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3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 7. Falsehood

[how to understand failures to be true]

7 ideas
In the deeper sense of truth, to be untrue resembles being bad; badness is untrue to a thing's nature [Hegel]
     Full Idea: When truth is viewed in the deeper sense, to be untrue means much the same as to be bad. A bad man is an untrue man, and man who does not behave as his notion or his vocation requires.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §213)
     A reaction: See Idea 19071 for the 'deeper sense'. This seems to confirm that Hegel's deeper concept of truth resembles authenticity. I guess it will be something fulfilling the essence of the thing. Doctors must be proper doctors. Gold must be true gold?
Convictions, more than lies, are the great enemy of truth [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 483)
     A reaction: Love this one. Especially in western democracies in the 2020s. If we value truth, we must be fallibilists.
Only because there is thought is there untruth [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Only because there is thought is there untruth.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §574)
     A reaction: A nicely oblique place to start in one's study of truth. Untruth is a very human contribution to the world, making virtually no sense of animal thought. Meta-thought seems to be required.
To love truth, you must know how to lie [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Inability to lie is far from being love of truth. ....He who cannot lie does not know what truth is.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra [1884], 4.13.9)
Asserting not-p is saying p is false [Russell]
     Full Idea: When you do what a logician would call 'asserting not-p', you are saying 'p is false'.
     From: Bertrand Russell (An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth [1940], 5)
     A reaction: This is presumably classical logic. If we could label p as 'undetermined' (a third truth value), then 'not-p' might equally mean 'undetermined'.
A good theory of truth must make falsehood possible [Russell]
     Full Idea: A good theory of truth must be such as to admit of its opposite, falsehood.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.12)
True and false are not symmetrical; false is more complex, involving negation [Williamson]
     Full Idea: The concepts of truth and falsity are not symmetrical. The asymmetry is visible in the fundamental principles governing them, for F is essentially more complex than T, by its use of negation.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Vagueness [1994], 7.5)
     A reaction: If T and F are primitives, controlled by axioms, then they might be symmetrical in nature, but asymmetrical in use. However, if forced to choose just one primitive, I presume it would be T.