Two people were arguing about whether or not Trump's comments about "shithole countries" was racist. One woman was arguing it clearly is racist. A man responded that she was being fooled by "propaganda." He claimed himself to be above such foolery and thus he could determine the truth behind it, which was that the statement wasn't racist, but rather political.
I see this misundertanding of the meaning of truth a lot of facebook. To claim something to be true or false requires the assumption that a thing exists as an independent phenomenon and as knowable. It is necessary to have some kind of method to determine truthfulness. Typically we use the scientific method based on evidence. We could also rely on assessing the logical validity of that statement.
The issue of contention is... Trump's words (or anyone's words) racist? How would one determine the validity of that statement? Can we know directly? Does a gizmo exist that can probe his mind, find a particular matrix of neurons that prove definitively it is racism? As far as I know there is no such method.
So how can we determine if Trump is racist? If we are interested in the truth behind this, what objective criteria can we use to come to any conclusions? Think about that. As an extension of this argument, how can we determine if anyone's actions or words are offensive? How does truth apply here?
I see this misundertanding of the meaning of truth a lot of facebook. To claim something to be true or false requires the assumption that a thing exists as an independent phenomenon and as knowable. It is necessary to have some kind of method to determine truthfulness. Typically we use the scientific method based on evidence. We could also rely on assessing the logical validity of that statement.
The issue of contention is... Trump's words (or anyone's words) racist? How would one determine the validity of that statement? Can we know directly? Does a gizmo exist that can probe his mind, find a particular matrix of neurons that prove definitively it is racism? As far as I know there is no such method.
So how can we determine if Trump is racist? If we are interested in the truth behind this, what objective criteria can we use to come to any conclusions? Think about that. As an extension of this argument, how can we determine if anyone's actions or words are offensive? How does truth apply here?
