I was studying for an AP psych test (btw, Mrs. Fritz is SO cool) when I came across the psychologist William James who devoted a great deal of his time researching and writing on the topics we have recently been discussing in TOK.....I did a little googling and found some key quotes from two of his most famous written works "Pragmatism" and "The Meaning of Truth". In "The Meaning of Truth", James emphasizes that for something to be true, it must not only be belived but also must "conform to reality". However, he draws a clear distinction between truth and fact in "Pragmatism": "Truths emerge from facts, but they dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth and so on indefinitely. The 'facts' themselves meanwhile are not true. They simply are" (p. 108). I think this is an interesting point to make; I interpret his words as meaning that truth is subjective while facts are objective. And although truths are subjective, they often contribute to the objectivity by revealing more facts....which hurts my head a little bit to think about, but i think that makes sense. In "Pragmatism", James also deals with truth and it's applicability. Perhaps this quote best outlines the sentiments of some people in our TOK class: "Pragmatism asks its usual question. "Grant an idea or belief to be true," it says, "what concrete difference will its being true make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized? What experiences will be different from those which would obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's cash-value in experiential terms" (p. 97)? Although seeking truth and seeking to define truth is a task James sought to perform daily in one way or another, he too became frustrated and unable to provide a simple definition for truth and its pertinence to his life. Perhaps his pragmatic views contributed to his percieved cynicism about the topic, however, if finding truth is so unimportant, why would he have spent time writing a book proving its unimportance?

Glorification or Coincidence?

As you know the week of swimming has finished for the 2008 Olympics. After all the races a total of 23 new world records were broken at Beijing alone. There has been great speculation surrounding the cause of the fastest times including stronger athletes and better swim suits yet there is one more suspicion that hasn't been given a lot of attention. I know it may seem like I have no life but I went online and researched the new world records set by Beijing and the previous record before them. I wanted to investigate my dad's theory that the Chinese have shortened their pool to make their Olympics appear to be the best. I went back to my knowledge of Physics and calculated the time differences per lap between the two times and the old and new velocities of the swimmers to lead me to calculating the change in distance between the two pools (Beijing and where the previous record was set). I averaged these distances for both men and women and figured out what percentage that small distance is of the pool. I'm not saying that this is the sole proof that the Chinese are cheating. I realize the swimmers are probably stronger this year and maybe their swimsuits make them faster but this deserves some attention. It may not make sense at first as to why the Chinese would very slightly shorten their pool as it gives everyone the same advantage. Looking at the opening ceremony, China certainly wanted to make their Olympics one that was not meant to be forgotten. Is it possible that the Chinese shortened their pool to ensure more records were set to make this 2008 Olympics truly unforgettable? And another issue with the pool is how is it measured? The pool must be 50 meters long yet it will probably not measure exactly 50m everytime. In addition where do they measure the full 50m from? Do they measure at every point across the pool or simply one or two? If they only measured at certain points, the pool could be shaped so that some lanes are longer or shorter than others. There are so many questions to be raised over this one pool and the Chinese are constantly being doubted not only about this pool but also with the ages of their athletes. Despite all the controversy one cannot deny that these Olympics won't be forgotten.

from Magister P...Please check out the document that Alley put together on this topic.

On Truth

There's an interesting introduction to The Story of Philosophy called On the Uses of Philosophy. It offers a nice definition of philosophy which, when you flip it around, offers a nice definition of truth (in this instance, lower case t, but I think it has the same sense as what we meant with a capital T).
"[I]t [philosophy] is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory,and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world."
So, truth turns out to be just what we're looking for. The goal of all of our endeavors of wonder, with the philosophical foremost, is to conquer truth and put it into human grasp. That still leaves truth as a pretty abstract concept, but puts a few reigns on it.

Incarnate Truth

WARNING! This post contains hot-button material related to faith. Respond however you like. Just be sure to respect the thoughts of others. In other words, respond as you do in class.



Our textbook, Man is the Measure by Reuben Abel, referred to the famous question of the 1st century Roman provincial governor Pontius Pilate to Jesus, "What is truth?" in the Gospel of John, 18:38 As we have discussed this question, many have assumed truth to be an abstract concept. Some have argued for a connection between truth and facts or between truth and observable reality.

What if truth itself is observable reality? No discussion of truth would be complete without referencing the equally famous statement of Jesus himself in the Gospel of John, 14:6. "I am the way and the truth and the life...."

Even if this statement is taken as metaphor, what does it mean for truth to have a name and a face? What does it mean for truth to be identified with the thirty year old, 1st century Jewish male known as Jesus?



(John 14:6)

Veritas

As we talked yesterday, the form of the Latin word for truth, veritas, places it in a lexical category of other abstract nouns. What does this suggest about the Roman view of truth?

What light can be shed on the nature of truth by examining the the word for "truth" in other languages?

Age and Greatness

To open discussion for the senior year of TOK, let's continue a conversation started toward the end of class today about a prominent and current issue. It has been alleged that some members of the Chinese women's gymnastic team do not meet the minimum age requirement of 16. How can age be determined? Is it a matter of what is printed on someone's passport? Should the Olympic committee have access to birth records to verify age?

We discussed briefly the possibilities of medical testing. One person in class mentioned the study of teeth used in crime scene investigations. Yet another person said that his mother, a doctor, has observed that the physiology of athletes is considerably changed by their training. Is medical analysis even feasible in this situation? Is there a kind of medical testing of athletes that would reveal accurate biological age?

Still yet another person mentioned the differing physiologies of people from different ethnic backgrounds. Are there ethnic specific benchmarks for determining age? Is there a universal test that would apply to all human beings for determining age?

Although it may seem obvious to some, why does this issue matter at all? In what way does it matter if members of any Olympic team are dishonest about any piece of personal information? Why does the world at large, comprised of people from vastly different backgrounds, seem to be united in the idea that age falsification in the Olympics is wrong?

Finally, is Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian of all time? In the 4x100 relay that brought Phelps his second gold medal of this Olympics, Jason Lezak beat Alain Bernard of France in the final leg, yet Bernard beat Lezak in a later race. How does one determine greatness of athletic accomplishment? Is it sheer number of medals? In that case, the United States has fielded the greatest athletes, for we are ahead in the medals race as of this posting. Yet China, in second place, has more gold medals.

Let's hear what you have to say!