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CHAPTER SIX: TRUTHCHAPTER SIX: TRUTH

P H I L O S O P H YP H I L O S O P H YA TEXT WITH READINGSA TEXT WITH READINGS

1212thth EDITION EDITIONManual VelasquezManual Velasquez

Chapter 6: “Truth”Chapter 6: “Truth”

Outline of Topics in Chapter 6Outline of Topics in Chapter 6

• 6.1 Knowledge, Truth, and Justification

• 6.2 What is Truth?

• 6.3 Does Science Give us Truth?

• 6.4 Can Interpretations be True?


What is Truth?What is Truth?

• In different situations in real life we seem to believe truth means different things and is established in different ways: Truth may be– (1) what gets us what we want;– (2) what fits with our other beliefs and meanings;– and (3) what corresponds with what is “out there” in

the real world.


Three theoriesThree theories

• The three aforementioned viewpoints line up with three formal theories of truth which the chapter will consider:– The pragmatic theory says that our beliefs are true

when they work, i.e., when they get us what we want. – The coherence theory says that a belief is true when it

fits with our other beliefs and meanings. – The correspondence theory says that a belief is true

when it corresponds with what is “out there” in the real world.


Knowledge as Knowledge as Justified True BeliefJustified True Belief

• What do we mean when we say we know something like, “I know my friend Tom is sitting next to me”?

• Or, in formal terms, what does “’I know that p” mean?

• Traditionally, it means three things:– We have to believe that p.– Our belief in p has to be justified, warranted or backed

up by sufficient evidence.– Our belief in p has to be true.


Is That All There is?Is That All There is?• Is having a justified true belief sufficient for

having knowledge, or does knowledge involve something more?– Suppose that John has never made a mistake. Today

he plans to buy some low-fat milk at the store. By mistake, he incorrectly tells his friend Sam that he intends to buy whole milk. Later, when John goes to the store (still planning to buy low-fat milk), he accidentally picks up a container of whole milk. Not realizing his mistake, he pays for the milk and leaves the store. Imagine that you ask Sam whether he knows what kind of milk John bought at the store?


What Does Sam Know?What Does Sam Know?

• If Sam were asked this, he would say that he knows that John bought whole milk. • Notice that Sam is indeed justified in thinking that

John bought whole milk. • It also is true -- though by accident -- that John bought

whole milk. • So, Sam has a justified true belief. • Nevertheless, we would all agree that Sam doesn’t

really know that John bought whole milk, because Sam’s belief was based on a falsehood.

• This is an example of a Gettier problem .


JustificationJustification

• Gettier problems indicate that not all forms of knowledge can be identified with justified, true belief.

• This raises a second question: what is justification? Note that…– While on the one hand, justification and truth are not

the same.– Nevertheless, on the other hand, justification and truth

are related: the reasons that justify a belief should make it probable that the belief is true.


Making Sense of JustificationMaking Sense of Justification• Factual, scientific and mathematical beliefs seem

to require different forms of justification.– Factual beliefs are justified by observations and other

forms of empirical evidence– Scientific beliefs are justified by appealing to the best

explanation.– Beliefs in mathematics and other a priori disciplines

are justified by appealing to a priori grounds.

• Some philosophers have appealed to the distinction between basic and nonbasic beliefs to make sense of justification.

CHAPTER SIX: TRUTHjustification CHAPTER SIX: TRUTHjustification

Basic vs. Nonbasic BeliefsBasic vs. Nonbasic Beliefs

• Basic beliefs are not justified by, or inferred from, other beliefs we have.– Examples of basic beliefs include “I’m feeling a pain,”

“I seem to see something red,” and “A is A.”

• Nonbasic beliefs are justified by and inferred from other beliefs we have. – I know it’s raining outside because I hear a pitter-

patter sound and I believe that when I hear that sound it means it’s raining.


Two Theories of JustificationTwo Theories of Justification

• The basic/nonbasic distinction lhas led many philosophers to conceive of justification along foundationalist lines.– Nonbasic beliefs are justified by appealing to basic

beliefs, i.e., beliefs that are part of knowledge’s foundation.

• Other philosophers have rejected foundationalism in favor of coherentism.– There are no justifying basic beliefs: knowledge is a

coherent web of mutually reinforcing beliefs.


FoundationalismFoundationalism

• Philosophers such as Descartes, Locke and (more recently) Rudolph Carnap, argue for foundationalism based on the assumption that if nonbasic beliefs are justified, they can be justified only by appealing to basic beliefs.– Otherwise, there would be an infinite regress of

beliefs and so no grounding for any of our beliefs.

• Basic beliefs can be brute observational facts such as “Red Here now,” or a priori beliefs such as Descartes imagines “I think, I am”


CoherentismCoherentism

• Philosophers such as Wilfrid Sellars (1912-1989) argue that no belief is really basic, i.e., immediately known or given.– Sellars points out that even sentences like “red here

now” requires mastering culturally-based color terms.– He generalizes his point, arguing that foundationalists

are in the grip of the “myth of the given,” the assumption that we are given pure, unmediated knowledge

• Sellars and other philosophers recommend replacing foundationalism with coherentism.


The Web of BeliefThe Web of Belief

• Coherentists argue that beliefs are justified if they fit into a coherent system of consistent, mutually supportive beliefs, like a system or web. – My existing beliefs that I know to be true form a

mutually reinforcing system.– New beliefs that not fit into the system of beliefs

(e.g. they contradict other beliefs) are not justified for you to accept the new belief.

– The web is dynamic, new beliefs can be introduced and old beliefs discarded.


An ObjectionAn Objection

• One problem with coherentism is that it leaves open the possibility that all our beliefs could mutually support each other when all of them were in fact false.– As in the case of the beliefs of the characters in a

fictional novel, which form a mutually supportive web of beliefs about a world that does not exist.

– The objection, however, assumes that fictional worlds are intended to portray literal worlds.

– It also appears to assume a correspondence theory of truth – which the next section of the text examines.


6.2 What is Truth?6.2 What is Truth?• Yves Winkin’s comment on the Dutroux

Commission Report makes a number of assertions about the nature of truth, including:– Truth is relative: Whether a statement is true depends

on who makes the statement– There is no such thing as the truth about any

nontrivial claims.

• Philosophy both agree and disagree with these claims. We’ll begin by looking at the correspondence theory of truth which strongly disagrees.


The Correspondence TheoryThe Correspondence Theory

• The most popular theory of truth is the correspondence theory which says that truth is an agreement or correspondence between a proposition and some fact in the real world.– The statement “I’m typing on the computer” is true if

and only if I am actually in fact typing on the computer.

• The theory assumes that there is a real world of facts whose existence does not depend on our beliefs, thoughts, or perceptions, and to which our statements can correspond.


Russell’s Correspondence Russell’s Correspondence TheoryTheory

• Russell claims that the truth or falsity of a belief does not depend on the nature of the belief itself, but on something “outside the belief.”

• Truth is a relationship between the belief and things in the world outside the belief.

• In other words, truth is a “correspondence between belief and fact.” (406)


What Correspondence MeansWhat Correspondence Means• Russell offers an account of what he means by

“correspondence”; that is, what it means to say that a belief “corresponds” to a fact.– He argues that a belief corresponds with the facts

when its objects or object terms corresponds to the order of facts in the world.

– Russell calls the constituents or parts of a belief its “objects” or “object-terms.”

• For example, in the belief that Booth shot Lincoln the objects are Booth, shot, and Lincoln.


In Russell’s WordsIn Russell’s Words

• “We may restate our theory as follows: If we take such a belief as ‘Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio’, we will call Desdemona and Cassio the object-terms, and loving the object-relation. If there is a complex unity ‘Desdemona’s love for Cassio’, consisting of the object-terms related by the object-relation in the same order as they have in the belief, then this complex unity is called the fact corresponding to the belief. Thus a belief is true when there is a corresponding fact, and is false when there is no corresponding fact.” (406)


A Puzzle About A Puzzle About CorrespondenceCorrespondence

• If we assume that the “objects” of a belief are more or less equivalent to the words of the sentence that expresses the belief, it’s unclear whether it makes good senses to talk about correspondence :– Words are related to one another in a quite different

way from facts and events in the world.– How can the people, Desdemona and Cassio, be

related to each other in the same way that words are related to each other?


Russell’s AssumptionRussell’s Assumption• Russell seems to assume that beliefs or

sentences are like pictures.– A picture is an accurate representation of a scene

when the parts of the picture are related to each other in the same way that the parts of the scene are related to each other.

– Similarly, a belief is true when its parts are related to each other in the same way that the parts of the corresponding fact are related to each other.

– But the whole trouble with this approach is that beliefs and sentences are not pictures of things; they are not even remotely like pictures.


Challenges to the Challenges to the Correspondence TheoryCorrespondence Theory

• One serious shortcoming of the correspondence theory is it assumes we are able to determine when our beliefs match a reality that is external to ourselves. – However, many philosophers claim that we have no

direct access to an “external world.”– Our only access to an external world is through the

information our senses provide.– Thus, we have no way of knowing whether that

information is accurate because we cannot get beyond our senses to check out the external world.


What is a Fact?What is a Fact?

• Another criticism centers on the notion of fact: What is a fact?– It seems impossible to define the fact to which a true

statement is supposed to correspond without using the true statement itself.

– Some correspondence theorists respond to these accusations by claiming that fact means the same as “actual state of affairs,” however, it is unclear whether this really escapes the problem.


Searle’s ResponseSearle’s Response

• John Searle answers these criticisms by first conceding that there is no way to say what fact a proposition expresses other than by using the proposition itself and then claiming that this does not mean that correspondence is false. – The importance of the notion of fact is that it tells us

that what makes a proposition true is some specific set of conditions in the real world.

– The word ‘fact’ lets us say that it is something about the real, independent world that makes the proposition true.


Tarski’s DefinitionTarski’s Definition

• To avoid the problems with notions such as “correspond” and “fact,” Alfred Tarski (1901-1983) developed a version of the theory that does not use these words.– He argues first that truth is a property of sentences. – Second, a sentence is true when things are as it says

things are. • For example, the Latin sentence “Nix est alba,” which says

that snow is white. So, the Latin sentence “Nix est alba” is true if and only if snow is white.


Tarski on TruthTarski on Truth

• Here’s a formal statement of Tarski’s definition:– For any language L, any sentence S in language L,

and any statement p that states the conditions that make S true in language L: The sentence S in language L is true if and only if p. (410)

• Notice that the words “fact” and “correspond” are never used.

• Critics point out that this doesn’t tell us what truth is in the language we ourselves use.


The Coherence Theory of TruthThe Coherence Theory of Truth

• According to the coherence theory of truth, a belief is true if it “coheres” with other beliefs that we regard as true. – The essential test is not correspondence between a

belief and a fact in the real world, but coherence between a belief and other beliefs in one’s mind.

– How is this theory similar to the coherence theory of justification? (402)

– In what way does Geometry provide a useful illustration for the coherence theory of truth? (412)


Blanshard on CoherenceBlanshard on Coherence

• Brand Blanshard (1892–1987), a twentieth-century coherence theorist defended a version of the coherence theory.– He pointed out that even someone using the

correspondence theory would have to verify a statement such as “the table in the next room is round” by using other statements, beliefs, or judgments.

• So, to discover a true proposition, even the correspondence theorist has to rely on its coherence with other statements, beliefs, or judgments.


In Blanshard’s WordsIn Blanshard’s Words• “[H]ow should we test this judgment [“the table is

round]? ….[W]hat verifies the statement of fact is the perceptual judgment that I make when I open the door and look. But then what verifies the perceptual judgment itself?.... [A]a judgment of fact can be verified only by the sort of apprehension that can present us with a fact, and that this must be a further judgment. And an agreement between judgments is best described not as a correspondence, but as coherence.” (413)


Ideal CoherenceIdeal Coherence• In an ideally coherent system all the beliefs are in

harmony with all the other beliefs in the system, and each belief supports (provides evidence for) the other beliefs. – Thus, any one belief could be deduced from the other

beliefs, and the whole set of beliefs would be highly ordered, like the theorems that can be deduced from the axioms of geometry.

– “No proposition would be arbitrary, every proposition would be entailed by the others jointly and even singly, no proposition would stand outside the system.“ (414)


CriticismsCriticisms• A number of criticisms have been made of the

coherence theory.

1.That it fails to distinguish between consistent truth and consistent error.– Ptolemy’s theory was as consistent as that of

Copernicus, yet only Copernicus’ theory is true.

2.That it seems in the end to rely on correspondence. – If a judgment is coherent, it must cohere with another

judgment, but what insures the truth of the initial judgments ?


The Pragmatic Theory of TruthThe Pragmatic Theory of Truth

• Dissatisfaction with the correspondence and coherence theories of truth, have led some philosophers to develop a third option: the pragmatic theory of truth. – The pragmatic theory of truth says that a belief is true

if it works and is useful, for example, by letting us make accurate predictions.

– Tired of the rationalistic outlooks of European philosophy, they saw humans as needing to use the practical consequences of beliefs to decide truth and validity.


Usefulness as the StandardUsefulness as the Standard• The pragmatist introduces usefulness as the

measure of truth and insists that we can define truth only in relation to consequences. – A statement is true if people can use that statement to

achieve results that satisfy their interests. – This implies that there are no unchanging absolute

truths– To verify a belief as truth, for example, we might look

at whether it aids us individually or collectively in the biological struggle for survival.

– So, there are no absolute or unchanging truths.


PragmatismPragmatism

• The pragmatic theory of truth has become a cornerstone of pragmatism, which initially developed through the writings of Charles S. Peirce (1839–1914), William James (1842–1910), and John Dewey (1859–1952).

• The classic version was put forth by William James in Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking.


James’ Pragmatic TruthJames’ Pragmatic Truth

• According to James, we do not base truth on a comparison of a statement with some objective, external reality.

• Neither is truth based on coherence with other beliefs. – The essential problem with those outlooks is that their

adherents have failed to ask the right questions.– They shouldn’t ask how judgments correspond or

relate to reality, but what difference they make.


In James’ WordsIn James’ Words

• “This thesis is what I have to defend. The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation.” (417)


Modern PragmatismModern Pragmatism

• Contemporary pragmatists approach truth differently from William James. – Whereas James gave a definition of truth, modern

pragmatists tend to argue that we should forget about trying to define this elusive idea.

– Instead, we should get on with the more important activity of living in open-minded, democratic communities


Rorty’s PragmatismRorty’s Pragmatism

• Rorty claims that all that can be said about the notion of truth is that truth is whatever has passed society’s “procedures of justification.” – He proposes “the ethnocentric view that there is

nothing to be said about either truth or rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society, ours, uses in one or another area of inquiries.”(418)

• Pragmatists such as Rorty argue that when people say something is true, they are “commending” it as good to believe, which implies it passes the tests that our community uses to distinguish what is true from what is false.


Criticisms of PragmatismCriticisms of Pragmatism

• One criticism of pragmatism is that it pragmatism seems unable to account for how beliefs we previously thought were true, turn out to be false.– For example, at one time we thought that the earth

was flat, when it was in fact not flat.

– For pragmatists, though, both beliefs are true – in their respective communities.


Introducing the Ideal Introducing the Ideal CommunityCommunity

• One reply to the previous criticism pragmatists have made (although not Rorty) is that truth is what an ideal community would be justified in believing if it continued its investigations indefinitely, examine all evidence and all points of view and made no mistakes.– But this seems simply to introduce another

epistemologically-loaded conception.– The problem remains, moreover, how we can make

sense of the claim to truth that pragmatists make for their own theory.


Does Truth Matter?Does Truth Matter?

• One might be tempted to say that it doesn’t really matter whether one believes in the correspondence theory, the coherence theory, or the pragmatic theory: what does it matter?– But, in fact, the parties to these debates are fighting

over matters that directly affect each of us. – What differing outcomes do you arrive at when you

apply each of the three theories to the Dutroux case? (419ff)


Reconciliation or Deflation?Reconciliation or Deflation?

• In the face of the three differing theories of truth, one could attempt to reconcile them.– For example, correspondence might apply to

empirical and factual matters, coherence to logical, necessary, or systemic truth, and pragmatism to our value judgments.

• We might also choose the path of deflation.– On this view, truth is not a substantive notion, and

there can be no theory of truth. Rather when we say that a statement “is true,” we are saying nothing more or less than what the statement itself says.


6.36.3 Does Science Give Us Truth?Does Science Give Us Truth?

• Many people hold that science clearly gives us the truth about the world. – They may be thinking of all of the successes of science, including

curing hundreds of deadly diseases, putting people into space and on the moon, and creating media for virtually instant communication over thousands of miles.

– The chapter uses the 3 theories of truth to test and make sense of this claim, focusing on two scientific theories. The powerpoint slides that follow consider the standard theory of matter.

– in an instant, to make computers that can carry out a million calculations in a fraction of a second


Standard Theory of Matter (1)Standard Theory of Matter (1)

• The old Atomic Theory of Matter has been challenged and replaced by a new model of matter – partly due to experimental work done with particle accelerators or colliders (figure 6.1)

• The new standard theory of matter holds that matter is comprised of four kinds of basic particles: – two kinds of quarks – electrons – neutrinos


Figure 6.1Figure 6.1

• Photograph of the tracks made in a bubble chamber when a tiny subatomic particle—a proton—collided with another particle in the area at the center right and brokeup into at least nine particles.


Standard Theory of Matter (2)Standard Theory of Matter (2)

• According to the standard theory, these four kinds of particles are held together and acted upon by four forces, associated with particles: – a strong nuclear force (gluons)– a weak nuclear force (bosons)– electromagnetism (protons)– gravity (gravitons)

• Is the standard theory of matter true? What could it mean to say that it is?


InstrumentalismInstrumentalism

• Instrumentalism is the view that true theories are those that generate accurate predictions. – Philosophers embracing this view might say that “If

we assume that matter is partly made of little electrons, we can predict that the dials on detectors will move when matter collides.

– This does not mean it is true in some other more literal sense that electrons exist.

– The instrumentalist view of scientific theories is based on the pragmatic view of truth. Thus, theories are invented, not discovered


RealismRealism

• Based on the correspondence theory of true, the realist view of science says that a theory is true if the entities, properties, and relationships that it describes correspond to real entities, properties, and relationships in the world. – Theories are discovered, not invented.– The aim of science is to provide accurate

descriptions of the universe. – Theories allow accurate predictions because they are

true; they are not true because they allow accurate predictions.


Conceptual RelativismConceptual Relativism

• Conceptual relativism shares many characteristics of the coherence theory of truth.– Drawing inspiration from Thomas Kuhn’s work,

conceptual relativists argue that a true scientific theory is nothing more than a theory that a community of scientists accepts.

– They argue that all observations are “theory laden,” i.e., influenced by our conceptual frameworks.

– What is true in science is what coheres with the scientific theories, beliefs, values, and research methods of a community of scientists.


A Surprising ImplicationA Surprising Implication

• One implication of conceptual relativism is that it denies the possibility of comparing theories across paradigms, which change after scientific revolutions. – For example, when Copernicus’s new theory replaced

the old theory that the sun revolves around the earth, this was a “conceptual revolution.

– Kuhn had suggested that when a new theory replaces an old one in a scientific revolution, there may be no rational reason for saying that the new theory is better than the old.


Versus Instrumentalism and Versus Instrumentalism and RealismRealism

• Conceptual relativists do not accept the realist view that true scientific theories are supposed to explain or describe what the external universe is like: – True scientific theories do not “correspond” to a real

world “out there.”

• Neither do they necessarily accept the instrumentalist view that scientific theories are true to the extent that they can be used to predict the future.


Instrumentalism and Instrumentalism and PragmatismPragmatism

• The instrumentalist view of scientific theories is based on the pragmatic view of truth and says a theory is acceptable if it lets us make accurate predictions about experiments and observations.

• Theories are invented, not discovered. It is not literally true that the unobservable entities of the theory exist, but acting as if they do lets us make successful predictions.


6.46.4 Can Interpretations Be True?Can Interpretations Be True?

• Issues of truth arise not only in the context of claims made in the natural sciences, but also regarding interpretations of books, texts, actions and gestures.– Controversial Biblical and scriptural passages;– Poems;– The meaning of the U.S. Constitution;– People’s words, gestures and actions.


HermeneuticsHermeneutics

• Hermeneutics is the study of the interpretation of words and actions. – The word comes from the name of the ancient Greek

god Hermes, who carried messages from the gods up in heaven to mortals down on earth.

– Often the messages of the gods were unclear, ambiguous, or had multiple meanings, so they needed careful interpretation.

– The modern use of the term began in the context of the interpretation of Biblical scriptural passages.


Biblical TruthBiblical Truth

• Many believers within Christianity and Judaism believe the Bible is inspired by God.– However, the meaning of passages is often

ambiguous and contested. – Hermeneutics really begins as a conversation about

how to understand biblical meaning and truth. – The conversation stretches out over many centuries

and continues even today.


AquinasAquinas

• Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274) is an important voice in the conversation because he argued that scriptural passages can have several different meanings and thus be true in different senses.– Aquinas distinguished between literal and spiritual

meanings, and argued that there are three sorts of spiritual meaning: allegorical, moral and anagogical.

– Aquinas argued that the Church determines which interpretation is true and which is false.


Luther and Schleiermacher Luther and Schleiermacher

• Martin Luther (1483-1546) rejected Aquinas’ notion of symbolic interpretation, arguing that there is only one true meaning of scripture, and that is the literal meaning. – Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) agreed with

Luther, but provided a this-worldly rationale for his view: He claimed that a text is a product of the history and culture of the person who wrote it.

• Thus, to interpret the text, we have to figure out, in short, what the author was intending to say, and this requires knowing the author’s historical situation.


Dilthey’s HermeneuticsDilthey’s Hermeneutics

• Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) also argued that the true interpretation of a text is the meaning that the original human author intended. – To find this original meaning, we need to put

ourselves in the place and time of the historical author, to “relive” his or her life, and thus to try to understand what he intended by the words he wrote.

– We need to bring this strategy to interpreting not only words but also anything that humans produce, including art, poetry, speeches, laws, and even human history.


Beyond Hermeneutics?Beyond Hermeneutics?

• All of the philosophers and theologians we’ve sampled accepted some version of the correspondence theory of truth.– They thought that interpretations were true if they

corresponded with God’s or the writer’s intentions.– Other philosophers have looked at the ambiguity of

language and the conflicting interpretations this has given rise to and sought to establish a more exact, unambiguous language, which would eliminate the need for hermeneutics.


Wittgenstein and the Ideal Wittgenstein and the Ideal Clear LanguageClear Language

• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) sought to develop an account of such a language.– Wittgenstein said the world consists of complex facts

made up of atomic facts.– An ideal language would consist of complex

propositions made up of elementary propositions which would represent atomic facts.

– A proposition would be true when the structure of its elementary parts corresponds to the structure of the atomic facts that make up the complex fact it represents.


Wittgenstein’s HermeneuticWittgenstein’s Hermeneutic

• Wittgenstein embraced a version of the correspondence theory of truth and offered a de facto hermeneutic. – He claimed that the only legitimate meanings were

those that could be expressed in an ideal language of facts.

– If a meaning could not be expressed or “spoken” in his ideal language, it was not legitimate.

– As he put it, “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” (435)


Beyond Mirroring FactsBeyond Mirroring Facts

• The later Wittgenstein rejected his earlier view of language, and its assumption that language serves a single purpose, the mirroring of facts.– Instead, he argued we must acknowledge that we use

language for many different purposes, in many different human contexts or “games.”

– The meaning of a language or a text does not depend on the “facts” it pictures, but on the various ways that people use it to do different things – command, avow, praise, assert, etc. – to accomplish different goals


Gadamer and InterpretrationGadamer and Interpretration

• Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) also came to reject the notion that we base our interpretations of texts on our reading of the intentions of the original authors– especially those who are culturally and historically distant.

• Gadamer developed a sophisticated hermeneutics which took our own prejudices into account.


Many InterpretationsMany Interpretations

• Gadamer claimed all acts of meaning and interpretation are situated within a horizon of personal experience, values and culturally appropriated beliefs. – Thus, people in different times and cultures will

interpret the words differently. – A text has no single, true interpretation, but there are

many true interpretations depending on who is reading it and when and where it is being read.

– On the other hand, some interpretations are better than others.


Interpretation as DialogueInterpretation as Dialogue• To arrive at true interpretations we must engage

in a kind of dialogue with the text (or person).– We begin by interpreting the text in terms of the

prejudices and concerns of our culture. – Then, as we try to understand what new things the

text itself is trying to express and what it might have meant in its culture, our own cultural prejudices change and get closer to the meaning of the text.

– We use our newly informed cultural prejudices to come up with a better interpretation of the text.

– The dialogue continues as we change, partly in response to the text.


Gadamer the Coherentist?Gadamer the Coherentist?

• Although Gadamer does not use this terminology, his notion of truth comes closest to a coherence view of truth. – The true interpretation is the one that best coheres

with both the prejudices of our own culture and what we believe the text meant in its own culture.

– Truth emerges from the union of these two cultural “horizons.”

– But there are many true interpretations, for different interpretations will fit in with the prejudices of people living in different cultures and times.


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