“Truth is That to Which the Community Ultimately Settles Down”

(Charles Peirce)

Analyse and Evaluate this Claim

Peirce’s statement is problematic in its ambiguous definition of terms.  What is meant by “ultimately settles down”?  As skills and scientific knowledge develop, and power structures change, how can it be known that communities are not constantly evolving?  If it refers to “settling down” to an equilibrium state at which changes – because they will probably never stop occurring – merely decrease in frequency, then how much will they have to decrease?  Until they are only matters of detail, no longer affecting the entire system of beliefs?  The claim appears to be implying that an assertion will be discussed and considered by a community, progressing over time toward a convergence of judgements – gradually decreasing the possibility of the assertion’s falsification.  But can this possibility ever be entirely diminished?  Following the nature of Karl Popper’s scientific model, scientific theories are adhered to only provisionally – a hypothesis continues to be tested even if it is not initially falsified, and the process has no “end point”: new problems are continually come across, and open to investigation.  Thus, the issue of what is considered to be “truth” must be addressed.

According to the correspondence theory of truth, a “true” statement is one which corresponds to an observable state.  An example is to say that “the sky is blue”.  Although a number of assumptions are involved in this statement – for instance, that it refers to the present moment in time, and that it refers to the Earth’s sky as seen by a human observer on Earth (for the sky only appears blue due to the absorption of other wavelengths in the earth’s atmosphere – it would not look blue to an observer outside the earth’s atmosphere) – the statement can be said to be true because we can see that the sky is blue.  However, a problem with the correspondence theory is that perceptions can vary.  A colour-blind person may claim that the sky is not blue, and there would be no way of establishing whose senses are more reliable.  How can we even assume that our senses can detect the “truth”?  We are fully dependent upon our senses to find out about the world around us, and have no way of knowing that our view of “reality” is not constructed by false sensory impulses.  If, instead, we say that the truth of a proposition depends upon whether or not it corresponds to fact, surely this is creating a paradox, in that a “fact” is defined as a “true” statement?  Another problem with the correspondence theory is that, though practicable with simple, descriptive statements, it is more difficult to apply to more abstract statements, such as theoretical ones, or those that rely on introspection.

Some modern philosophers, such as Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus), maintain that the levels of “truth” in a statement are inversely proportional to the levels of information in the same statement.  Only truisms, such as mathematical statements derived from a given set of axioms, can be absolutely true without any ambiguities or questionable aspects.  On the other hand, such statements don’t add any new information, as they merely follow from the given axioms.  It is obviously true that 1+1= 2, but as this is obvious, there is little point in stating it.  Claiming that the sky is blue may not be indisputably true, but it is far more useful as a statement – for instance, if told to a person wishing to visit that part of the country for a game of golf. 

The coherence theory of truth, unlike that of correspondence, asserts that the truth of a statement can only be determined by the extent of its accordance with other statements that are accepted as true.  This theory is borne from the belief that there is no ultimate system of truth – that truth can only be so defined with reference to a paradigm of beliefs which we have.  This eliminates the problem of the correspondence theory, which required the existence of an ultimately true state of affairs.  On the other hand, it allows for the possibility of parallel belief systems, which are consistent and true within themselves, but which may contradict each other.  An example of this is the existence of various religious beliefs, each of which more or less negates the possibility of any others being “true”, and yet all of which are coherent within themselves. 

The quotation, “truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down,” may be interpreted as an attempt at defining truth – in other words, it is saying that a statement is considered true because it is accepted as truth by the community.  In that sense, Peirce’s statement can be seen as a declaration of support for the coherence theory; almost as a definition.  If the community does eventually agree on something, then that must be true.  However, it would be a narrow definition – if the community does not “settle down” to any particular belief, this would not necessarily mean that they disagree.  They could agree on different “truths” at different times, for example as scientific knowledge evolves, without “ultimately” settling down, either as individuals or as a community.  The statement would then be invalid, without contradicting the coherence theory.  Advances in science have been seen to overthrow previously-held belief systems; for example, the development of research in quantum mechanics brought about discoveries – such as the possibility of a photon existing in two places at the same moment in time – which directly contradicted beliefs in Newtonian mechanics which had previously been considered unarguably true.

A belief in pragmatism would hold that the truth is what works in practice.  This belief is most used in science – because it has been difficult to provide definite proof of scientific theories, reliance has been placed on the predictive power of the theories.  The problem with a pragmatic viewpoint, like that of the coherence theory, is that there could be a number of beliefs about why something occurs, all of which would be consistent with pragmatism, and yet which may contradict each other.  For instance, one person may believe that the sun rises every morning because of daily prayers to the sun gods, and this belief is seen to work.  However, another person may believe that the appearance of a rising sun is caused by the earth’s revolutions about its axis.  As both beliefs are rewarded by a sunrise every morning, both could be seen to be true.

Pragmatism, too, can lend itself to supporting Peirce’s claim.  If the community ultimately settles upon truth, it may have been because that “truth” worked for them.  And if it is believed that an absolute truth exists, it is not necessarily the case that this truth would bring about overall contentment to a community, and hence why would this be what the community “settles down” to?  Thus, a pragmatic truth would appear more likely.  The implication of this, as that of the coherence theory, is that things are “true” if the whole community believes in them.  This may be due to the fact that they work – as pragmatists claim – or it may be due to a common religious belief, for instance.

According to Peirce’s claim, it seems that people inevitably surrender to truths given to us by society; we accept a set of ideas if they seem to agree with the majority of the population, and name these ideas “truth”. The problems in defining “truth” arise as it becomes apparent that different perceptions of the world exist; also, different belief systems, though coherent within themselves, may not correlate with each other.  The debate over the validity of the claim becomes one between the belief in an “absolute truth” and a belief that truth is relative, while it also depends upon whether the terms “ultimately settles down” are taken to refer to the remaining life span of the community, or a more limited time.