Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.
Interpretation
Truth is defined by its practical application and usefulness in a modern context shaped by industrialization.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell highlights the shift in understanding truth from traditional, contemplative notions influenced by aristocratic ideals, to more practical and pragmatic definitions that emerged alongside industrialization. This reflects a broader cultural change where the value of truth is tied to its utility in everyday life rather than abstract theorization.
In practice
In a philosophy lecture discussing the evolution of truth in modern society.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Whenever you go through the length and breadth of our country... you see a long face: you will see the long face of an African woman because she's black, because she's poor.
Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the other side of things.
We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of Godβ¦ Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass β a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a dayβs heat, fell dusty.
And I have lived since - as you have - in a period of cold war, during which we have ensured by our achievements in the science and technology of destruction that a third act in this tragedy of war will result in the peace of extinction.
Modesty and conscientiousness receive their reward only in novels. In life they are exploited and then shoved aside.
Integrity, the choice between what's convenient and what's right.
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