Truth: a Guide for the Perplexed by Simon Blackburn

Author:Simon Blackburn
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141910215
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-04-08T04:00:00+00:00

2. Four Responses

Suppose then we consider some set of commitments that we hold, and that make up our views in some area of thought. The area might be quite local, if we are considering some specific practices of judgement: mathematics, morality, probability, ethics, aesthetics or descriptions of the world in terms of ordered laws of nature. Or, the area might be more general, so that we might be considering, as a block, the commitments of science or of common sense. In any event suppose we become puzzled by some aspect of the area, and are motivated to theorize about it. What kinds of options face us?

Any map of alternatives must be provisional, but there is good reason to attempt to draw one. In the chart overleaf the central topic is described as our area of discourse and commitment. In other words, the phenomenon about which theories cluster is the fact of our sayings and thoughts. It might seem odd that this is so: why don’t philosophers just get on with it and talk about the facts themselves – probabilities, norms, numbers, whatever? Why move to talking only of what we say about them? The answer may be evident already. The very existence of ‘the facts themselves’ is up for grabs. It is plain that we talk of probabilities or duties; it is not plain, yet, whether there exists anything corresponding to this talk. It is the facts themselves whose status is on trial. Whereas it is a datum that we talk and think in the terms that we do.

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