By Agha Iqrar Haroon
Fine Art is an excellent medium for portraying someone as what he or she is not. Drama, Storytelling, Painting, Poetry, Short stories, Theatre, Film, and Journalism are some of the mediums of Fine Art that are being used to blur the perception of the receiver.
Many social scientists call it Propaganda and some of them call it loaded-narrative propagation. In journalism, we used to call it “Yellow Journalism” but today, all colours have become so blurred that it has become difficult to find what colour is Yellow.
Many of us believe these techniques and tools are the invention of modern times. However, if someone has knowledge of the Classical Philosophy of Science, then he or she can understand that this technique had been a part of propaganda in ancient times and had been used also in the process of “Building of Belief”.
The technique is difficult to understand for the common man and he can have no idea that he had already been the victim of this technique. However, it is not difficult for a student of Philosophy to recognize this game of placing Truth as Fact and using Approximate Truth as Truth.
Truth, Fact, and Approximate Truth have been critical issues for philosophers as well as for scientists and some propagandists use these notions to get their results.
Philosophers are interested in a gathering of issues involving the concept of truth. An initial issue is to decide what sorts of things can be true. Is Truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is Truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract, and timeless entities)?
The principle issue is: What is Truth? It is the problem of being clear about what you are saying when you say some claim or other is true. The most important theories of Truth are the Correspondence Theory, the Semantic Theory, Deflationary Theory, the Coherence Theory, and the Pragmatic Theory but every theory has its additional issues.
Truth
In simple words, Truths are those things that are not simply acknowledged but must be discovered, or created. If I say “clouds bring rain,” and I have strong reasoning for the affirmative of this statement, then it is believable that clouds really bring rain, that is a reality. However, if another individual possesses strong reasoning (having a background of experiences where clouds did not bring rain) for the negative, and because of this reasoning they believe that clouds sometimes do not bring rain, then that is also a reality. If we are debating possibilities of something, and my reasoning appears stronger than my friends, they may choose to adopt my belief that clouds bring rain. If they do, then the existence of rain with clouds is true as the nonexistence of rain. Truths, as opposed to Facts, are much more fluid and flexible than their empirical counterparts.
Approximate Truth
Approximate Truth is, however, a vague notion, and specification of quantity terms and of a sense of approximation are needed to make precise applications of it. Suitability of both vocabulary and sense of approximation depends on the subject matter, and their selection is a partly empirical matter that raises complex issues. In light of the number of common inferences which are not continuous, we also need to be concerned about the indiscriminate use of deductive logic to derive consequences from approximately true theories. Approximate Truth represents a truth that is not testified 100 percent but is accepted and acknowledges. A simple but crude example is that A is the father of B because B has been told since birth that A is his (B) father but has B ever gone through DNA Test? —- to come out of the dilemma of Approximate Truth.
Fact
A Fact, on the other hand, is almost the opposite of Truth and Approximate Truth. Truth and Approximate Truth is (are) the truth unless proven false but Fact is what cannot be proven otherwise.
A Fact is a reality that cannot be logically disputed or rejected. If I say “fire is hot,” I don’t care how great your reasoning skills are, if you touch fire your skin will burn. Now when I say this, I am not speaking the truth, I am speaking a Fact. If you say “fire is not hot,” you are not lying, you are incorrect. Facts are concrete realities that no amount of reasoning will change. When one acknowledges a fact, they are doing just that. Facts are not discovered, Facts are not created, Facts are simply acknowledged and could be testified physically.
The Technique
Intelligent propagandists create syllogism that is logically True but Factually not true. This is logically true that every man who can sex and ejaculate having a certain quality of sperms can become a father. But there are cases where a man has both qualities but cannot be become a father. A is a man and he can sex and ejaculate therefore A will be a father is logically true but there is a possibility it is not Factual.
Propagandists usually use Approximate Truth to tag A as a villain (bad) because nobody can determine Facts about him like can be done for material forms through scientific tests.
Propagandists tactfully use Deductive Reasoning to reach a logical true conclusion of their own choice in the process of developing Approximate Truth because through this lethal technique their given Approximate Truth is testified through a logical process.
Deductive reasoning, or deduction, starts out with a general statement, or hypothesis, and examines the possibilities to reach a specific, logical conclusion— Syllogism.
The scientific/research/logical methods use deduction to test hypotheses and theories. “In deductive inference, we hold a theory, and based on it we make a prediction of its consequences.
Prediction, Possibility, and Assumption
We predict what the observations should be if the theory is correct. We go from the general — the Theory — to the specific — the Observations.
Deductive reasoning usually follows:
First, there is a premise, then a second premise, and finally an inference.
A common form of deductive reasoning is syllogism, in which two statements — a major premise (proposition) and a minor premise — reach a logical conclusion. For example, the premise “Every A is B” could be followed by another premise, “This C is A.” Those statements would lead to the conclusion that C is B.” Syllogisms are considered a good way to test deductive reasoning to make sure the argument is valid.
For example, “All men are mortal. Ahmad is a man. Therefore, Ahmad is mortal.” For deductive reasoning to be sound, the hypothesis (First proposition/premise) must be correct/factual. It is assumed that the premises, “All men are mortal” and “Ahmad is a man” are true. Therefore, the conclusion is logical and true. In deductive reasoning, if something is true of a class of things in general, it is also true for all members of that Class—-Universal truths.
But if one premise is false and the second is true then will get a logical answer but may be untrue. For example, the argument, “All bald men are grandfathers. Ahmad is bald. Therefore, Ahmad is a grandfather,” is valid logically but it is untrue because the second statement (All bald men are grandfathers) is false. So— One must understand there is a difference between Logical and True.
A state-sponsored propagandist buildups logical case that anybody who does not respect state writ, kill people, destroy state property and fight against state institutions is a terrorist.
Now A who is a freedom fighter is placed as the second premise and it is stated that A is fighting against state institutions, killing people, and destroying state property, therefore, A is a terrorist. Logically it is valid but circumstantially it is untrue.
Therefore, we understand that facts are those elements that can be tested scientifically but in human relations, determine fact is rear and we have to follow diction of true or false and this process can always be untrue even it looks True.
Building a narrative against someone as a Terrorist, a Traitor, Corrupt, Stoog, etc is very simple if you can develop Approximate Truth against her/him while Heroes are also made with the same technique.
