the underlying truth of the statement and I don't think he is wrong to ask those questions.
I think Jordan is right in not capitulating to Sam when Sam brings up thought experiments that require a lot of presuppositions and I think real world examples would probably have been more useful here but I also think Jordan knows what Sam means when Sam explains what he means by "true" in a scientific or fact based way. I also think that Jordan came into the conversation with a desire to explain his underlying basis for morality and to disabuse Sam of his "materialist" metaphysics but in getting bogged down in the analysis of one term (Truth) he was not able to fully express his arguments against materialism and the limitations of science. Especially the limitations of science to illuminate moral truths.
I think that the word "truth" can have a few different meanings and sometimes, for the sake of conversation, we accept one meaning in order to both further the conversation and because the meaning behind the word is known by both parties. When Sam talks about smallpox he is talking about the scientific truth relating to biological facts but when Jordan hears Sam talk about smallpox he questions the truth that underlies why smallpox is being studied. Some of the confusion in the conversation, from my perspective, is the lack of consistency when Jordan agrees that some things are true but also claims that those truths may not "really" be true when one looks at the bigger picture. A picture that one may never have the opportunity to see.
I think that they both are very intelligent and that the term they discussed for so long is actually a fairly complicated concept. I think that it would have been interesting to have them move onto another topic and see what happens when the word "true" comes up or they might have agreed to try not using the term until they can agree on it's proper use for the purpose of their current conversation. Then they would have been forced to use other terms like "scientific fact" or "empirical fact" or "evil" instead of using true. No matter what they end up talking about I hope they talk more and put it out to the world for me to listen to. I hope it starts good conversations and leads to even better arguments.
These are not all my thoughts but they certainly are some of them.
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