Phi Fic

Continuing with Simon on his book On Truth (2018).

We move to part two of the book, where we get down to the procedures used to obtain truth in art, ethics, and science. Yes, truth is objective, but it's not best described as correspondence, and in fact this elaboration of how truth is actually obtained is more enlightening than any abstract definition meant to cover all the different types of truth-seeking.

Listen to part one first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition, and also Wes's bonus conversation on Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five.

End song: "with you/for you" from the new cold/mess EP by Prateek Kuhad, interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music #79.

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The Cambridge/etc. prof joins Mark, Wes, and Dylan to discuss his book On Truth (2018).

What is truth? Simon's view synthesizes deflationism and pragmatism to avoid relativism by fixing on the domain-specific procedures we actually engage in to establish the truth of a claim, whether in ethics, science, art, or whatever. A gift of clarity after two episodes threshing through the jungles of analytic philosophy!

Don't wait for part 2! Get the full, unbroken Citizen Edition now. Keep an eye out for Wes's discussion on Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, to be released for PEL Citizens soon.

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Continuing on "Truth" by J.L. Austin and "Truth" by P.F. Strawson both from 1950.

We proceed to the Strawson article, which critiques the notion of a "fact" as explaining why a sentence might be true. A "fact" is not a thing in the world! So what do we add when we change "The cat is on the mat" to "'The cat is on the mat' is true?"

Listen to Part One first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End song: "Troof" by Shawn Phillips, as interviewed for Nakedly Examined Music #77. Sponsors: Listen to the Hi-Phi Nation podcast at hiphination.org, and visit lightstream.com/PEL for a discounted loan.

On two articles in the "ordinary language" tradition of philosophy called "Truth" from 1950 by J.L. Austin and P.F. Strawson.

Is truth a property of particular speech acts, or of the propositions expressed through speech acts? Does truth mean correspondence with the facts, or does the word "fact" make this definition totally uninformative? Does saying "is true" add any information content to a sentence over and above just stating that sentence?

Don't wait a week to hear about Strawson! Get the full, unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition of this discussion. Please support PEL!

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Wes Alwan and Bill Youmans discuss the 1611 play about revenge, forgiveness, and authorship. Or maybe it's about exploitation, or how we react to changes in status, or perhaps how a liberal education can give you magical powers!

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Continuing on Tarski's “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics" (1944), Hartry Field's “Tarski's Theory of Truth” (1972), and Donald Davidson's “The Folly of Trying to Define Truth” (1977).

What was Tarski really doing? What are the implications of his project? Does it even make sense to define "truth," and what should a definition look like?

Listen to part one first, or get the ad-free Citizen Edition. Look out for the Citizen-only bonus discussion of Shakespeare's Tempest, posting soon! Please support PEL!

End song: "In Vino Vertias" by Sunspot; Mark interviewed Mike Huberty on Nakedly Examined Music #64.

Sponsor: Visit thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL for a one-month free trial of The Great Courses Plus Video Learning Service.

On Tarski's “The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Foundations of Semantics" (1944), Hartry Field's “Tarski's Theory of Truth” (1972), and Donald Davidson's “The Folly of Trying to Define Truth” (1977).

What is truth? Tarski gives a technical, metaphysically neutral definition for truth within a particular, well-defined language. So how does that apply to real languages? He thought he was defining truth (a semantic concept) in terms of more primitive (physical?) concepts, but Field and Davidson think that actually, truth as a general concept is indefinable, even though it's still helpful for Tarski to have laid out the relations among various semantic concepts.

Help us keep more episodes ad-free by supporting us! You can get the Citizen Edition of this episode and not have to wait for part 2, and also soon listen to Wes's discussion of Shakespeare's Tempest!

Hear highlights from two supporter-only discussions: Allan Bloom on Nietzsche/Freud/etc. and Leo Strauss vs. Richard Rorty on liberal education and democracy.

Continuing with Pano Kanelos on articles on liberal education by Jacob Klein, Sidney Hook, and Martha Nussbaum.

What's the practical application of a liberal education? Is it really liberating or indoctrinating? We continue discussion of the Great Books model.

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End song: "Preservation Hill" by The Bevis Frond; Mark interviewed Nick Saloman on Nakedly Examined Music #75.

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Pano Kanelos, the president of St. John's College, Annapolis joins us to discuss Jacob Klein's “The Idea of a Liberal Education” (1960) and “On Liberal Education” (1965), plus Sidney Hook’s “A Critical Appraisal of the St. John’s College Curriculum” (1946) and Martha Nussbaum’s “Undemocratic Vistas” (1987).

What constitutes a liberal education? Should we all read the Western canon? Klein (and our guest) think that we need to wonder at the familiar, to explore the ancestry of our current concepts in order to avoid their sedimentation.

Don't wait for part two; get the full, unbroken Citizen Edition now; you'll also get (soon) a bonus discussion. Please support PEL!

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