"Truth" as Conceived of by Those Who Are Not Professional Philosophers

Arne Ness (Naess) (1912-2009) shows with careful questioning of people who are not professional philosophers that there is no single common notion of truth, and indeed the variety of views that philosophers hold on truth are held by more or less equal proportions of those he interviews. "Non-philosophers have no theory of truth, no general opinion on the notion of truth, neither explicit nor implicit, which distinguishes them-as a group-from philosophers." p. 159 "The misconception that non-philosophers adhere-explicitly or implicitly-to a definite type of opinion on the notion of truth is primarily due to an ignorance of the extreme diversity of opinion found among non-philosophers as soon as they are invited to speak about the notion of truth. Secondarily, the misconception is due to belief in intuitively obtained information as to the "essence" of the philosophic attitude towards things in general. The attitude of non-philosophers towards the notion of truth has been deduced from alleged knowledge of their character and ideology. A deduction of this kind is meaningless and impossible, even if such knowledge should be available." p. 160 The Advanced Reasoning Forum is pleased to make available in its Classic Reprints series this exact reproduction of the 1938 text.