Sorry to have been confusing, eaf.
I don't know that definitions of terms are the best place to start a discussion, because definitions are themselves controversial.
Examples are probably the best place to start.
So far I have given two examples of "truths":
1. Every human is mortal.
2. No human being is the center of the universe.
You can add any number of further examples of "truths" -- the easiest kinds being things that don't play much role in literature (I live on the earth, water is H2O, I can't fly by flapping my arms). Truths that are more likely to show up in literature would be various psychological truths and moral truths. If you want I can give you examples of these too, but they may not be so uncontroversial as truths.
I have not distinguished between emotional and intellectual truth.
Rather I made a distinction between WAYS OF KNOWING one and the same truth.
We sometimes say that adolescents think they are immortal. We base this on their reckless behavior. If we were to ask them, I'm sure they would say that they know they are mortal. On the view that "actions speak louder than words" we might say that they don't REALLY believe that they are mortal, or not fully, and in a way I agree.
But I don't want to act as though they don't understand the evidence for human mortality. So I make a distinction between intellectual understanding and what we might call a PRACTICAL understanding of the same fact (that we are mortal).
Intellectual understanding is connected to our ability to answer unexpected questions about the topic we understand.
Practical understanding is connected to our skill in action -- our ability to actually perform well in new circumstances.
Those aren't exactly definitions, but they are at least gestures in that direction. The really essential point is that we can understand the very same truth (fact) in different ways, and these two different ways of understanding the same fact will have different effects on our actions.
[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited April 29, 2004).]
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