Truth and Representation: The bond of meaning and truth in discursive and artistic representation

By Fred Jaeger

Truth and Representation is an original critique of the concept of truth aligned with an innovative account of verbal meaning. Their application in furthering the understanding of the nature of both human knowledge and forms of artistic representation is explored. Main themes include:

understanding truth as the illusion that the world corresponds with language;the four basic ways the words in sentences mean;stated truth understood as statements of word meanings eg "Snow is white";how human sensory experience is bound to its verbal articulation;delineation of a fundamental distinction between oral and written discourse in relation to truth;how writing means beyond the spoken word;the truth of forms of discourse (scientific, historical, media etc);truth in artistic and numerical representation.

This last includes original analyses, within the philosophical account of meaning and truth in the book, of the basic nature and "truth" of poetry, fiction, painting, numbers, music, drama, film, opera and philosophical analysis.

The Encapsulation and Table of contents viewable in Look inside give further details.

Corrigendum

The schematic table at pp 220-21 of the paperback missed out some text when the manuscript was converted to the printed format. The full text is as follows.

Formal oral discourse

In the case of formal oral discourse, either there is:

a specific activity involving a verbally bilateral (or multi-lateral) interactive relationship or it is a verbally unilateral performative or imperatival utterance. (The second disjunct, that is, involves an utterance rather than an activity. As an instance of formal oral discourse it may be performative or imperatival by way of its (formally) getting something done. Value judgements, by contrast, just opine.)

If it is a specific activity involving a verbally bilateral (or multi-lateral) interactive relationship, it is either:

an activity constituted by a verbally interactive relationship or an activity based in an extra-verbal interactive relationship which the oral discourse in auxiliary fashion informs with regard to its enactment ie all these things that people do jointly that impact extra-verbally.

If it is an activity constituted by a verbally interactive relationship, it involves either:

representational truth or practical truth (eg giving directions, buying and selling).

Representational truth is either:

representation of truth through semantic ascent (unstated) or true statements (stated) as statements of word-meanings.

Oral truth represented through semantic ascent either is based in or leads to written truth (as a lecture is delivered from notes, what is said in a police interrogation is for the record and discussions at "meetings" involve written documents).

Informal oral discourse

In the case of informal oral discourse, there is: a verbally constituted activity (rather than an extra-verbal one); based not in truth (either as practical truths or through semantic ascent), but in verbally interactive relationships and implicatures; with semantic ascent leading to comments and judgments; and, where there is, incidentally, truth, it is in the form of true statements relating to word meanings.

Anyone purchasing the paperback is asked to print out this full text. The wording in the eBook version is complete.

The table provides a summary of the diagnosis of oral discourse as set out in the book.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BMM6FMF5
• ISBN13: 9798363257544
• Release Date: November 2022
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 786 Pages
• Weight: 2.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"