A Philosophical Critique of Thought by Zhengyu Sun

Author:Zhengyu Sun
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811583995
Publisher: Springer Singapore

4 A Critique of the Premises Underlying Truth

The basis for human behavior is the unity of regularity and purposiveness, which is also the unity of truth and value. Truth is the basic concept normalizing human thoughts and behaviors. Thus, a critique of the premises underlying truth is also a critique of the premises underlying this basic concept.

4.1 Conceptual Analysis of Truth

“Is this true?” is a common question; however, people have different understandings of what truth means. Thus, analyzing different understandings of truth can serve as a premise for critical reflection.

In the most direct sense, the question “Is this true?” asks whether something exists. True in this context means “is” or “exists,” whereas the negation of true means “is not” or “does not exist.” The philosophical pursuit of being, therefore, refers directly to the pursuit of the true.

On a deeper level, “Is this true?” asks not only about existence but also questions the determinateness of existents. In other words, the existence of the object at hand is not the issue, but rather whether it has a certain determinateness. Any particular thing (i.e., existent) has a certain type or types of determinateness. Existents with that determinateness are true whereas existents without that determinateness are false. For example, if someone says a thing before us is a table, and we ask “Is this true?”, then we are questioning whether this thing has the determinateness of tables. In other words, the meaning of true may also be established in the relation between real and false, a different understanding than whether something is or exists.

Regardless of which of the above definitions of truth is used, the question at hand always concerns an object. The third meaning of “Is this true?”, however, concerns not an object but rather the representation of an object, that is, whether an object has been reproduced in the representation and thought of a cognitive subject in a manner that conforms to the object itself. This is a question that explicitly concerns the subject’s cognition, i.e., the so-called epistemological question. The object of cognition exists externally to the subject; hence, to the cognitive subject, the existence of the object possesses objectivity. However, it is only when the object of cognition becomes the subject’s image, that is, when the external object becomes an internal image, that the subject is able to know about the object. In this process of cognition, the subject may reproduce the object correctly or incorrectly. The question of truth in this epistemological framework is whether the image conforms to the object. Thus, “true” refers to correct cognition.

Fourth, “Is this true?” may question not only the relation between object and image, but also that between representation (as image) and thought. This type of questioning has an even deeper philosophical and epistemological significance. Man, as cognitive subject, has both the sensuous function of representing the object and the rational function of thinking about the object. Hence, man’s cognitive activities are carried out within the contradictions of the sensuous and the rational, of representation and thought.

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