Truth and the Majority View
The majority view occurs in a wide range of judgments from a few friends arguing over a football game to worldwide opinion of global ecology. The purpose of this essay is to explore the formation of a majority view and test the validity of its judgment using the reality principle.
The reality principle
Wittgenstein's private language argument attacks the idea of the private object. Essentially, his claim is that if I cannot be wrong about 'the colour blue looks to me' then I cannot be right either. His reasoning is that no one else can see what is in my mind, therefore, there can be no objective corroboration of that which is my subjective judgment. The prime target for the reality principle is also the private object. In Dr G. Klempner's Pathways to Philosophy — Metaphysics 2/23 the reality principle is used as a tool to test whether a judgment is genuine or not. Our judgments are statements about how things seem to be to us, but we must accept the possibility that our judgments may be false. However, my beliefs about the world can be false only if there are possible circumstances that would lead me to override my conviction that I am right. The point of using the reality principle is that if we do not accept the possibility of our own judgment being wrong then there can be no distinction between truth and falseness.
By applying the reality principle to a majority view definition of truth we can say that it must be possible for the majority view to be false. If this definition of truth produces judgments that cannot be wrong, then they cannot be right either. However, the judgments of the majority can be false only if there are possible circumstances that would lead them to override their conviction that they were right.
Forms of majority view
The term majority is imprecise and simply means the major part of a population. The part may be anything between fifty and one hundred per cent, and the population may be any number. We need to consider the way a majority is formed before we can value the majority view as a genuine judgment.
(i) A majority view may form where individuals do not know what judgments are being made by others. Suppose a canvasser stops passers-by at random and asks each one 'How many times did Bjorn Borg win the Wimbledon men's single's tennis championship?
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Fall of the House of Usher." Prentice Hall Literature Georgia: The American Experience. Upper Sadlle River: Pearson, 2011. 292-310. Print.
Mitchell, Horace, and Marc Edelman. "Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid?." U.S. News Digital Weekly 5.52 (2013): 17.Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.
In recent years, a major controversy in the NCAA has been whether or not student athletes in college should be paid for playing sports. There are different viewpoints from different people stating if they should or not. Many people believe that they are already being rewarded enough with their education being paid, but even with the school’s help with their tuition and school fees, many have trouble paying personal expenses. Even though some people believe they shouldn’t be compensated for their hard work and dedication, it is the right thing to do, due to their lack of time occupied by sports and schoolwork. Many famous athletes in college such as Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow bring in millions of dollars into their universities due to publicity and even though they are breaking their backs they don’t receive a single dime for their hard work. The college coaches also get a really high salary, just for coaching the players. They also receive many contracts that include shoe contracts, TV and radio contracts, and many perks along the way. When the coaches get their teams to the playoffs or win major games, they might receive big bonuses. It doesn’t make sense that the athletes are the ones that are doing all the work to get the far yet they don’t see any form of compensation. Many executives from the NCAA and the universities also get millions of dollars from big sporting events, and they do nothing to earn it. The athletes are the ones taking stuff out of their time and working hard to not get paid.
8.First proposed by Seymour Martin Lipset (1959), “Some Social Pre-requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 53.1: 69-105
Some people believe that college athletes already do get paid. They believe that the college athletes get paid through their scholarships that they have deserved and worked hard for. Contrary to popular belief, not every single college athlete comes out of college debt free. The av...
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“The Fall of the House of Usher,” written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1839, is regarded
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