The Value of Truth
Michael Patrick Lynch,
Boston Review,
Mar 03, 2021
This article is essentially a response to Richard Rorty in particular and to sceptics about truth (with a capital T) in general. Rorty "declared it dead and bid it good riddance," writes Michael Patrick Lynch. But things have changed, he says, and the study of truth (or knowledge, as he slides easily between the two terms) is important again. Here's what I think. The idea of defining 'truth' as 'correspondence with reality' doesn't work, because nobody has a unique grip on what counts as reality. Rather, we should think of truth as an attitude we have toward a proposal (strictly: as a 'propositional attitude'). It is a part of language in particular (and maybe representations in general) and something we create and define into being. Our issues with 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' has nothing to do with the relativism of truth, and it has everything to do with our inability (or unwillingness) to get along with each other.
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