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| The label '''consensus theory of truth''' is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. This makes it reasonable to ask whether there is any such thing as ''the'' consensus theory of truth at all, in other words, whether there is ''one'' single principle that |
The label '''consensus theory of truth''' is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. This makes it reasonable to ask whether there is any such thing as ''the'' consensus theory of truth at all, in other words, whether there is ''one'' single principle that the various approaches have in common, or whether the phrase is being used as a catch-all for a host of unrelated positions. | ||
| As of this writing, there does not seem to be much consensus as to what a consensus theory of truth is or ought to be! | As of this writing, there does not seem to be much consensus as to what a consensus theory of truth is or even ought to be! | ||
| Someone who understands the everyday meanings of the words, 'consensus, 'theory', 'truth', and who hears them put together in this way for the first time, may reasonably think that the phrase refers | Someone who understands the everyday meanings of the words, 'consensus, 'theory', 'truth', and who hears them put together in this way for the first time, may reasonably think that the phrase refers | ||
Revision as of 20:10, 21 December 2005
The label consensus theory of truth is currently attached to a number of otherwise very diverse philosophical perspectives. This makes it reasonable to ask whether there is any such thing as the consensus theory of truth at all, in other words, whether there is one single principle that the various approaches have in common, or whether the phrase is being used as a catch-all for a host of unrelated positions. As of this writing, there does not seem to be much consensus as to what a consensus theory of truth is or even ought to be!
Someone who understands the everyday meanings of the words, 'consensus, 'theory', 'truth', and who hears them put together in this way for the first time, may reasonably think that the phrase refers to some such idea as that the truth is nothing but whatever the majority believes. However, most philosophical traditions that use the phrase consensus theory of truth would have something more complicated and qualified than that to say for themselves.
Often, the consensus theory of truth is considered to have been originated by Charles Sanders Peirce (though he didn't use the phrase) who called it pragmatism, and later pragmaticism; his thoughts appeared to be that a statement is true if it would be agreed to by all those who investigate it if investigation were carried sufficiently far in that particular direction. For example, if the consensus would be that the sky is blue, then the claim "the sky is blue" is considered to be true. The consensus theory of truth is currently advocated by Jürgen Habermas. In Habermas's version of the theory, truth is not dependent on actual consensus. Rather, it is what would be agreed to by all investigators who followed principles of equal, undistorted, unconstrained communication and adopted a discursive orientation, i.e. an attitude of stepping outside of beliefs taken for granted in everyday life and willing to investigate the validity of truth claims, which would include the criteria currently available to the scientific community for investigating a mind-independent reality. This is a situation of communication and investigation very different from most that prevail in everyday life. Thus in Habermas's consensus theory of truth, the pragmatic meaning of a truth claim is that it could be verified or made good in a discourse oriented toward rational consensus. Its validity is unaffected by any actual consensus about at arrived under conditions of distorted communication in everyday life. This theory has been strongly criticized by the philosopher Nicholas Rescher.
It should be noted that in contemporary philosophy, the notion of truth has sometimes been broadened to that of validity, on the grounds that different types of statements (e.g. descriptive, normative) have different kinds and conditions of validity, with truth applying only to descriptive statements or assertions about states of affairs in the world. This also can involve, as in the case of Habermas, an extention of the consensus theory of truth to other kinds of validity. For example, moral principles may be right or wrong rather than true or false, but the same sort of consensus validation may apply to their rightness or wrongness as would apply to the truth status of a descriptive statement. Thus Habermas's consensus theory of truth is really a consensus theory of validity, of which truth is just one case.
Consequence
Note that, if we work from the view that there exist mind-independent realities, and that people are seeking to know these realities, then it is possible in principle for everyone to agree but be mistaken about the facts. Thus, on the assumption that there are mind-independent realities, a purely empirical form of the consensus theory of truth would imply that a statement can be true even if it fails to describe reality. For example, if all who investigate "The center of Venus is molten copper" are destined to accept it, then it is "true" on the consensus theory even if they are all wrong about the fact of the matter. Peirce would deny that if investigation were carried sufficiently far that all who investigate would agree upon this.
Objections & Responses
- Objection: An objection to the theory is that it presupposes that for every possible statement, investigators are destined eventually to agree about it one way or the other. But this seems dubious: It has been argued, for example, that statements of beauty or morality do not lend themselves to such consensus.
- Response: This objection is mistaken. The presupposition would only stand if it were assumed that all statements must have a truth value: Maybe Peirce would agree that statements like "She is beautiful" are not necessarily truth-holding statements.
- The consensus theory of truth as defined is certainly in accord with such a response: As we can never agree as to whether or not "she is beautiful", the statement cannot be said to be true. But we cannot state that the counter-thesis ("she is not beautiful") is true either, otherwise we could come to an agreement about the first statement. Therefore, at least implicitly, Peirce states that according to the consensus theory of truth, not all statements can be assigned a truth value.
Not to be confused with...
The consensus theory of truth should not be confused with either subjectivism — the claim that what is true is whatever one happens to believe, or relativism — the belief that what is true is whatever is accepted by one's culture or community.
See also
In arts and literature
References
- Kirkham, Richard. Theories of Truth. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. Chapter 3 has a good description of Peirce's theory.
- Habermas, Jürgen. Truth and Justification. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.
- Rescher, Nicholas. Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.