Harold Joachim
Harold Henry Joachim (* May 28, 1868, † 30 July 1938) was an English philosopher who primarily is today with its version of the coherence theory of truth be known, he has stated in his major work, The Nature of Truth ( 1906).
Joachim was like his teacher Francis Herbert Bradley in the school of British idealism. From 1919 to 1935 he occupied a chair of logic at the University of Oxford. Joachim was a nephew of the violinist Joseph Joachim.
The nature of truth
Joachim's book The Nature of Truth is regarded as the classic summary of the coherence theory of truth. It begins with a discussion of the correspondence theory (or what Joachim holds for that) and in particular the positions of Russell and Moore, who were preparing to just attack the dominance of the British form of idealism. It follows the positive determination of the truth which has as a consequence that statements only to a certain extent can be true and he finally explained what was to be understood in the context of his theory under mistake.
Critique of the correspondence theory
For Joachim, as for the British idealism as a whole, the main problem of the correspondence theory lies in the requirement of external relations, which he called " meaningless and impossible" (NT 11), elsewhere as "name for the trouble to be solved " (NT 49 ) referred. In a nutshell, the criticism, if A and B in a relationship with each other "they are eo ipso interdependent features of something other than Either of them singly. " (NT 12).
Truth, he says, is according to the correspondence theory, a fixed relation between two different factors, and this relation exists " for" a spirit ( mind ). (NT 8) Each element of a page is available in a one- to-one relationship with a member of the other side. This is precisely Joachim sees but the problem: "There is no ' correspondence ' Between Two 'simple beings ', nor in between elements of wholes Considered as 'simple beings ', ie without respect to the systematization of Their wholes. " ( NT 10 )
Another difficulty believes Joachim seen in the role of the mind, since it is either itself must be one of the factors or correspondence must be held a recognition of the corresponding factors in it. (NT 13) Joachim makes himself the objection that truth can exist even in the mere correspondence of the two factors, that the recognition could be a purely psychological problem. In this case, we do not the truth, we find only, and our finding is irrelevant to the existence of truth. ( A few years later, the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is exactly in that position. ) For Joachim is though, and even that can be considered as a dogma of idealism, no alternative: Truth is truth, if it is detected. The fact that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to the sum of two right angles, although a truth is regardless of whether it is detected, he says, but immediately adds, if the thought is not " for" is a Spirit, " was" he did not. (NT 14)
Coherence
His positive definition of truth is: Everything is true, what can be detected. ( " Anything is true Which can be Conceived. " - NT 66) detectability means " systematic coherence " and is the defining property of a " significant whole." (NT 68) coherence is not to be confused with consistency, Joachim explicitly emphasizes: "The consistent, in short, need be neither true nor good: but the good and the true must be consistent". (NT 74) consistency is a necessary but not sufficient condition for truth.
Degrees of truth
The " significant whole" that can be "true" only in the full sense, he postulated, " absolute individuality ", the " complete whole experience ", and therefore truth is an ideal which as such and in whole human experience never can be. (NT 79) truth, if it is " captured " is true about only a part. And vice versa, which " captures " is, is always partly true. In other words, according to the coherence theory of truth, as propagated by Joachim and the British idealists, no judgment is entirely true, but none entirely wrong.
It is mainly this view, which irritates the opposition today. For example, why is the statement that Caesar in 49 BC, the Rubicon crossed only partially true?
Joachim tried it to give an answer. The "raw fact " ( "brute fact" ) that Caesar crossed the Rubicon was filled with meaning ( " pregnant with significance" ), by the concrete political situation. We do not have to do it with a wrapped, solid, unique complex of conditions. Caesar was of conflicting motives, personal ambition and patriotism, driven. It is not by the mere crossing a river by an abstract man.
But, says Joachim, you will reply that the raw fact remains: Caesar has crossed the Rubicon. That's what the statement by Joachim is also not wrong. " I am only denying that ... it is wholly or absolutely true. " (NT 108 ) In the context of a biography of the sentence has a different meaning than in a history of the Roman Republic. In both contexts, the set has a specific meaning, but the meaning of " isolated" fact is not side by side with other elements of fact, just as a grain of sand in a pile of sand among others, but rather as a first hypothesis in the strong scientific theory stands.
For the student, as another of his examples, the memorizing the multiplication table, has the statement " 3 x 3 = 9 " probably a minimum of importance for the mathematician it is, however, probably an abbreviation for the entire mathematical knowledge of the time. (NT 93) Similarly, the statement of Caesar by a historian has a different meaning, and therefore also a different degree of truth as for the student, who ticking in a multiple choice test.
The fact that the meaning of a sentence determines the degree of truth, makes another example of Joachim significantly. " The whale is a mammal. " * This is not an assertion of a de facto coincidence of predicate and subject, but it means " if Wal, then mammal". Complete cleanup converts a sentence in the confirmation of a reciprocal necessary implication. (NT 109) Likewise, if I know the full meaning of " Caesar ", then his crossing of the Rubicon is ( if it has since taken place) included in the meaning. But since we do not know the full meaning ( not omniscient ), then subject and predicate illuminate each other.
Error
If not set (no judgment ) but it is absolutely true, and no absolute wrong ( as long as it can be detected ), then what is meant by mistake? The fact that Caesar has not crossed the Rubicon, or that the moon is made of green cheese, according to Joachim also has a certain degree of truth, the only lack of coherence proves with supporting judgments as inferior to conflicting statements. The judgment that 2 3 = 6 is, as such, according to Joachim, incorrectly, as a road per se and without regard to a destination of travelers can not be wrong not. The judgment is wrong because its meaning is part of a context of meaning and collides with other parts. (NT 143)
An error ("error " ), however, is a form of ignorance that as indubitable knowledge presents itself "or did form of false thinking unhesistatingly Which claims to be true, and in so Claiming substantiates and completes its falsity. " (NT 142)
Undoubtedly, as asserted, Joachim, there was a sense in which error is closer to truth than mere ignorance. ( A moral advance over the innocence is just as well as the crime without the knowledge of good and evil -. NT 145)
Joachim ends his essay with the question of the truth of his coherence theory. Since there is no judgment and no system of judgments may be absolutely true, his theory is not true coherent qua. (NT 176) Although he believes she is as true as a theory could only be, but admits a negative result of his investigation. (NT 178, 179)
Works
- Study of the Ethics of Spinoza ( Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata ), 1901.
- The Nature of Truth, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1906.
- Logical Studies, 1948.