Truthiness
December 9, 2006, 1:25 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
“Truthiness” –coined by Stephen Colbert — truth that comes from your gut rather than reference books — has been named the word of the year.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/12/09/word.year.ap/index.html
“We’re at a point where what constitutes truth is a question on a lot of people’s minds, and truth has become up for grabs,” said Merriam-Webster president John Morse. “‘Truthiness’ is a playful way for us to think about a very important issue.”
I wonder what the relationship between “truthiness” and Pope Benedict XVI’s “relativism” is.
Stephen Colbert was on Charlie Rose last night. There’s a copy of the video online at google video – it starts at 19:32 minutes into the clip:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2504888265369255327&q=charlie+rose+colbert
Truthiness might be another word for bull—, as discussed by Harry Frankfurt. Like bull—, truthiness is rather different from lying. The liar, as Frankfurt points out, still exhibits some regard for the authority of truth. The bull—er, like the purveyor of truthiness, doesn’t care one way or the other about truth. What counts is the effective rhetorical performance, which can often mix truth and lie together.
I’m actually not sure that it’s the same as bulls***. I think, as the video shows, (thanks Philip!), that it’s something rather different. It seems to me it is most likely a belief that access to TRUTH–is achieved by emotional commitment rather than by investigation of facts. So it’s about FEELING the truth, rather than knowing the truth. It involves a deep distrust of learning and knowledge, as something that is more likely to alienate one from fundamental truth than allow one access to it.
The question of relevance to relativism is this: I think, in a way, what Benedict is worried about is a combination of three things.
1. Relativism–truth is relative to one’s historical and cultural cirucmstances.
2. Radical skepticism– there may be truth, but no one can get at it.
3. Radical anti-intellectualism–there is truth, but the way to get at it is not through the intellect, but exclusively through the feelings. -the gut.
This romantic strand of thought is still present in the US –in tv pundits whom Colbert sppofs. .
Thanks to Philip for the link.
I found Colbert interesting (i never knew him until Grant and Cathy began to mention him in their postings.)
But what was astonishing on the link was the first part, before the Colbert appearance. Charlie Rose interviewed John Burns, the Baghdad bureau chief of the New York Times.
I have always found Burns a man of insight and integrity. I urge folks not to miss his remarks.
The scholastics spoke of truth as “adequatio intellectus ad rem,” which might be translated “reality check.”
That’s what Burns provides.
Truthiness could be taken as epistemological response relativism. It might be formulated “How I feel about it is how it is and how I do not feel about it is how it is not”. That way it comes out as Protagoreanism with a visceral focus. The art of persuasion then would be getting others to “feel about whatever” as you do. If you hold with truthiness theory, is there room for falsiness as well? I don’t see there could be. I have no business saying that you have “misfelt” any more than you have saying I have “misfelt”–if I may neologize. Is this what is on the mind of Benedict, Bishop of Rome? I don’t know. Anyone venture a guess? It might be more interesting to know what M. Colbert makes of my analysis.
That’s helpful Joseph. But I wonder if it’s a type of relativism. I think there’s such an egocentric quality to this– How SC feels about it is how it is, period. So truthiness isn’t relative to how other people feel about it. He feels that other people feel falsely–he doesn’t mind telling them so.
For what it is worth, from my experience of the relativism quite prevalent in the world I inhabit here in Quebec, relativism is the view that there is no universal truth or right or wrong. I accept the truth as I perceive it (and it might arise in the gut a la SC), but unlike SC, I have no right to demand acceptance by others. For example, one might believe that abortion is always an evil. Another might believe abortion is quite appropriate if a baby might negatively affect one’s career. Each accepts the position of the other as OK for the other and that is admired as tolerance.
Joseph F. Gannon: Truthiness could be taken as epistemological response relativism. It might be formulated “How I feel about it is how it is and how I do not feel about it is how it is not”….
If you hold with truthiness theory, is there room for falsiness as well? I don’t see there could be. I have no business saying that you have “misfelt” any more than you have saying I have “misfelt”…
Cathy Kaveny: “there is truth, but the way to get at it is not through the intellect, but exclusively through the feelings. -the gut…”
We could even ground this idea of “truthiness as right feeling” further in American history. In the 19th century, a big thing was the sentimental novel, which was based around this idea of “right feeling.” Probably the most significant example of this was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was pretty unique among sentimental novels in that it was making a political statement, but exemplified the tradition well in the way in which it used emotion. Stowe wasn’t offering intellectual arguments against slavery as much as trying to get readers to “feel” as she felt about slavery. She spent a lot of time on scenes of mothers being separated from their children, husbands separated from wives, etc.
On the one hand, this approach was very effective – UTC was one of the best selling American books of the century. On the other hand, a lot of abolitionists, Stowe included, tended to see African Americans as something like children. They felt bad for them, and for the pain they were going through, but didn’t really see them as equals. One could oppose slavery without necessarily granting slaves full and equal humanity. I think this attitude goes a long way to explaining why it took another century before African Americans gained full citizenship in this country.
So on the one hand, “truthiness” does have the power to move people in dramatic ways, but on the other hand, it can misread reality and perpetuate misconceptions. I think in this example, the opposite of “truthiness” would be Frederick Douglass, who argued on the basis of the full humanity of African Americans and constantly brought up the contrast between ideals European American claimed to believe in, such as those in the Declaration of Independence, and the reality of how they acted.
The underlying question, or an underlying question, is what degree emotions have some cognitive content. Should we trust our practical reason more than our emotions? Why? Further, Is there any theological reason to think our practical reason is less shot through with sin than our emotions.
I think Nancy Sherman’s Making a Necessity out of Virtue is a very helpful way into the question, for those that want to do some rigorous philosophical reading.
Cathy Kaveny:”The underlying question, or an underlying question, is what degree emotions have some cognitive content. Should we trust our practical reason more than our emotions? Why? Further, Is there any theological reason to think our practical reason is less shot through with sin than our emotions.”
I don’t know that it’s a question of emotions being untrustworthy so much as it is a question of perspective. The emotional appeal of truthiness is very subjective – how do I/should I feel? It doesn’t necessarily take other people into account. It may be intensely sympathetic, but it is not empathetic.
Harriet Beecher Stowe felt pity for African Americans, but she never quite got to the point of identifying with them, not as objects of pity, but as human beings. I suspect that, in a similar manner, many well-intentioned supporters of the invasion of Iraq felt pity for the hardship and terror of life under Saddam, but tended to see Iraqis more as passive victims in need of liberation than as fully autonomous human beings (hence their failure to understand that nobody likes being occupied, even by occupiers with the best of intentions).
Theologically, maybe you could argue that the failure of truthiness is the failure to truly identify with the other. Right feeling is not enough – one must fully identify with the other.
Jesus would be the supreme example of truth, as opposed to truthiness, in that the Incarnation is God not merely sympathizing with humanity, but empathizing to the point of actually joining humanity.
I suspect that whether emotion can lead to the truth depends on the emotion. There is, even in the highly intellectualistic system of St. Thomas Aquinas, a recognition that knowledge of some things depends on one’s possessing the habit of charity. Charity, of course, is not simply emotion, but it is hardly without it!
Yesterday’s second reading included St. Paul’s prayer for the Philippians: “that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception.” In his commentary on the Epistle, Aquinas posed the question: “But can knowledge come from love?” “Yes,” he replied, and cited 1 Jn 2:27: “Let the anointing which you received from him abide in you. And you have no need that any one teach you, as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie”. He goes on: “Charity is the spirit of which Jn 16:13 speaks: “When the spirit of truth comes, he will teach you all truth.” Aquinas then goes on: “The reason for this is: if someone has a habit and the habit is a right one, by it he follows right judgment about the things that belong to that habit; if the habit is corrupt, he follows false judgment For example, a temperate person makes good judgments about venereal things, while an intemperate person makes false judgments.
“Now all the things done by us are to be informed by charity, and therefore someone who has charity has right judgment, even about knowing things. And so St. Paul says ‘in all knowledge,’ by which a person acknowledges the truth and clings to it with regard to matters of faith.”
St. Thomas developed this theme of knowledge or wisdom by connaturality in the Summa theologica, II-II, q. 45, a. 2., which you can find at: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3045.htm
Cathy Kaveny,
I take your point. You are the expert on M. Colbert. I would say then that he has an attitude rather than a philosophical thesis. The attitude however might still fairly be called inchoate relativism. But there is an inconsistency in his attitude. He has no reason to privilege his gut over anyone else’s. Unless of course he does not recognize the extra-visceral reality of anyone else, or the force of logic and reason. This would certainly fill Benedict with concern. In that case M. Colbert might be said to be in the viscero-centric predicament at the prelogical stage.
One question here is what exactly does Benedict mean when he talks of relativism. There is a kind of metatheory about moral value systems that holds that such systems are the product of social choice, i.e., social constructs. No system can be developed solely out of pure practical reason, as, for example, Kant attempts. This is a variety of cultural relativism. It is somewhat like saying that there is no language tout court, but only French, Italian, Russian etc. It’s very likely that Benedict would condemn such a view of morality.
Emotions certainly have cognitive content insofar as they involve judgments. Certain hope and fear involve judgments, which are cognitive, as well as afffective components. Aristotle holds that moral virtues–in his sense–are guides to right action because they are dispositions to respond to certain situations according to a mean which in combination with prudence lead us to right action. If I understand Fr. K. correctly, St. Thomas enriches this concept by bringing in charity, which is an essential constituent of Christian virtue and also a gift of God. Can we say that charity both leads us to see aright and inclines us to act aright? The texts cited seem to support this. Can the insight that arises from charity be identfied with Colbertian truthiness?
Here is a website where you can find one of Ratzinger’s speeches on relativism: http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/RATZRELA.HTM
His book, “Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions” is also useful.
And, Joseph F., yes, according to Aquinas “charity both leads us to see aright and inclines us to act aright.”
I have no idea what Colbert means.
How about this as a philosophical gloss on “truthiness” –
The relativist about truth insists that “true” is always “true for” – true for a particular social/cultural/linguistic group. There is therefore no way to rationally adjudicate between different conventional systems of belief. The Spartans believe one thing is true about X, the Athenians another.
What real-world consequences does this doctrine have regarding one’s conduct toward those with differing beliefs about what is true? Surprisingly few. One could conclude, with Protagoras, that there is no fact-of-the-matter at stake in such disagreement, so when in Athens, do as the Athenians do, etc. On the other hand, there is nothing to prevent one from saying, with Thrasymachus, in Republic book I, that if is there no fact-of-the-matter to resolve, one might as well cling to one’s belief all the more tightly, and since one’s advantage is usually at stake, to wield rhetorical – and occasionally real – clubs against one’s opponents.
The actual behavior of a relativist who opts for Thrasymachus’s path is indistinguishable from that of an absolutist. Neither admit they could possibly be wrong, the latter because he or she claims absolute certainty, the former because “right and wrong”, in the sense of “truth and error”, do not apply (Might makes right). I think this is what Cathy Kaveny was getting at in her earlier comment that truthiness is “How SC feels about it is how it is, period. So truthiness isn’t relative to how other people feel about it. He feels that other people feel falsely–he doesn’t mind telling them so.”
So “relativism” isn’t what’s really disturbing here. Rather, what Alasdair MacIntyre called “emotivism” is – the idea that it all comes down to preference or cognitive taste, about which there’s no rational disputing. (And emotions, for the emotivist, have no “cognitive content” – they do not embody judgments, they substitute for them.) That’s where “truthiness” comes in. There’s only one place from which conviction can come, if not from practices of rational justification, and that’s “the gut”.
We all rely on our “gut” from time to time, sometimes rightly. But guts, no less than heads, can be wrong. (Sometimes deadly wrong, e.g., Iraq…) Both the skeptical relativist and the dogmatic absolutist reject fallibilism, the view that while doubt needs to be justified as just as much as belief, no belief is in principle immune to criticism. Where there are no candidates for truth or falsity, there can be no doubt, and certainty is the same thing as subjective certitude, or merely “feeling” certain.
It’s interesting too that the sort of right-wing commentator that Colbert satirizes will vacillate between relativism and dogmatism as it suits their purposes. (In the NYT some time ago Stanley Fish pointed this out nicely with regard to “Intelligent Design” advocates. One moment they wax pluralistic about the need to countenance “differing opinions” in the curriculum, the next they expound on biblical truth as literal, self-interpreting, and incorrigible.)
I think relatively few people are serious relativists. BXVI is right to worry about it, but relativism is a secondary phenomenon, a side-effect of the unwillingness to subject one’s beliefs to rational scrutiny and to adjust your conduct to the possibility you might be mistaken. There are lots of different ways one can do that…..
Maybe twenty years hence someone will write a book titled “After Truthiness”?…..
Mike:
In the main I agree. The epistemological relativist cannot formulate her/his theory without resorting to nonrelative statements which on her/his theory are invalid. Again the moral relativist must say something to the effect that no one may make a nonrelative moral judgment, but that is itself a nonrelative moral judgment and so the theory cannot be stated without some form of self-contradiction.
Fr. Komonchak
Thanks for the reference. I will study the Popes remarks in the lecture. On the whole I am in sympathy with the views he expresses, but I think some name more precise than “relativism” would be useful.
I was struck by this paragraph:
“In those religions, a believer is not recognized by certain knowledge but by the scrupulous observance of a ritual which embraces the whole of life. The meaning of, i.e. right acting, is determined with great precision: It is a code of rituals. On the other hand, the word originally had almost the same meaning in the early church and in the Eastern churches. In the suffix was not understood in the sense of “opinion” (real opinion). From the Greek viewpoint, opinions are always relative; was understood rather in its meaning of “glory, glorification.” To be thus meant to know and practice the right way in which God wants to be glorified. It refers to the cult and, based on the cult, to life. In this sense here there would be a solid point for a fruitful dialogue between East and West.”
His semantic analysis of “orthodoxy” is unconvincing. Perhaps it appears in the Greek theological tradition, but anyone who has any knowledge of ancient speculation about etymology will know how fanciful it can be. Plato already uses the concept of heterodoxy in the sense erroneous opinion. Obviously orthodoxy would mean right opinion. The problem is that the root dok-, which is also present in “dogma” , may have different nuances. It may have the sense of mere opinion, but it may also have the sense of settled opinion, of a view that is firmly held by someone, and it may include the notion of action consequent upon a view that is held. That the sense “glory”–which belongs to the vocabulary Biblical Greek attempting to render a Hebraic concept–originally played a role in the sense of orthodoxy seem very implausible to me.
Joseph, Joseph, and Mike–thank you!
Mike–thanks for the introduction of emotivism- and MacIntyre. I wondered about that too. The trouble is, truthiness does seem to have some cognitive content for Colbert. You access that content through the emotion, though. And it has some cognitive consequences. You behave on the basis of that commitment.
So, harder question– what’s the difference between truthiness and faith?
Please let me enter, even at this late moment, this excellent discussion. I think that what I want to say is also relevant to the “Coalition of the Orthodox” discussion.
1. People can deserve to be respected as truthful eve in matters wherre they are flatly wrong. Consider, for example, the witness to an automoblie accident that tries to be accurate in reporting what he or she saw, but makes a mistake. If it happens that no one challenges the witness’s account, thenhe or she may well be fully truthful even though mirred in a factual error.
2. Truth is first and foremost something we ought to try to honor and serve. It is not something I can possess like my wallet, or even my nose.
3. Beingtruthful calls fo doing different things, depending on the topic. Historians, for example, have to realize that their evidence is never exhaustive. There’s always room for more research, more interpretation. Of course, people can make false claims about the past, claims which effectively deny some3 of the available evidence. Mathematicians, on the other hand, have to work to avoid logical mistakes in deriving their theorems. And we all have to admit thatwe neither do nor can know what all the future consequences of our actions will be.
3. Even in matters of our faith, we have no good reason to think that any particular dogmatic formulation says the last word. Otherwise, what would be tie point of theological investigation. To take just one example. What are we to say about the Eucharist? Surely we do want to say that Jesus is present in the Eucharist. But do we have to say that the best way to talk about His presence os in terms of “transubstantion”, a term devised within a particular philosophical position? I don’t think so. The work of someone like Louis-Marie Chauvet points to an alternative way of talking about the Eucharist that is no less orthodox.
4. We should be slow to conclude that some statement p says exactly the same thing as some other statement q. We know enough about language and translation that saying in the strong sense that p and q mean exactly the same thing is, in matters of any complexity, at best highly dubious. Both p and q might well be satisfactory statements about the matter at issue, but if there is indeed something different between them, then the prevailing rhetorical situation may well give us reason to talk in teerms of q rather than in terms of p. We are to be guiided in these matters by our determination to honor and serve the Truth, not by anything else.
I realize that my remarks are too brief to do justice to the large issues of seeking the truth and being truthful in doing so. Bout I hope they suffice to indicate that this topic is not simple.
There is an olD Scholastic dictum meant to to talk about grace. In translation(!!), it goes: “Whatever is received is received according to the mode (or, perhaps, capacities) of the recipient.” I’d suggest that the “relativity” recognized in this dictum is right on target when we talk about the pursuit or transmission of truth.
“The trouble is, truthiness does seem to have some cognitive content for Colbert. You access that content through the emotion, though. And it has some cognitive consequences. You behave on the basis of that commitment.
So, harder question– what’s the difference between truthiness and faith?”
I think you meant to write “behavioral consequences”. I’ll assume you did. O.K. then in the world according to M. Colbert a feeling or emotion leads to a judgment that in turn leads to a certain behavior. The cognitive content of the judgment has its source and its guarantor in the feeling/emotion. That suggest that the feeling/emotion has an effect like that of Charity for Thomas Aquinas. Probably, if you are truly a truthist, the behavior follows freely but invariably from the judgment.
Where does faith come in, you ask. Cerrtainly the truthist, if I may use this convenient term, has faith in the judgment and in the feeling/emotion that gives rise to it. I don’t see grounds for faith in anything transcendent.
Thanks Joseph. I guess my question is this: I think you got the way truthiness works for Colbert. Is faith, at least for many Americans, something that operates in much the same way as truthiness. Its it the feeling of absolute dependence on transcendence (with apologies to Shliermacher and Tillich) that counts?
This is a really difficult question. I can only speak for myself. I do believe that my existence is absolutely dependent on the creative act of God, who is transcendent. I also believe that in my free acts especially God is immediately present. I would not want to act in such as way as to offend, much less reject him on whom I absolutely depend. I also think that it is in our nature to be incomplete and unsatisfied and that God offers what that incompleteness and unsatisfiedness seeks. I have not always been clear about this. I have no idea how common this state of affairs is.
Nobody I know calls me Joseph. Since someone else has preempted Joe, how about JF, my initials and those of a favorite great uncle.
OK–JF it is– Just don’t call me “Malvina”
(And I bet you all thought the “M.” in “M. Cathleen” was for Mary!!!)
Huh.
For the longest time I thought it meant “Bad wine” –feminine form — in Latin.
I finally heard it means “Loyal Friend” in Gaelic– I like that one–.
The trouble is, I’m named after my mom’s beloved French Canadian grandmother, not her Irish grandmother.
Still, I am sure she was a loyal friend.
If Malvina means loyal friend, there is a good chance that the -vina part is connected with an Indo-European root which produced the Old English wine, friend and wynn, delight, as well as the Modern English win (O.E. winnan); also the Latin Venus and venia. As for the Mal- part of the name, that is really interesting. Surely a loyal friend is a good friend. Now there is an I.E. root mel- found in the Latin melior. It would seem to mean good. Perhaps also connected is the colloquial Greek address O mele, which Chantraine in his Dictionnaire etymologique renders as “mon bon, mon pauvre”–these seem to be exclusive alternatives– but finds the etymology obscure. Some Indo-Europeanmists think that mel- good and mel- harm (Lat. malus, perh. Greek meleos, miserable) are I.E. homonyms with opposite meaning. Sounds like something Hegel would find significant.
JF– wow! what erudition! I wish I had your language abilities! and my mom thanks you for the elucidation of the name!
And thanks to everyone for really amazing contributions on this thread. I think Stephen Colbert would think you did his new word justice.
Cathy Kaveny
Your are very gracious. I am glad I was helpful.