"Sometimes the facts threaten the truth"

Amos Oz, prize winning Israeli author

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:54:04 -0600, curmudgeon wrote:

good topic. Too bad there isn't an example.

This puts 'the truth' before the facts. Or, this 'truth' came first then
the facts threaten it. So how was this truth determined in the first
place because that is what is really being threatened, it seems. Maybe
this should be 'your truth'.

If 'the truth' is found only in the final outcome but 'the facts' leading
up to the outcome are misleading then it seems the processing of the facts
is the threat to the truth.

In any event, to separate fact from truth is either a word game I don't
get or just another way of justifying some dogma.

"ZerkonX" zerkonx.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2007.07.25.14.05.42.6683@zerkonx.net...

right off my head, just to move the point, wasn't it bumblebees that aren't
supposed to be able to fly. There is a semantical confusion here, but one
gets the idea. I used to try and clarify that semantical confusion with the
idea that 'understanding' is a thing as a whole, greater than it's parts.

On Jul 25, 3:05 pm, ZerkonX zerkonx.net> wrote:

Truth is never threatened, though it can be threatening.

Ignoring, or rejecting, Truth, or truths, create the greatest threats
especially when facts are distorted to promote, or maintain,
misconceptions.

Tony, philosopher
http://www.geocities.com/trisector/

So many misconceptions, so little time.

On Jul 25, 7:05 am, ZerkonX zerkonx.net> wrote:

Suppose a parent wants to shield his or her child from certain facts
in order to preserve and not scare the kid away from the truth
concluded from them?

Of course "exceptions don't prove the rule" might be an example.

curmudgeon wrote:

Makeshift example: IF empiricism is a foundational truth for
establishing facts, then the facts may threaten it as being a
foundational truth by revealing experience to be an emergent product of
brains. Circularity. Way out: Empiricism could be a foundational truth
in epistemology, but it is only a methodological approach in science.

"[Truth] is a word best avoided entirely in physics except when placed
in quotes, or with careful qualification. Its colloquial use has so many
shades of meaning from 'it seems to be correct' to the absolute truths
claimed by religion, that it's use causes nothing but misunderstanding.
Someone once said "Science seeks proximate (approximate) truths." Others
speak of provisional or tentative truths. Certainly science claims no
final or absolute truths."
spider.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/jarrett/LiU/resource/misused_glossary.html

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 11:24:48 -0700, Immortalist wrote:

First let me say I think the statement "Sometimes the facts threaten the
truth" is more interesting to support because the opposite seems too
easy.

So, using your example, I will try to come up with a concert situation
maybe you can help..

To be brief: A parent will not discuss death for fear of threatening
happiness in life?

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:21:16 -0700, chazwin wrote:

Ahh, like in the movie 'V'.. "an artist tells lies to show the truth. a
politician tells lies to hid it"?

Excellent point, OK I can see that.

What is missing, however, is the 'threat' of facts which I don't see as
being the same as using 'lies' to illustrate the point.

What is the truth here? Isn't it that her world is, in truth, terrifying
and that she has been driven into a psychotic state of fantasy?

Getting back to your first example.. if the truth are the ideals of
friendship, loyalty.. etc. but these ideals can not be purely realized
through the facts of practice making the ideal seem unattainable
therefore threatened....?

Bingo. Maybe this is it. OK, I can see this.

On Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:42:07 -0400, Anthony G. Rubino wrote:

Are ideals truth?