2022 LEET Logical Reasoning Question 19
(1) If a proposition is true for someone, then it is true for everyone.
Whether one agrees with this statement may vary depending on how the sentence is understood. What must first be distinguished here are three concepts:
the truth of a proposition (truth)
someone believing that it is true (belief)
people agreeing with it (agreement)
These three concepts are different from one another, and statement (1) can be read in different ways depending on the interpretation.
[Interpretation 1] A claim about the objectivity of truth
The first interpretation is as follows.
If a proposition is true, then its truth holds identically regardless of any individual’s perspective.
In other words, saying that if something is true for one person then it is true for everyone emphasizes that truth does not vary from person to person. This position is commonly referred to as the “objectivity of truth.”
For example, consider the statement “The Earth is round.” If this statement is true, then regardless of whether anyone believes it or not, it remains equally true for everyone. In this case, the reader is likely to agree with statement (1).
Now consider an evaluative proposition. For instance, the statement “Yana is devoted” may be judged differently by different people. Some may think that this statement can be objectively true, while others may regard it as dependent on the evaluator’s perspective.
If a reader understands the concept of “truth” as something determined independently of evaluators’ perspectives—namely, if they think that evaluative propositions can also have objective truth—then they may still agree with statement (1).
Conversely, if “truth” is understood merely as something that is considered true by someone, then this reflects a way of thinking that does not presuppose the objectivity of truth. In that case, the conclusion that it is “true for everyone” becomes difficult to accept, and the reader is likely to disagree with statement (1).
[Interpretation 2] A claim about belief and agreement
Statement (1) may also be read as follows:
If someone thinks that a proposition is true, then everyone will agree with them.
In this interpretation, the focus is not on truth itself but on people’s beliefs and social agreement.
For example, consider the statement “The Earth is round.”
“If someone believes that the Earth is round, then everyone will agree with them.”
This claim does not generally hold. Humans can fail to agree even with propositions that are true. Therefore, under this interpretation, the reader is likely to disagree with statement (1).
The same applies to the evaluative proposition “Yana is devoted.” The fact that someone believes it to be true does not provide sufficient reason for everyone to agree. The important point here is that, regardless of whether one accepts the objectivity of truth, belief does not automatically generate agreement.
(2) If everyone agrees with a proposition, then that proposition is true.
This statement expresses a position that attempts to determine truth through agreement.
From the perspective of Interpretation 1, which presupposes the objectivity of truth, the fact that everyone agrees with a proposition does not make it true. For example, many people historically believed that “the Earth is flat,” but that did not make it true. Therefore, someone with an objectivist stance is likely to disagree with statement (2).
On the other hand, someone who closely associates truth with consensus or social endorsement may accept the fact that everyone agrees as a fundamental criterion for something to be true.
This text was inspired by a question from the LEET.