Assignment No. 2 in Logic


Read the chapter “Truth and Falsehood” in Bertrand Russell’s Problems of Philosophy. A printed copy of the same will be given to you two weeks before the deadline of submission. Russell advances the “correspondence” theory of truth. On this theory, truth is understood in terms of the way reality is described by our beliefs. A belief is false when it does not reflect states-of-affairs, events, or things accurately. In order for our beliefs to be true, our beliefs must agree with what is real. Note that the correspondence theory is not concerned with the discovery of truth or a means for obtaining true belief because the theory, itself, cannot establish the nature of reality.

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the difference, if any, between Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle and Russell’s law of contradiction? Why can’t logical principles such as these support the coherence theory of truth?

2. Russell writes:
Thus, for example, it is possible that life is one long dream, and that the outer world has only that degree of reality that the objects of dreams have; but although such a view does not seem inconsistent with known facts, there is no reason to prefer it to the common-sense view, according to which other people and things do really exist. How would a coherence theorist attempt to refute this objection?

3. If Russell is correct about the nature of truth, then why can’t truth be dependent on the mind? Why would subjectivism be mistaken on his view?

4. Russell notes that truth and falsity are not mind-dependent except in this case:
They create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where they concern future things which are within the power of the person believing, such as catching trains.

Does Russell’s view concerning intentional action contradict Aristotle’s position on “future truths” as expressed in the reading selection, “The Sea-Fight Tomorrow”? How would you relate this view to William James’ genuine option theory?


Reference:
Reading for Philosophical Inquiry: A Brief Introduction to Philosophical
Thinking ver. 0.21; An Open Source Reader
by Lee Archie
by John G. Archie
Version 0.21 Edition
Published January, 2004
Copyright © 2004 by Lee Archie; John G. Archie


Note: You can also access this article on the internet. Use your common sense.
Deadline of submission is on 31 August 2010, 11:59PM (as usual).


15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Warren Patiño
BSCS IV

what is TRUTH by Bertrand Russell?

> Russell advances the correspondence theory of truth in the chapter Truth and falsehood in his Problems Of Philosophy. On this theory, truth is understood in terms of the way reality is described by our beliefs. It says there that, a belief is false when it does not reflect states-of-affairs, events, or things accurately. In order for our beliefs to be true, our beliefs must agree with what is real. Remember, that the correspondence theory is not concerned with the discovery of truth or a means for obtaining true belief because the theory, itself cannot establish the nature of reality.
.
. . A belief is true when there is corresponding fact, and is false when there is no corresponding fact.

Anonymous said...

jennifer S. Magno
BSCSII

1) The Principle of excluded middle or excluded middle is the principle that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is. The principle can be expressed in either a logical or a semantical form. The semantical form uses the non-logical word "true", as above. The logical form uses only logical expressions "either", "or"[1] and can be expressed by the formula "P ∨ ¬P": "either P or not P", where "P" is schematic
Two propositions are coherent when both may be true, and are incoherent when one at least must be false. Now in order to know whether two propositions can both be true, we must know such truths as the law of contradiction. For example, the two propositions, 'this tree is a beech' and 'this tree is not a beech', are not coherent, because of the law of contradiction. But if the law of contradiction itself were subjected to the test of coherence, we should find that, if we choose to suppose it false, nothing will any longer be incoherent with anything else. Thus the laws of logic supply the skeleton or framework within which the test of coherence applies, and they themselves cannot be established by this test.
2) The most important attempt at a definition of this sort is the theory that truth consists in coherence. It is said that the mark of falsehood is failure to cohere in the body of our beliefs, and that it is the essence of a truth to form part of the completely rounded system which is The Truth.Thus coherence as the definition of truth fails because there is no proof that there can be only one coherent system. that truth consists in some form of correspondence between belief and fact. It is, however, by no means an easy matter to discover a form of correspondence to which there are no irrefutable objections.
3) Thus although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, yet they are in a sense extrinsic properties, for the condition of the truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or (in general) any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief. A mind, which believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving the mind, but only its objects. This correspondence ensures truth, and its absence entails falsehood. Hence we account simultaneously for the two facts that beliefs (a) depend on minds for their existence, (b) do not depend on minds for their truth.
4) It will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood. They create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where they concern future things which are within the power of the person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief true is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.
Having now decided what we mean by truth and falsehood, we have next to consider what ways there are of knowing whether this or that belief is true or false. This consideration will occupy the next chapter.

Anonymous said...

jennifer S. Magno
BSCSII

1)The Principle of excluded middle or excluded middle is the principle that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is. The principle can be expressed in either a logical or a semantical form. The semantical form uses the non-logical word "true", as above. The logical form uses only logical expressions "either", "or"[1] and can be expressed by the formula "P ∨ ¬P": "either P or not P", where "P" is schematic
Two propositions are coherent when both may be true, and are incoherent when one at least must be false. Now in order to know whether two propositions can both be true, we must know such truths as the law of contradiction. For example, the two propositions, 'this tree is a beech' and 'this tree is not a beech', are not coherent, because of the law of contradiction. But if the law of contradiction itself were subjected to the test of coherence, we should find that, if we choose to suppose it false, nothing will any longer be incoherent with anything else. Thus the laws of logic supply the skeleton or framework within which the test of coherence applies, and they themselves cannot be established by this test.
2)The most important attempt at a definition of this sort is the theory that truth consists in coherence. It is said that the mark of falsehood is failure to cohere in the body of our beliefs, and that it is the essence of a truth to form part of the completely rounded system which is The Truth.Thus coherence as the definition of truth fails because there is no proof that there can be only one coherent system. that truth consists in some form of correspondence between belief and fact. It is, however, by no means an easy matter to discover a form of correspondence to which there are no irrefutable objections.
3)Thus although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, yet they are in a sense extrinsic properties, for the condition of the truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or (in general) any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief. A mind, which believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving the mind, but only its objects. This correspondence ensures truth, and its absence entails falsehood. Hence we account simultaneously for the two facts that beliefs (a) depend on minds for their existence, (b) do not depend on minds for their truth.
4)It will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood. They create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where they concern future things which are within the power of the person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief true is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.
Having now decided what we mean by truth and falsehood, we have next to consider what ways there are of knowing whether this or that belief is true or false. This consideration will occupy the next chapter.

Docallos,Leah said...

ANSWER:

1.Actually the Aristotle's law and the Russell's law of contradiction is just the same there is a positive(+) and negative(-)
The reason why can't logical principles such as these support the coherence theory of truth I think it's because there is no proof that there can be only one Coherent system.There is no reason that only one coherent belief is possible.
2.I think the reason why it because we must understood that reality is described by our belief and in order for our belief to be true we must agreed with what is real.
3.Truth cannot be dependent on the mind as he said two facts that belief is depend on their existence.Judging or believing is a certain unity of mind.
4.The second one facts belief is that do not depend on minds for their truth because mind do not create truth or falsehood.

Anonymous said...

Warren Patiño
BSCS IV

1. In logic, The law of excluded middle, also known as the Principle of excluded middle or excluded middle is the principle that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is. The principle can be expressed in either a logical or a semantical form. The semantical form uses the non-logical word "true", as above. The logical form uses only logical expressions "either", "or"[1] and can be expressed by the formula "P ? ¬P": "either P or not P", where "P" is schematic, while, the law of contradictories is such that if one contradictory is true the other is false and vice versa, for nothing can be simultaneously true and false.
- logical principles such as these can't support the coherence theory of truth for the reason that it believes that the“Truth in its essential nature is that systematic coherence which is the character of a significant whole.
2. In philosophy, again, it seems not uncommon for two rival hypotheses to be both able to account for all the facts. Thus, for the given example,according to coherence theorist, though, coherence as the definition of truth fails because there is no proof that there can be only one coherent system.The other objection to this definition of truth is that it assumes the meaning of “coherence” known, whereas, in fact, “coherence” presupposes the truth of the laws of logic. Two propositions are coherent when both may be true, and are incoherent when one at least must be false. Now in order to know whether two propositions can both be true, we must know such truths as the law of contradiction.
3. Truth can't be dependent on the mind co'z according to Russell in his book WHAT IS TRUTH?, that though truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, yet they are in a sense extrinsic properties, for the condition of the truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or in general any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief. A mind which believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving the mind, but only its objects.This correspondence ensures truth, and its absence entails faleshood. Hence, we account simultaneously for the two facts that beliefs:depend on minds for existence, but do not depend on mind for their truth. What makes a belief true is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.
- subjectivism has been mistaken on his view due to the reason that, Russell believes that mind cannot make beliefs true or false except in special cases that soley depends within the power of the person believing.
4. No, on this view, sentences concerning future contingencies according to Aristotle involve possibility.Yet, there is more to the story when the question of future truths is related to the metaphysical presuppositions when "actuality" and "potentiality" used in a logic system and Russel's view on the intentional action is just the same.
-according to James whatever the outcome, when some hypotheses of ultimate concern arise,if we do not choose, we lose any possibility for meaningful encounters because our faith pragmatically shapes future outcomes.

Anonymous said...

Jhonel Saplan BSIT-II

1. As I read the article of Beltran and Aristotle law of contradiction actually its has same ideas it has negative and positive ideas. In my observation Aristotle has his own way how to proof that the statement if it’s true or not. In Beltran’s law he make some proof that his act is fact
2. In this example you can make a sense when the object has a proof to be a fact but when the fact has no proof it can called as a false. When you see that there is a proof that is the only way that the object is true or the law is truth. For example theory has no proof so it may not be a truth
3. sometimes truth is not depend on the mind of a person it may be depend on the situation of the ground or in our background. It may be depend on our mind but probably in the mind of many people. Why truth not depend on the mind? My answer is it is possible that your mind only thinks for the subject matter but your mind can’t have proof when it only thinks for the subject what is the meaning of the truth its has a proof
4. It because our mind can think a future movement and it can create belief but never create an truth or a falsehood.

Anonymous said...

Jomar Preclaro

1. we read the law of Beltran and Aristotle you can find out that there is similarities in their laws…
2. the theory has it’s proof it can be called a truth but if it’s don’t have it is a falsehood
3. this view mind can only think a theory not a truth because our mind cant process automatically
4. mind create only a theory because what I answered on 3 we cant make a truth if there is no proof of our subject

Anonymous said...

Ruby O. Cabanilla
ACT-2

1.)The difference between Aristotle and Russell's law, According to Aristotle that one thing can be true if you prove that it is really true like in his saying that something which is that it is.And also one thing can be false like something which is that, in this case you've notice that it is real but it not.While according to Russell's law it is correspondence theory of truth. Truth is understood in terms of the way reality is described by our belief. A belief is false when it does not reflect state-of-affairs, events, or things accurately. Our belief must be true when it agree with what is real.
2.)Objection to the Coherence Theory of truth, the first one is there is no reason to suppose that only one coherent body of beliefs is possible.The coherence as the definition of truth fails because there is no proof that there can only one coherent system. The other objection to this definition of truth is that it assumes the meaning of coherence known, in fact, coherence presupposes the truth of the laws of logic. And, Yes!, I agree that there is possible that life is one long dream but we need to find a proof that it is true. A coherence cannot be accepted as giving the meaning of truth, through it is often a most important test of truth after a certain amount of truth has become known.
3.)The truth can't be dependent on the mind because it is simultaneously for the two facts that beliefs are depend on minds for their truth. If the beliefs exist it will stay in our mind.
4.)The truth and falsity are not mind-dependent because once a belief was happen either at the present or in the future it is true while if the belief does not exist it become falsity but it depends upon the person who believes. Belief is just created by the past that still notice up to the present. Makes truth a property of belief but makes it a property wholly dependent upon the relation of the belief to outside things.

Rowena said...

Rowena A. Sison

BSBA

1. There is no difference between Aristotle’s law of excluded middle and Russell’s law of contradiction. For classical logic, excluded middle follows from the Law of Contradiction. Every proposition is either true or not true. Law of Excluded middle says that every statement is either true or false. There is nothing in between. It’s also known as completeness- a complete logical system is one in which this law holds. When combined with consistency- assumption that truth doesn’t contradict itself. This gives us a powerful tool.

2. Thus coherence as the definition fails because there is no proof that there can be only one coherent system. Two propositions are coherent when both may be true, and are in coherent when one at least must be false.

3. A mind which believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving the mind, but only it’s objects. This correspondence ensures truth, and it’s absence entails falsehood. Belief defends on minds for their existence and do not defend on minds for their truth. If there is a corresponding fact it is true, false when there is no corresponding fact.

4. It doesn’t contradict in Aristotle’s position on" future truths". Aristotle’s concludes that sentences about the future do not quality as being statements at all since, strictly speaking they have no truth value- hence, the all- important law of the excluded middle is not in question. On this view sentences concerning future contingencies involve possibility. In William James view his belief was somewhere in between a theism and atheism, a new metaphysics, a radical empiricism, a “pure experience” where the fundamental stuff of the universe is neither mind nor matter. Where matter itself has “conscious” although less than the human mind.

Anonymous said...

Rowena A. Sison

BSBA

1. There is no difference between Aristotle’s law of excluded middle and Russell’s law of contradiction. For classical logic, excluded middle follows from the Law of Contradiction. Every proposition is either true or not true. Law of Excluded middle says that every statement is either true or false. There is nothing in between. It’s also known as completeness- a complete logical system is one in which this law holds. When combined with consistency- assumption that truth doesn’t contradict itself. This gives us a powerful tool.

2. Thus coherence as the definition fails because there is no proof that there can be only one coherent system. Two propositions are coherent when both may be true, and are in coherent when one at least must be false.

3. A mind which believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving the mind, but only it’s objects. This correspondence ensures truth, and it’s absence entails falsehood. Belief defends on minds for their existence and do not defend on minds for their truth. If there is a corresponding fact it is true, false when there is no corresponding fact.

4. It doesn’t contradict in Aristotle’s position on" future truths". Aristotle’s concludes that sentences about the future do not quality as being statements at all since, strictly speaking they have no truth value- hence, the all- important law of the excluded middle is not in question. On this view sentences concerning future contingencies involve possibility. In William James view his belief was somewhere in between a theism and atheism, a new metaphysics, a radical empiricism, a “pure experience” where the fundamental stuff of the universe is neither mind nor matter. Where matter itself has “conscious” although less than the human mind.

Anonymous said...

SUBA JHONEVA ANN L.
ACT II

1.Philosophers are interested in a constellation of issues involving the concept of truth. A preliminary issue, although somewhat subsidiary, is to decide what sorts of things can be true. Is truth a property of sentences which are linguistic entities in some language or other, or is truth a property of propositions non linguistic, abstract and timeless entities? The principal issue is: What is truth? It is the problem of being clear about what you are saying when you say some claim or other is true. The most important theories of truth are the Correspondence Theory, the Semantic Theory, the Deflationary Theory, the Coherence Theory, and the Pragmatic Theory.

2.Eliminate materialism is the position that common-sense psychology is false and that beliefs and desires, like witches and demons, do not exist. One of the most popular criticisms of this view is that it is self-refuting or, in some sense, incoherent. Hence, it is often claimed that elimination is not only implausible, but necessarily false. Below, I assess the merits of this objection and find it seriously wanting. I argue that the self-refutation objection is at best a misleading reformulation of much more mundane objections to elimination and that, contrary to its advocates' endorsements; it adds nothing of genuine interest to the debate over the existence of prepositional attitudes.

3.The main reason for accepting subjectivity is that it provides a simple, common-sensual explanation of what morality is. Human beings and to varying degrees other sentient creatures have certain desires. Among other things, we desire things that are pleasant and avoid things that are painful. As social animals, we also have feelings of empathy, and thus to some extent have unselfish desires. Morality is, at root, merely an expression of the attitudes we have as a result of such feelings. But attitudes are neither true nor false.

4.When some hypotheses of ultimate concern arise, if we do not choose, we lose any possibility for meaningful encounters because our faith pragmatically shapes future outcomes.

Unknown said...

Enrique Jose Suday
BSIT III

1.Law of excluded middle
There are some who, as we said, both themselves assert that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, and say that people can judge this to be the case. And among others many writers about nature use this language. But we have now posited that it is impossible for anything at the same time to be and not to be, and by this means have shown that this is the most indisputable of all principles. Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one.
“We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is impossible, if our opponent will only say something; and if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one who cannot give an account of anything, in so far as he cannot do so. For such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a vegetable.
Contradiction.
Proofs by contradiction are not exclusive to classical logic. For example, weak reductio -- proving the negation of a proposition A by assuming A and exhibiting a contradiction -- is intuitionistically justified. Constructively, to prove the negation of A one has to build a witness of the type A->F where F is a distinguished type with no constructors. Strong reductio -- proving A by contradiction with the assumption of NOT A -- is equivalent to the implication NOT NOT A -> A, or ((A->F)->F) -> A. This implication is equivalent to the law of excluded middle (LEM) (which can be shown by negating the law of contradiction) and is certainly not intuitionistically or constructively justified.

2.The statement have a sense, if the statement is true or have a proof the fact could be true that is the law of truth. But if the statement is not true or don’t have proof that could be false.

3. because are mind only thinks about the subject but we dont have any proof, but if we thinks what is the meaning of the subject we have proof.

4. All people makes only a statement or a theory that is not true. or maybe its true. unless we have a proof to prove that its true.

Anonymous said...

Magno, jay-ar S.
BSIT - III

1. The principle that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is. The principle can be expressed in either a logical or a semantical form. The semantical form uses the non-logical word "true", as above. Where he says that of two contradictory propositions (i.e. where one proposition is the negation of the other) one must be true, and the other false. He also states it as a principle in the Metaphysics book 3, saying that it is necessary in every case to affirm or deny, and that it is impossible that there should be anything between the two parts of a contradiction.

2. In the sense in which truth is correlative to falsehood. If we imagine a world of mere matter, there would be no room for falsehood in such a world, and although it would contain what may be called 'facts', it would not contain any truths, in the sense in which truths are thins of the same kind as falsehoods. In fact, truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood.

3. Because the truth is having the proving, before you believe you need to justified it. It can be a mistake if you not sure or it can be true of your certain proving.

4. It will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood. They create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where they concern future things which are within the power of the person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief true is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.

Anonymous said...

Magno, jay-ar S.
BSIT - III

1. The principle that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is. The principle can be expressed in either a logical or a semantical form. The semantical form uses the non-logical word "true", as above. Where he says that of two contradictory propositions (i.e. where one proposition is the negation of the other) one must be true, and the other false. He also states it as a principle in the Metaphysics book 3, saying that it is necessary in every case to affirm or deny, and that it is impossible that there should be anything between the two parts of a contradiction.

2. In the sense in which truth is correlative to falsehood. If we imagine a world of mere matter, there would be no room for falsehood in such a world, and although it would contain what may be called 'facts', it would not contain any truths, in the sense in which truths are thins of the same kind as falsehoods. In fact, truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood.

3. Because the truth is having the proving, before you believe you need to justified it. It can be a mistake if you not sure or it can be true of your certain proving.

4. It will be seen that minds do not create truth or falsehood. They create beliefs, but when once the beliefs are created, the mind cannot make them true or false, except in the special case where they concern future things which are within the power of the person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief true is a fact, and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.

Anonymous said...

Charmaine M. Sauz ACT-II

1.According to Aristotle he says that “to say something which is that it is not or to say something which is not that it is, is FALSE however, to say something which is that it is or to say something which is not that it is not is TRUE” while according to Russell’s Law of contradiction he says that “Thus a belief is true when there is a corresponding fact, and is false when there is no corresponding fact”. I think the two principles have their own point of view. The reason why it can’t be logical principles such as these support the coherence theory of truth because there is no proofs that these two principles are true or effective.

2.I don’t believe that life is one long dream because if life is just a one long dream we can do things that we can’t do. We can make impossible things be possible. I think this objection tells us that we can only say that a certain thing is true or possible when it has a proof and when a certain thing has no proof then we can say that it is false or impossible to happen.

3.A mind, which believes, believes truly when there is a corresponding complex not involving mind, but only its objects. I think truth doesn’t always depend only on the mind because like what he said that the two facts that beliefs depend on the minds for their existence, do not depend on minds for their truth. The truth also depends on the situation itself if there is a proof or evidence.

4.It’s true that truth and falsity are not mind-dependent because when you say truth there is an evidence or proof. You can say that when a certain thing happens on the past or present the we can say that it is true.

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