Week 2: Truth Claims and Value Claims (lecture one)

[Cole]

Hey everyone, local nutcase here,

Is a truth claim really clearly distinguished from a value claim? From my notes from this week’s first lecture (reading question c), “We can recognize we are dealing with a truth claim and not a value claim when the claim cannot be both true and false, or, put another way, two people in disagreement as to the truth of a claim cannot both be right. We can also imagine evidence that would settle disagreement as to the truth of the claim. Value claims on the other hand hinge on a judgement of quality, and is thus a matter of degree, dependent on the author’s criteria.”. Let’s look at the example of the claim “the sun moves around the earth”. At first look, we see it to be a truth claim, as there is no visible quality (words like good, right, important) on which the judgement hinges. So, let’s see if the claim has to be true or false with no grey area and cannot be both. So, it is claimed, “the sun moves around the earth”, I step outside my window to verify with reality and say this claim is true, an astronaut looks out his window to verify with reality and says this is not true. Uh,oh it looks like we are both right, but perhaps we are just being annoyingly deep like in the lectures “It’s raining example” and just need to be more clear with the claim. We need to just agree on or imagine what would qualify as acceptable evidence (i.e. we move from failed 1a to 1b truth claim distinction). Okay, let’s say, “The sun moves around the earth if it can be seen outside” (note: a truth claim does not need to be true to be a truth claim ). Implicit in the claim is that the earth’s movement is defined by our perspective on earth. But that’s okay, we are not concerned with whether such criteria itself is right, we find our answer to truth claims by comparing it with reality . But wait! We did this before when the astronaut and I each compared the claim to reality and got us all mixed up to begin with. There we found reality did not agree, we got both true and false answers, and got confused as to whether “the sun moves around the earth” could be considered a truth claim. So we changed what was acceptable evidence of reality. But in doing so we have now made our claim hinge on what is acceptable evidence. In a way we came full circle, where our criteria became reality and reality our criteria. Is it not now seen that our “truth claim” hinges on our criteria the same as value claims? Are we not looking for consistency in the criteria of the author of the claim, as in value claims? In what way is our truth claim thus to be distinguished from a value claim? Are truth claims just relatively towards the more certain or consistent side of value claims, criteria we can assume most would agree on? Have I lost my marbles? Obviously I hopped off the tracks in my thoughts somewhere along the way. My gut tells me somehow it is probably something like all truth claims are value claims, but not all value claims are truth claims and I’m missing something. Any help would be appreciated.

Cole

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Cole,

Just wait until we muddy this all a bit in the next two weeks as we discuss Plato and then Heidegger. Until then…

The simple answer is to make note of your key point about the need for clarity and then include the limitations of perspective…

So, first, like the rain example, when we ask the author what they mean by “The sun moves around the earth”? They must surely mean that “the earth is still relative to the sun and the sun moves in orbit around it.” And then we can definitively say that the person is mistaken due to their limited perspective. The sun only looks like it is orbiting the earth, because their viewpoint is spinning, making it look like the sun moves relative to them, when really the viewer is moving. So, their claim is a truth claim. It either orbits around the earth or doesn’t, and we can imagine a God’s eye view that could settle it.

Whereas if we make the claim more esoteric, say, “The sun moves in the sky from my vantage point on the earth”. Then, we would need more clarity to see what would make it true or false. So, we could ask them:

“Are you claiming that it ‘looks like’ it is moving or are you saying that the sun actually moves across the sky relative to the earth?”

Both are truth claims. The first claim is true…and just a claim about what they see. Similar to a claim like distant objects appear smaller than they are. The second is false.

And in the background of this is the way people often commit deceptive wordplay to skirt around taking their claims seriously. You know, it is like the person who says, “God exists”. But when you press them on what they mean so that you can see how it could be verified, their conception is empty of reality. They really mean something like “God is this feeling I have that everything is going to be alright”. Okay, fine, so their claim actually comes down to whether that feeling exists or not. I’m getting dizzy now. People are weird.

Jeff

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 3 days ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[Cole]

Just wait until we muddy this all a bit in the next two weeks as we discuss Plato and then Heidegger. Until then…

Oops I don’t want to be the guy asking to many questions during the movie, hate that guy!, just keep watching and see! That said, thank you, this was helpful and I’ll just throw out my immediate thoughts so I can come back later and see how my thinking has changed after learning more.

“And then we can definitively say that the person is mistaken due to their limited perspective. The sun only looks like it is orbiting the earth, because their viewpoint is spinning, making it look like the sun moves relative to them, when really the viewer is moving. So, their claim is a truth claim. It either orbits around the earth or doesn’t, and we can imagine a God’s eye view that could settle it”

So does this mean truth claims are differentiated from value claims or are only possible through verification/pre-supposition of a perspective-less view?

“They must surely mean that “the earth is still relative to the sun and the sun moves in orbit around it.””

Even so I still think “the earth is still relative to the sun and the sun moves around it” would be true for the earth viewer, and false for the astronaut. There is an inherent relation to the relation for both that defines the relation for them. We can only assert the earth man is wrong by accepting new/specific criteria for orbiting. I think we could say that assuming you somehow have the exact same perspective as someone else (“who what where when why” kind of thing?) you could not both disagree as to the truth of the claim. But to me this starts sounding an awful lot like judging the claim by consistency in relation to the criteria (value claim) not agreement with “reality” (truth claim).

“You know, it is like the person who says, “God exists”. But when you press them on what they mean so that you can see how it could be verified, their conception is empty of reality. They really mean something like “God is this feeling I have that everything is going to be alright”. Okay, fine, so their claim actually comes down to whether that feeling exists or not. I’m getting dizzy now. People are weird.”

I think I can see how one may treat something as possibly a truth claim but not that I could ever know it is a truth claim. I feel like “reality” in “agreement with reality” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in differentiating truth claims from value claims.

Excited to learn more,
Cole

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

But notice that they are disagreeing about whether the claim is true or false, based on their perspectives. This still makes it clear that these are truth claims. Value claims are a different beast, because they allow for matters of degree. These claims about the movement of celestial objects are yes or no issue, not judgments of quality.

In other words, perspectives are different than subjective criteria. With truth claims, once the proper perspective is understood, then the claim is either true or false from the vantage point. This is different than two authors have different criteria for their values.

An example: That table looks narrow and pink from this angle and in this light, but it looks wider and red from this angle and in this light. Given those perspectives we can asses whether those descriptions are accurate. And then we can ask about the actual shape and color of the table from above and in bright, white light. Colors and shapes are objective qualities that, once defined, can be settled by evidence. Whereas if we were asking if this is a “good” or “beautiful” table, then our authors could disagree and both be right, because their disagreements aren’t about the objective qualities, but about the values of those qualities in how each judges goodness and beauty. Gus thinks a practical and durable table is good and beautiful, whereas Sue prefers fragility and fashion in her furniture.

[Cole]

“But notice that they are disagreeing about whether the claim is true or false, based on their perspectives. This still makes it clear that these are truth claims. Value claims are a different beast, because they allow for matters of degree. These claims about the movement of celestial objects are yes or no issue, not judgments of quality.”

Ah okay I think I get it now, truth claims have accepted perspective or meaning. In the claim “That table looks narrow and pink from this angle and in this light” we can always assume the exact same real meaning for anyone for all time, making it a truth claim. The claim must be always be true or false (only one), and

any discrepancy in conclusion between persons would mean they did not make the same claim as the original

. The claim sets a standard that requires a true or false, and we wait for “reality” to give the answer.

The claim “this is a good and beautiful table” is a value claim if we don’t assume good and beautiful to have a specific real meaning or truth. In regards to one table, Gus and Sue can disagree what good and beautiful mean, and thus be right or logically consistent, by their own meaning/perspective even if it is not true. We assume no true meaning to “good and beautiful” and thus they are each making their own separate claim, and we judge the two claims on their own grounds for consistency. If we assumed specific or true meaning/perspective of “good and beautiful”, the value claims would become a single truth claim, and Gus and Sue could no longer differ in perspective and both be right, a different perspective would just be a different claim.

In other words truth claims attend to a single specific claim that can be made true by “reality”, value claims are claims constrained to be logically consistent with their author. I think I get it although they still kind of feel like stances to be taken on claims. I think you could take “this is a good and beautiful table” as a truth claim and “That table looks narrow and pink from this angle and in this light” as a value claim, one need only have a certain idea what good is in case one, thus compare reality and find it true or false, and an uncertain idea of what pink is in case two thus it becomes a debate as to the authors definition of pink and consistency. Obviously though, from a common sense standpoint, I assume some level of perspective agreement is possible, especially in regards to something like color over the beautiful, so if someone looks at the table near my angle and says “nope not pink, false” I’ll say you must be in the wrong spot before I start a discussion on to how they view pink, and for that reason the distinction is “common sense” if not so black and white to me upon deliberation. Or maybe I am still just a nutcase and the distinction is really clear and simple.

[Author]

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