Philosophy Truth Simplicity And Complexity Essay Research

Philosophy: Truth, Simplicity And Complexity Essay, Research Paper

Simplicity and Complexity

“Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:4).” This seems to be a very simple scripture talking about simple ideas. Children understand the little things that adults have a tendency to exasperate inherent truths. The Bible shows us that children understand right from wrong without trying to convince everyone that there might be a loop hole. Why is it that adults complicate matters so much.

In order for us to understand how the ancient philosophers have gone astray from simple concepts we must take a look at truth and their views on the complex idea. Do we ever come to an understanding of what truth is or is it still out there for people to wonder about.

Truth exists and is an absolute. Contrary to the mush-minded meanderings of modern educators, truth is not relative. If my truth differs from your truth that can only be because either one or both of us is unaware of the truth and has called something true which is not. Truth must not have the slightest touch of “maybe” to it. Maybe is dishonesty to truth and if it touches truth, then truth becomes maybe. Truth is more and beyond that which is true. Truth is a concept in philosophy that treats the meaning of true and the criteria by which we judge the truth or falsity in written and spoken statements. For thousands of years, Philosophers have attempted to answer the question “What is Truth.”

Truth is the quality of being true, and anything that is true is a truth, the concept of truth is uncommonly complex and variable. Thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and opinions are said to be true or false. An idea makes a truth claim and is true when the character of what is thought about upholds its claim. Forms of words or statements are also said to be true or false. This can be explained by saying a set of words is true when it expresses a true thought. “Truth” should be replaced by the “facts”, “reality” or the “way things are.”

Truth is often imagined as consisting in a speaker’s honesty with respect to what he believes. Mohandas Gandhi spoke of “The Absolute Truth, the Eternal Principle, that is God” and said, ” I worship God as Truth only.” Jesus said, ” I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.”

God is truth and the essence of it. All of his ways are truth and all truth stands or falls as it is measured against Him. If we love truth and seek after it, we cannot help but run into the outstretched arms of God. He wants us to know the truth, which is to know him.

God places the truth before us and gives us complete freedom to choose how to respond to the truth. If we turn to God and ask him to instruct us in the truth and to lead us to salvation, we will surely receive that which we ask because our prayer will be in line with God’s desire for us. The word truth is mentioned in the bible 235 times.

Plato developed an early version of the correspondence theory. He sought to understand the meaning of knowledge and how it is acquired. Plato wanted to distinguish between true and false belief. His theory was based on intuitive recognition that true statements correspond to the facts, while false statements do not. Plato recognized this theory as unsatisfactory because it did not allow false belief. Plato stated that if a belief was false because no fact proved it to be true, then it would be a belief about nothing, or not even a belief at all. He then thought that the grammar of a sentence could offer a way around this problem. But how, he asked, are the parts of a sentence related to reality. One suggestion is from the 20th-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He stated that the parts of a sentence relate to the objects they describe much like the way the parts of a picture relate to the objects pictured. But false sentences pose a problem. If a false sentence pictures nothing, there can be no meaning in the sentence.

The correspondence theory of truth is really no more than an expression of how the word “truth” is defined. Some criticisms focus on the limits of a problem that is involved in knowing whether or not a proposition does indeed agree with the facts. We clearly do classify propositions as true or false in everyday life, but we cannot securely do so on the basis of their conformity to reality.

William James defined the pragmatist theory of truth, as “an idea is ‘true’ so long as to believe it manifestly false.” It is obvious to any person that a proposition is either true or false separately of the utility of our belief in it. Pragmatist philosophers twisted the meanings of words, so we have to make logical sense of pragmatism. William James, qualified his attitude by saying that a proposition’s the premise of being true consists of being useful in the widest possible sense.

I believe that Locke and Hobbes could be considered pragmatist philosophers. Man has no innate ideas and that makes truth arbitrary. Mental manipulations of words would exist because ideas are innate. Basically there are no simple ideas and everything could have multiple meanings. Does that make sense to you. Lets look back at the first sentence of this paper, man should humble himself as a child. If Locke and Hobbes had done this they would be singing a different tune. Its too easy to use that a