Truth, Fact, Certainty, and Context

[nanite1018]

I decided that I needed to write a short but coherent expression of my personal philosophy/Objectivism, in order to help clarify it in my own mind, and so I can better express it to others. I ran into a snag at (haven't gone farther, this is the first snag) at the idea of "truth". When I say "I am certain that X is true" it means that within the context of all knowledge available to me (all my concepts, all sense-data I've ever acquired, etc.) that "X is true" is the only conclusion available to me that doesn't involve either a) rejecting the information from my sense-perception or b ) making an arbitrary assertion (that is, an assertion which I have no evidence for whatsoever). And by "X is true" I mean that "X" genuinely refers to some aspect of reality, correct?

Now, is that "genuinely refers" contextual? I.e. are there essentially something akin to error bars around my assertion, saying that within a certain context (i.e. size range, speed range, location in space, a certain level of accuracy in measurement) that this statement is correct? So, for example, Newton's law of gravitation was contextually the only conclusion you could come to without either a denial of sense-perception or an arbitrary assertion. However, now we know that it wasn't quite right (i.e. F =/= Gm1m2/r^2 when measured exactly). So was Newton correct or justified in his certainty, but not true? Or was he true once and now he isn't? Or is he still true, and so is Einstein, but in different contexts? And if that is the case, how can they both be said to genuinely refer, when there is only one strictly correct ultimate description of the natures of all the particles that make up everything around us.

Basically, I am tripping up because there obviously are metaphysical facts about reality, there is an actual absolute, infinitely accurate (I suppose you could say) description of the behavior of things and the nature of things. This is what most people take to be "true". Objectivism says that certainty is contextual, and so presumably so would truth be, but then I have a hard time reconciling that with the correspondence theory of truth that Peikoff says that Objectivism holds in OPAR. Namely, that something is true when that is how it actually is in reality and a conscious entity recognizes that that is the case. It seems like, then, you will end up with a bunch of statements, all true, that say very different things about reality, for example Kepler's Laws, Newton's Law of Gravitation, General Relativity, and whatever will come next after that.

Hm, or is this how it is:

1) If you use logic properly, given a certain range of data, there will be only one correct conclusion to make, let's say that the evidence is such that there is only one conclusion which does not involve either a) the rejection of sense perception (that's what it comes down to ultimately that is) or b ) the assertion of something which one has no evidence for whatsoever.

2) This statement is then "certain" and "true". The truth is contextual however, so it is strictly delimited to the range of evidence that spawned your generalization, i.e. Newton observed planets and comets, so he was in the clear for astronomical objects and the like, but his theory could never have been said to apply in the extreme environments near a white dwarf or a neutron star or a black hole, or objects traveling a thousand times faster than anything he'd ever observed.

3) That statement, with it's error bars, is said to genuinely refer (that is, it is true) because a) within the precision of the statement (which is derived from how it was reached) it predicts what happens and b ) a proper method was used to reach it, i.e. it is the only conclusion one can come to given the data available when it was formed.

And so for a valid induction/generalization/statement of fact it will never be contradicted because you have the context of the statement strictly confined by the types of observations you used to reach the conclusion, and within the ranges defined by that context it is accurate, and it is the only conclusion possible for that context that doesn't involve some arbitrary assertion or the rejection of some piece of sensory data at some level.

Is that correct? It sort of makes sense, but I want to make sure I actually got it right, and there wasn't some error in there, it's a little confusing. I suppose it depends on a particular theory of induction (well, maybe), but I'm working in the basic framework of the Peikoff/Harriman theory. I'd appreciate any feedback on this, as it is obviously a pretty important point to get completely straight in one's head.

Edit: Removed the 's for b ) 's.

Edited November 18, 2010 by nanite1018

[Grames]

Yes, "genuinely refers" is contextual.

An "absolute, infinitely accurate description of the behavior of things and the nature of things" which is "what most people take to be 'true'" is inaccessible to real humans. The presence of the concept 'infinite' in your description is the means by which an impossible epistemological standard of God-like omniscience is smuggled into your thought. Yes, one can be justified and still not have the intrinsic/absolute version of the truth or even a later contextual truth that is a product of a wider context. Even at the bedrock level of making perceptual judgments one can be wrong in certain circumstances (see Kelley ch. 7 and his three principles of justified perceptual judgment).

Also to clear another potential confusion, the concept of certainty is restricted to certain classes of conclusions (see Peikoff "The Art of Thinking" amplifying on OPAR bottom of pg. 175). Certainty is about knowledge from a certain perspective. It designates only some complex items of knowledge, not all complex items and no simple items, considered in contrast to the complex transitional evidential states that precede them. Some knowledge is simple: it has no "transitional evidentiary states." See a table, or do not. Recall your wife's face, or do not. There is no progress through possible to probable to certain. Certainty applies to higher level inductive reasoning. (The extension of 'certainty' in common usage to indicate the presence or absence of the emotions of conviction and doubt is a different sense of the word and not essential to the epistemology considered here.)

The correspondence of thought to reality is the standard of truth, making it the normative guideline that discriminates between what is permissible to think and what is not. The correspondence theory is epistemological not metaphysical: there cannot ever be a metaphysical correspondence between existence and our ideas about it (this is Hume and Berkeley's attack on Locke's correspondence theory). The proper use of the correspondence standard is to discard contradictions, not to discard the possibility of knowledge and the entire field of epistemology. In another expression of the same idea, correspondence to reality is in method (not content) and achieved when we are compelled to accept a certain proposition by the necessity of avoiding contradiction. Objectivism identifies two sources of epistemological compulsion: perception and logic. This kind of compulsion gives justification, which logically is all we can aspire to given that consciousness has identity, i.e. is finite in its capacity to perceive, reason and know.

I agree with your numbered statements at the end of your post, but with the caveat that there is not always enough evidence to decide between two plausible conclusions.

[Vik]

Some points on the role of context in physical theory.

1. Context involves levels of integration as well. Copernicus integrated quite a few astronomical facts by means of the idea of helio-centricism and the concept of inclined axis. Kepler integrated additional facts by means of the concept of an ellipse, which he used to formulate his laws concerning powers of times and distances. Galileo integrated motion and rest by means of the concept of inertia. Newton integrated the horizontal and accelerated motion described in Galileo's work by means of the concept of force. Newton's theory of gravitation integrates ALL the facts associated with the above work and quite a few more. Einstein's Principle of General Covariance integrates Copernican covariance with Galilean relativity.

2. New knowledge can make explicit the context of an old theory. For example, Einstein's 1905 paper shows that Newtonian mechanics holds for slow velocities.

3. Much of a theory can survive with minimal modification in the face of new facts.

Newton's law of inertia and his concept of force for example. I think it's worth pointing out that the concept of non-inertial reference frame enables us to *add* to our knowledge concerning inertia and force. It does not invalidate the concept of inertia or the concept of force. Nor does it invalidate the laws of motion when you simply *take into account* the necessary coordinate transformations. So inertia and force are definitely "right". They're just insufficient.

As Newton says:

"In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions."

4. If an old theory can be treated as a special subcategory a new one, and the "false" assumptions are only false when applied outside that special subcategory, you can treat them as simplifying assumptions. For example, "absolute space" and "absolute time" are simplifying assumptions that are useful for situations where kinetic energy isn't relativistic. So I suppose you could say Newton's theory is an approximation in that sense.

4. "Wrong" theories are not "wrong" simply because they are incomplete. If we say that incomplete theories are "wrong", then all theories are wrong. Including relativity and quantum mechanics, which were the very theories alleged to overturn the Newtonian world-view in the first place.