Saturday, September 14, 2013

Truth and Falsity

Truth is applicable to such things as ironwork ("to make their ploughs so true depends much on the truth of the ironwork"), wheels ("allows the wheels to rotate with perfect truth and freedom"), doors ("that door is out of truth"), people ("truth-seekers," "truth-finders," and "truth-bearers," this latter is surely a candidate for the role of bearer of truth), love ("truth-tried love"), and to certain character attributes, for example, constancy ("the King had always known his subject's truth and fidelity to the crown of France"), and to pledges and covenants ("I'll give thee the truth of my right hand, the truth of it I'll free gie"). In architecture, it applies to such things as houses, palaces and buildings ("in the interior of the two houses of Pansa and Sallust...restored with great apparent truth" and "in truth and skill of modelling even the sculptures of Chartres and St. Denis surpass those of Wells"). In such applications, it suggests fidelity of purposes, or the absence of deceit or pretense.

Similar considerations apply to falsity, a concept which is "properly applicable" to such things as tragedies ("he forbade him to teach or act tragedies considering their falsity unprofitable"), gods ("Socrates was informed by it of the Falsity of the Heathen's gods"), hair ("this as Miss Williams said of her hair is all a falsity"), allies ("the falsity of his ally contributed to his fall"), and the list can be extended well beyond these examples.

Such examples not only show that many things can be the "bearers" of truth or falsity, but they also show the variety of thought and nuance to which the concepts of truth and falsity lend themselves....

[Avrum Stroll and Henry Alexander, "'True' and Truth", Philosophy of Science, vol 42, no 4 (December 1975) pp. 404-405.]