3.5 Truth

What has been believed true would remain in society whereas it would disappear from the line of being true once the idea is defeated by another. As far as it can demonstrate its rightfulness to others, it would remain as true. There are times in which what has been believed is reversed by another such as heliocentrism. Objects in the world are constantly subject to the risk of its survival. One may come up with the better idea against the conventional one which is in practice, once one’s new idea is spread among the community, it is subject to the competition of ideas. In which, the winning maintains the true than the older one. It is repetition of this cycle in which the older may come up to the society again by the next generation, but would be effective until when it becomes defeated by another by which it may not appear again as true in the world. This potential reappearance of concepts is believed to be applied frequently to humanities when a certain set of conditions comes up to the world which the ancient ideas could be believed to work with the mixture of the present conditions, and to be less applied to natural sciences as the new discovery would prevail against the consistency of the previous truth in that domain. A set of conditions could be technological aspect that new technology enables people to implement what could not have been in the real world or it could be correction of the definition of a concept whose elements were, precisely saying, not totally the same as used before. This correction is close to, or I would say that it is, the correctability(1). By these processes, human beings continue to revalue the concepts which survive through different ages.

In relation to truth, this writing would like to look at the ability to think. It is recognised that “Since Plato, and probably since Socrates, thinking was understood as the inner dialogue in which one speaks with himself (eme emautō, to recall the idiom current in Plato’s dialogues)”(2). The ability to think is thought that “It has, after all, been that ability to think which, when translated to physical terms, has enabled us to transcend our physical limitations and which has seemed to set us above our fellow creatures in achievement”(3).

The true requires thinking as “Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think”(4). Thinking maintains “active state” in the inner and “Its outward inactivity is clearly separated from the passivity, the complete stillness, in which truth is finally revealed to man”(5). Truth has resilience and becomes robust through the thinking in oneself and society.

The true arguments would be likely to prevail. Even if they are not recognised by some people, they are foundations of further development unless those ideas are defeated by others. The right argument would overcome others even if others many times try to be against it(6). That is why discussion among citizens can enhance the outcome. Discussion can convince people before it is implemented and it can inform citizens of its policy beforehand. It can avoid somewhat the probability of social unrest, even if not completely. Democratic discourse can vitalise the society as a whole if the discourse works. Even after the generation changes, that can help the community not lose their vitality.

If a specific person plays the really large role, it is more likely to face trouble in the period of succession(7). Incorporating the democratic process of deliberation is one way to share the knowledge among the people. Discussion makes the community solid, that can be a factor which can connect people and even if they disagree in certain topics, in other topics they may have somewhat of agreement in opinions. In a situation that they are completely different opinions, as far as their fundamental values such as their benefits are shared it works. Discussion is a way to get a community deeper into thoughts, and it is not limited to the time in which it occurred. It has extensive character of making a habit for people to search more think more for a topic they will encounter next time. Even if not strongly rooted as a habit for people, slightly the experience affects people and have community more intelligent. That can let one know what didn’t come up with one’s mind. Democracy is inefficient and it takes time to come to consensus, however it also has the benefit of trying to create the culture by which one gets accustomed to thinking. This voluntary process of thinking in oneself is a fundamental condition in democratic politics. The culture creates the ecosystem in which people of the next generation can get the advantage of it. Since persons are mortal, the advancement of their ecosystem is the one that give benefits to the next generations.

The problem at around the beginning of 21st century lies in the persons’ tendency to take less time in thinking, and takes the form of language as what it means. To the argument of saying that it is not what he meant, one would show the evidence of the sentence that the person has written before. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean what one takes literally, the intended meaning often differs from what that literally means.

One can show himself to another as a different way from what one thinks in his mind. As persons are able not to explicitly show what they truly had thought at the time of publicly disclosing, the emphasis on what’s not visible matters. This could be applied to the cases that the person in power of a country call for the public for their support in a way that is more likely to convince the public although they may not truly believe in what they say. The public requires the judgement by themselves on what politicians say towards them. It is also a matter of what one says is related to one’s position in society. If a politician needs to get support from the public to win next election, the mindset of hoping to get more votes incentivise their speech more or less towards their purpose. Also, people in a public gathering would behave in a different way from the ordinary self. They do not behave as they are with their friends in a place where they need to socialise with others they meet for the first time. In case of socialising, people are to show their good aspects of themselves in many cases to the ones they talk with. It is not only those obvious examples, but applies to those who appear on TV shows, their way of talking has a sort of similar ways that makes their speech easier to be communicated to their audience.

(1) Correctability is explained in the book titled Philosophy of Correctability by Hiroki Azuma. As of 1 October 2023, available in Japanese as follows: 東, 浩紀., 2023. 訂正可能性の哲学. 東京: ゲンロン.

(2) Arendt, H., 2018. The Human Condition. Second Edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 291.

(3) Penrose, R., 2016. The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 3.

(4) Mill, J. S., 2006. On Liberty and The Subjection of Women. London: Penguin. p. 41.

(5) Arendt, H., 2018. The Human Condition. Second Edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. p. 291.

(6) Mill, J. S., 2006. On Liberty and The Subjection of Women. London: Penguin. p. 26.

(7) Buterin, V., 2022. DAOs are not corporations: where decentralization in autonomous organizations matters. [Online] Available at: https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/09/20/daos.html [Accessed 5 November 2022].

3.6.1 Reality

The power of the past is strong as the current people care about that, on the other hand the power of the present is also strong as it has the power of correctability. People are bound by their past experiences, it seems they continue to be motivated by the outer, those choices are also drawn by the previous. Primitive choices date back to their childhood or when they were born, their environments are bound by what their parents choose. Even if we use word choose here, it is more likely that we had to choose that way in many cases given the conditions at each case. The generation of originality is of difficulty.

Reality becomes a bit retrospective in human cognition. Even if one is sure about what happened in the past, it isn’t complete because that is why people do forget or something they think they did wasn’t what they actually did. This forgetting worths being focused on. Forgetfulness work, often not complete forgetfulness, but the state of somewhat forgotten. In the mixed state of remembering and forgetting, one remembers the thing to some extent, but not completely remembering, that can slightly change what has been, that is to say revise, and propose the renewed.

Our civilisations progressed with this power of forgetting with the time passed from one age to another. Even looking at how history has been woven, people continually has been putting their emphasis on what are historically important for human beings. They put value on certain period of time, ideas, objects. Without naming or making sentences such as rules that one can refer to, it is going to be less influential and eventually could be lost by the time it went by, in relation to the power of forgetness. Rules that people recognised important have been written for record.

Being remembered completely doesn’t occur when knowledge is transferred from one to another. That is when one uses symbols to tell what’s in one’s mind and another person comes to receive it. Even misinterpretation of what has been told is what can generate the new, derived from the original.

By emphasising forgetting in this writing, particularly above and below, some may misunderstand that it is not problematic to (pretend to) forget things that are inconsistent to their arguments, but it is likely for others to find and propose the inconsistency to them and the arguments cannot maintain the truthfulness.

5.1 Civilisation

One influential thought is that advancement doesn’t necessarily let human beings feel happiness, rather it would make people feel unhappy because of the new wants development creates and the gap between those who got them and not(1). Primarily, it’s been said that one has desire for material possessions which doesn’t have a point where it ends(2). Wealth doesn’t necessarily lead to the happiness of people.

Besides the progress of civilisation and happiness of people, how much gap of wealth human beings can tolerate? Comparing people in former eras and in modern era, civilization developed and people seek more wealth in the capitalism of 21st century, but it doesn’t necessarily let people feel happiness in their life.

If some are rich and others feel envious, those who feel envious towards certain people may feel less happiness in their life. How people are to find the happiness in their life matters. If people understand what makes him feel happy, for example refrain from excessive eating and know the enough amount of food needed per day and control, one would feel happy than requiring vast amount of food.

In the capitalism of the beginning of 21st century, it seek further profits. In order to maintain the high standards of life, people need to work harder causes stress. Requiring everyone to labour harder to maintain their living standard is a bit hard for them. The capitalism governs the wider aspects of society with the dominant use of statistics. The statistical penetrated into wider aspects resulted in the integration of societal rules with capitalism. It is not to completely deny the situation, but the problem is that most people are governed by the capitalist rule and not aware of others which may make happiness among them.

Highly civilized society has people’s intention in a lot of parts, that is partly why stress is more embedded in society. There is less uncultivated sphere in the world of 21st century. It may be better to keep the sphere in practice that one takes the sphere temporary and removes their ownership, and others use them in another time. The digitalisation is to look at the tiny details in the world without removing their eyes.

What appeared in 18th century is the “population”(3). As for the concept of population and its statistics, it is worth looking at the history of census in the US. In order to assemble data in US census, Herman Hollerith had ideas in “devising a punch card system for surveyors to use”(4). It “consisted of a set of punch cards and associated readers that used spring-mounted needles to pass through the holes in each card, creating an electrical loop that advanced the reader’s tally for a particular hole location”(5). His business strategy of renting the machines instead of selling made success in their businesses with their clients, and this origin leads to the International Business Machines (IBM)(6).

Think of community of a nation-state, one can look at strong tie and weak tie in governance, the former is more likely to ignore the balancing of gain and loss among them. The tie could be strengthened and weakened by trust as such that the government works improperly in using their revenue from tax, it is harder for the citizenry to have trust in them and vice versa. When the country becomes dense in their population, society becomes complex as it is going to further be in the cross roads of different interests of different people. The decision making and use of publicly received tax revenue could become hard for citizens to imagine.

Not directly connecting the individuals with the state, but the intermediary is necessary. It is a matter of how an intermediary can connect the opinions of their persons with another if required and with the nation-state. The idea of opinion leader could be the one whose books the ones fanatically follow as fans, loosely saying. The resilience of a nation is how much layers it maintains between the nation and individuals. Government whose budget is limited is not able to provide what citizens need completely, they should focus on how communities can be robust by having subcommunities in it.

Individualness comes from where one is born, spent their life, their language, age. No one can be born in the totally same condition with others. That makes a difference, diversity. Nationalism comes from the intimate feeling towards where one is born, spent one’s time in, as nation-state has constraints on their movement beyond border. Even if not constraint of nation-state, physically one is not able to put himself in different places simultaneously. In a social class they are born, some feel comfortable compared with the other classes, how one behaves is different. People cannot be born in the totally same condition. In that sense, the equality of being the totally same is not possible, what should be cared is equality of fairness.

Democracy emphasises the participatory aspect of the public. Some people recognise that citizens should participate more in the political sphere. In voting, in fact many people leave their decisions to others and things are going without their participation of voting. Citizens’ having their right to vote is a necessary right in democracy, but the fact that it is given to citizens doesn’t guarantee the higher percentage of turnout in election.

In representative democracy, people vote for candidate, whose personality matters a lot though there are of course people care more about and vote for candidate based on their policies. Even if they vote for policies, whether it is going to be implemented or not is a doubtful aspect of politics. The aspect of party-politics is too strong that too much time is spent on which party is attracting people, for example, in media. Not the content of policies but political groups are focused. Voting has the impression of voting to a representative, not the issues directly although a representative’s policies are the important factors in deciding their choice. What we should care is the content of politics, such as what kind of policies are going to be implemented.

Governing the world by one stream of thoughts is to eliminate the choices available in people’s end. Not necessarily we have to encourage capitalism all over the world, but suitable economic systems should be implemented depending on regions. That could be expressed as plurality which can be applied to evaluation, standards put in practice in societies.

The domain of business is a big one in capitalist economy. In 2020s, employees typically work 8 hours per day, 40 hours per week, additionally they often need to work extended hours as overtime. It occupies the large part of citizens’ life based on the time that it requires. Not only life of citizens, the influence of businesses has large influence in society. Businesses are not totally separated from other societal aspects. Society often requires businesses to comply with certain regulations, and more generally saying the changing environments of societies.

(1) Fukuyama, F., 2006. The end of history and the last man. First Free Press trade paperback edition 2006 ed. New York: Free Press. pp. 83-84.

(2) Fukuyama, F., 2006. The end of history and the last man. First Free Press trade paperback edition 2006 ed. New York: Free Press. p. 159

(3) Foucault, M., 1976. Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard. pp. 35-.

(4) Zittrain, J., 2008. The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. p.11.

(5) Zittrain, J., 2008. The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. p.11.

(6) Zittrain, J., 2008. The Future of the Internet And How to Stop It. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. pp.11-12.

4.3 Primary principle

Principles of politics or democracy or society are more important as it is fundamental. Principles are more static — though it is admittable that interpretation can change over years or meaning of word itself can change — than people themselves who seem more fluctuating, more easily influenced by other people. The mass may be fluctuated by the environments they face.

Also it is a place that one can refer to it in their daily life, or as often as they are surrounded by. When their community goes to wrong ways or get lost in to what direction they should be heading to, they can recall by referring to the principles. This is the referability that it has. In other words to express the importance, holding primary principles in one’s mind contributes not to lose their initial purpose. If looking at another person who changed his mind to go to the wrong, one could be entangled in that situation to the wrong. Persons often are attracted to the secondary which has distance from the initial objective by compromising. Even if they initially aimed at doing good to their society, they may fall into their personal profit on their way to reach their goal.

Additionally, the reason why people should refer to fundamental principle is that people who refer to other people don’t get themselves to the sublime in many cases. Especially on the Internet people with shallow understanding are easily to change their feelings by others. Extreme ones after getting people’s attention have others influenced sometimes, causing polarization.

Having primary principles in community or society, it can unite people living in it. Even if they are in the direction of being divided, that shared principles have the effect of uniting them. The principles are going to always remind of what is thought as important in that community and that’s what makes having principle important. Similar to the wisdoms are at least written on record such as books of intellectuals through changing environments, principles work towards society by making use of the history that previous generations built up.

Philosophy was presumably closer to the lives of persons. Philosophy is more abstract and adaptable to many situations than the concrete. Philosophical principles to be referred to is the one should be implemented in society. Not necessarily people should depend on others in terms of making a judgement. Without having the capacity of philosophy, one cannot talk comprehensively. This trait of philosophy makes its importance of incorporating it into the education of children.

To make people realise is to make history of human beings. Philosophers emphasise what’s important for humans, they let people recognise what’s important. It’s a successive chain of reaction from one generation to another. History is woven by human beings. Learning lessons from the past history prevents the same mistake since it is true that a man has limited time in one’s life and need to leave their history to next generation. Wisdom is more vertical in a sense that the wisdom of former generation benefits the next. Taking into consideration mortality of persons, whether the world can get intelligent that much or not can be partly determined by social architecture. Morality loses some intelligence from the world, although their works remain. Many countries have experienced war before, among them, there are countries which can lesson their history for the current and future generations.

In the meantime, one needs to take into consideration that there’s often things not written in words. Even if one tries to describe what one wants to keep in record in detail, the sceptical perspectives arise. It can be described a matter of to what extent the detailed explanations can cover the wide range of it. Eventually, the principles, or that set of rules, require the outside.

3.4.2 Culture

It is an issue that how information is channelled and how people consume information. The places that people grow their opinions are as much important as the places where they makes discourses with others so that their opinions are exchanged and they are to find others’ perspectives. For example, educational places such as school plays the role of making people interact, contrary to their private places where they consume their preferred information. Not necessarily in all places they have to make discussion with others to lose their originality, on the other hand they don’t have to always think alone. In the age after the Internet, some say that people are divided into different parts of the informational world which they prefer to see, to create the sphere which enables the discourses among people of different opinions is required to avoid further division of people and development of nation-state. With the preservation of free sphere in which one can grow themselves, the growth of diversity is maintained.

Community justifies things in the sense that “the only criterion we have for applying the word ‘true’ is justification, and justification is always relative to an audience”(2). The legitimacy comes from what the community believes. A conversation among persons with trust each other and another which do not have makes difference. In the smaller community of homogenous social groups, trust is maintained among them, which is different from the larger one of different social groups. The trust in this sense connotates the sense shared among people that the rule put in practice is more or less shared. The rules that peoples of diverse community practice could differ more than the homogenous as peoples in the former could practice their own culture within their own group.

Providing the environment by their society that people feel the necessity of driving themselves towards the social good is beneficial. It attached the notion of the good to the certain behaviours. If society make advertisements that it is better not to use the one-use plastic products as it harms the environment, the awareness among the public would be increased. In this respect, the movements by United Nations as well as non-governmental organisations have certain effects on their societies. Their campaign over the generations could enhance the awareness and more and more people might behave for the societal good. Having said that national sovereignty should of course not be violated, in United Nations level to have institutional framework that can facilitate discourse on specific matter in a country to make its situation better would be likely to work if that is well organised(3).

Inclusive model of education can foster the mutual understanding on persons. It is more likely to avoid the prejudices among peoples. On discrimination, peoples would not be more unlikely to say discriminating speech towards a group of people if they have a friend of the similar background.

In the world of being complex and unpredictable than ever, knowing how interesting to learn a new thing puts them into the cycle of learning. Learning here is a bit different from that education to enhance the productivity, for example factory workers. There should be community-driven learner who learns, importantly, being supported by their community though he/she tends not to learn by oneself but motivated by the community. Education seems like earning degree to certify. Curiosity and learning are closely related.

With the emergence of the Internet, aviation technology, and the like, globalization was in movement around the beginning of 21st century. Especially capitalism after the Internet is to allow persons on the edge to get empowered and create innovative businesses which needs voluntary actions of citizens are the source of energy for the practice.

Seeking the profit, that is what many corporations are doing in capitalism, doesn’t necessarily lead to the happiness. Of course, wealth can let people expand their activities, but presumably there were people feeling happiness more in previous age than some people of more wealth in the current capitalist society. With the emergence of NPOs and NGOs and their activities in society, people became aware of those goodness. Just seeking profits doesn’t so much have attractions for some people.

There some argument that the “human rights culture” emerged “as a new, welcome fact of the post-Holocaust world”(4). The world came to focus on the individuals and the protection of their rights. Presumably, the universal human rights that have universal importance to human beings are proposed. It is a progress to emphasise the importance of human rights, in the meantime has distance with peoples of each region. The distance is a matter to what extent peoples of each region feel intimacy to the principles. Even if it is defined, practicing it in a way identical in one country with another doesn’t necessarily have to be promoted as the circumstances of peoples who practice the concept is much more difficult to be recognised universally. They have different cultures and practices of their own to exercise their rights and freedom. The public attitude of what should be allowed and not in their own nation can be decided in different ways by their decisions suitable to their cultures and contexts. The invention of different democratic cultures in different nation-states enriches the democracy itself.

Community’s self-governance would signify the resilience and robustness on the basis that self-governance is based on the will of community wholly. Without having empathy in the community, it may not continue to exist. The resilience of its community depends on those who belong it, the quality of individuals, but also the community itself has the capacity to help others. Community is dynamic rather than static, in which some reactions are triggered by others’ behaviours. Even in that dynamic, it often has the established. Things are interrelated each other.

(2)Rorty, R. (1998). Truth and Progress. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 4.

(3) For example, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

(4)Rorty, R. (1998). Truth and Progress. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 170. Rorty refers to Eduardo Rabossi.