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The truth of the matter | Meta-rationality

metarationality.com · 2,050 words · saved by 1 readers

Formal rationality requires absolute truths, but those are rare in the eggplant-sized world. How do we do rationality without them?

Ostrich courtesy Krzysztof Niewolny Most true statements are not absolutely true. They may be true enough for all practical purposes; true in some sense; officially true, but effectively meaningless; true, other things being equal; true, as far as it goes; or true in theory, but not in practice. Generically, we can call these sort-of truths . 1 Sort-of truth causes trouble for most brands of rationalism . In particular, the formal methods underlying logicism and probabilism both depend on absolute truth. The fundamental principle of logical deduction is that it is absolute-truth-preserving . I

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