You might have called something true or false a thousand times in your life, but have you ever wondered what is a truth? Or what is a lie? How do we actually determine them? What would be the parameters to identify a statement as true or false?
If you have never thought about it, then ask yourself: how come you have called things true and false without knowing what is true or false itself?
The simple answer is that you don't really know if something is true or false, but you call them so because you have heard authorities saying so. For most people, authorities are validation for truth and a lie. I have observed that people who read a lot of books often quote authorities to validate a statement or to make a case for something. It's so because Buddha says it. You should do this because Zizek says it. You should do that because Marx says it. Lenin says it, that's why it's true.
This is always implied when people quote people that they assume to be authorities of validation, truth, and reason.
Though quoting itself isn't the problem, quoting to validate a statement is a fallacy of appeal to authority in logic. But if you logically make a case for or against something and you base your premises on evidences, and just to avoid plagiarism, where you agree with someone, you quote them, not to add value to the argument, because an authority can't validate a statement, only logic can, but strictly for the purpose that you wanna tell the other person that this line of argument and reasoning isn't your original creation but rather you are borrowing some terms, or arguments, and evidences, then the argument again will be judged in its own intrinsic worth rather than who is saying it.
So, it's basically what is being said rather than who says it.
But the common practice again is quoting authorities with the purpose to make a case strong or validate a statement by authorities. People often pursue truth through sentiments and fantasy. It's also common hierarchical understanding that places truth over falsehood. Ethically, truth is celebrated and a lie is demonized, which is quite strange since a lie and a truth are merely values of a statement and categories of epistemology rather than ethics. A true statement can represent an immoral act, and the statement being true can't make something moral.
(i) Truth is a statement verified to correspond with reality, and (ii) false is a statement verified to contradict reality. An (iii) opinion is a statement awaiting verification.
For example, if I say humans have ten legs, is this statement true? No, it's false, but why?
Because it contradicts reality.
If I say humans have two legs, is this statement true? Yes, it's true, but why?
Because it corresponds with reality.
But if I ask who will win the next elections? Any answer will be an opinion only because the event hasn't happened in reality and thus hasn't been verified to be true or false.
If a statement isn't true, it doesn't necessarily make it false, and if a statement isn't false, it doesn't necessarily make it true. Such a statement that hasn't been verified is neither truth nor lie, but rather an opinion.
Now suppose, if a person shoots another person, and the event as stated is verified to be true, does it being true make it an ethically better act? If someone tells a lie to save an innocent life, is such a lie an immoral act?
Fundamentally, true and false are values of a statement in epistemology. These values shouldn't be confused with ethics therefore.
If a statement is to be verified to correspond or contradict reality in order to be identified as true or false respectively, then the next logical question that follows is: “What is this reality then?”
That is the topic for our next lecture.
