Plausibility, likelihood and truth

Consider the propositions P and "Plausibly, P". An argument for P is not necessarily an argument for "Plausibly, P". For there might be successful arguments for counterintuitive or implausible propositions. In such cases the argument supports P but it doesn't support P being plausibly true. An argument for the proposition "Plausibly, P" is not necessarily an argument for P either. For why should in general plausibility be truth-conducive? That is, why should in general what is plausibly true for human beings be sufficiently likely actually true?

The propositions P and "Plausibly, P" are quite different propositions indeed. The first asserts that the state of affairs denoted by P obtains. The second asserts that the world is such that it is plausible that P is true. This second proposition might be true while at the same time P is false. Also P might be true whereas it is not plausible that P is true.

If we switch - in light of my 'world-for-us' theory of knowledge - the context from how the world is in itself to how the world is for us, i.e. from the-world-in-itself to the-world-for-us, the above picture changes. Within the context of the-world-for-us an argument for the proposition "Plausibly, P" is also an argument for P because within the-world-for-us plausibility is truth-conducive. Yet, within the-world-for-us an argument for P is still not necessarily an argument for "Plausibly, P". For there might be good arguments for counterintuitive or implausible truths within the-world-for-us.

Now consider the propositions P and "Likely, P". Here 'likely' is not to be equated with 'plausibly'. Plausibility refers to being in accordance with our human intuitions. Being likely though refers to having statistically a high chance or high probability of being true. These notions are not the same.

An argument for "Likely, P" is an argument for P having a high chance of being true. But then such an argument is also an argument for P. Yet, an argument for P is not necessarly also an argument for "Likely, P". For even though a successful argument for P increases the likelihood of P, it does not follow that the increase is significant enough to render P likely true.

With respect to the concept of 'likelihood' the picture does not change if we switch again from the context of how the world is in itself to how the world is for us. In both cases the conclusions remain the same.

Non-epistemic Truth

Epistemic theories of truth analyze the notion of truth in terms of epistemic notions such as justification. Non-epistemic theories of truth analyze the notion of truth in terms of non-epistemic notions such as correspondence with states of affairs. All these theories aim at truth in the sense that one is concerned with what are the facts, with what is actually the case. But what if truth is not always concerned with what is factual or actually the case? There might be cases where something is truthful without being factful. If so, we should distinguish between epistemic truth (concerned with facts) and non-epistemic truth. In that case the above mentioned epistemic and non-epistemic (e.g., correspondence) theories of truth both aim at epistemic truth. The question then becomes how the notion of non-epistemic truth could be further fleshed out. What are examples of non-epistemic truth (if any) and what are the tools to discover such truths? Paradigmatic examples of such truths may be found within existentially loaded domains as religion, ethics and rhetoric. But possibly counterfactual conditionals can be considered as such as well.

So, in short the idea is that there are possibly (existential or other) situations in which we want to be able to speak legitimately of truth without having to presuppose that there are actual ontological states of affairs in the world that make such speak legitimate. In these situations we thus talk about non-factual or non-epistemic truth. These truths are non-factual indeed, but truths nonetheless. To develop a full account of non-epistemic truth would open a whole new realm of philosophical enquiry.

De idee vrouw

Een man die een vrouw ontmoet of met een vrouw omgaat voelt dat hij daarin nooit alleen met die vrouw in contact staat, maar tegelijkertijd altijd ook met de universale of de idee vrouw.

Een man voelt zich anders gezegd naast met haar tevens in contact staan met de vrouw qua vrouw - wie zij verder ook is. En dit "tevens" is een extra, een welhaast transcendent surplus, ten opzichte van haar concrete particulariteit.