I assume that I
have some conception of truth because if I did not I would be a
deranged-external world
skeptic unable to live adequately. This is not to imply that the
truth holder can not be a skeptic. For one who has truth may not
realize he has it and therefore may become subjected to doubt. My
assumption only implied that I am not a deranged external world
skeptic because I have a conception of truth in such that the
conception of which I hold is one that I believe to be truth.
Knowledge is in close relation to truth, as it is a belief about
something that I hold is truth. To use Plato's words, knowledge is a
justified true belief. Because I believe the belief to be true that
means that in my mind I have justified this belief. This then is
where I will begin to unravel my interpretation of truth at basis of
my knowledge of the world.
I'm sitting here
typing at my desk, seeing words appear on my computer. (I will use
this immediate fact to assess my knowledge of truth.) I notice that
as I press my fingers on buttons letters appear on the computer. As
these letters appear on the computer screen I am able to see them
with my eyes. But how can I know for certain that these letters
exist? Could they be part of a hallucination of my mind? There are
several people who claim to see and experience things but are told to
be mad. Could this experience of seeing the letters and words appear
on the computer screen be only a result of my madness? And what of
these fingers? Could this be a foreign body? Could these fingers also
be a result of my madness? Even worse, what if in my madness I have
hallucinated my own existence? What if this belief of myself is
false?
But a belief is a
state of mind. A belief must be thought of, and be believed in. And
how could such beliefs exist on their own? No, it must be then that
if a thought is to exist there must be a thinking being. I know that
I am the one who is thinking this thought so I too must exist. It
must follow then that I think, therefore I am. The belief of my own
thoughts and my own existence is not only knowledge then, but truth.
It is the truth of my existence which is the foundation of my
conception of truth. Any conception that exists, exists in the mind,
and if it exists in the mind then it is something that must be
thought of and known. So let us recall how I know the truth of my
existence. The knowledge of this truth was not derive from
experienced, for one does not experience thinking, but rather I
deduced in a rational way using Descartes's method of doubt. That is
to say I started from scratch doubting all things including my own
existence, and then I proceeded to rebuild by beliefs rationally.
This truth is for me the most foundational and most important truth.
Let us pause on
this point which will again appear important later in the discussion
and shift our attention to the nature of truth. To speak of truth is
a difficult thing, therefore as I have illustrated before it is
easier to give an account of truth by assessing the truth of
something. For presumably truth can not exists on its own. For truth
to exist it must be the truth of something. Let us consider this
green water bottle on my desk. It appears to me to have certain
properties such as its greenness and cylindricality. The truth of
this water bottle may in fact be that it is both green and
cylindrical. Notice that as I speak of this bottle's truth I am
speaking about as what philosophers call the thing-to-itself. This is
to say that if there is a truth of things, this water bottle has a
truth, and that truth is independent of all other things, most
importantly it is independent from myself. This account of truth is
apparently in opposition to a common view of truth which is that of
relativism.(This should not be confused with subjectivism which is an
account of perceptual information of things while relativism deals
with the truth of things.) A relativist would claim that truth in its
nature is relative to the person. If then a person were to walk in
and claim that this water bottle is blue, he in fact would be stating
a truth about the water bottle in the same manner as if I did when I
claimed the water bottle to be green. It would follow then in terms
of logic that the properties that the bottle are said to have cannot
exist in the bottle. This is because the water bottle cannot be all
blue and all green at the same time. This is due to the law of
non-contradiction which states that a thing P cannot be both P and
not P. It must be then that this relativist account of truth is one
in which all things have no definite truth to themselves but are
depended on a person's relative view.
This is a view that
I reject but one that I see is rationally plausible. If we return
back to the foundational truth of Descartes that I have borrowed for
my own account we can see how a relativist view can be developed.
Using Descartes's method of doubt we have deduced that I in fact do
exist because I think. This as I have stressed is the most
foundational and to me the most secure of truths. Therefore in a
sense what to me seems most real and true is the thoughts that occur
in my head. A thought then about my water bottle is one that I feel
makes the bottle exist. I may not know whether the water bottle to
itself actually exists but I am certain that the thought of it
exists. Therefore in this manner I can generate thoughts about all
things around me and assume their existences. The properties then
that I perceive them to have are then actually the properties that
they actually have. This as I have stated earlier is a position that
I reject. For if things are subject to have multiple truth conditions
then I too should be subjected to have multiple truth conditions. For
the relativist view holds on the point that the truth conditions of a
thing are relative to a person. But what makes that person so special
to not be depended on other things for truth? It is therefore my
position that if I have a set truth that is to say that I exist as a
thing to itself, all other things have a truth which is one single
truth to themselves.
I have claim then
to recap, that things have their own truth and that truth is in fact
the truth of something. It therefore must follow that to assess truth
any further one must consider what truth one is looking for. For
example as I assessed the truth of the water bottle, I in fact
searched for the truth of a particular thing. It is of the kinds of
truth of things that separate different fields of study. For this
reason truth to a Buddhist monk will be different from Biology
professor, as the Buddhist monk searches for the truth of certain
things in a certain form. This may be for example the search for the
truth of how to live properly while the biologist may be concerned
with how the body truly functions. This is not to imply that
different truth searches are completely different but only to imply
that they have different goals. Furthermore, the question of what is
Truth is a rather absurd one. No one has ever ask what is Truth, or
at least no directly. Philosophers who question truth are in fact
questioning a particular or general thing. The question of what is
Truth can in which case be converted into other more meaningful
questions such as what is God or what is the nature of reality.
To reflect on this
discussion on truth on a personal level I can say that what I find to
be true is always in question. At my age I am not ready or able to
determine what is the true nature of things such as reality or God. I
do know that in my mind and in my soul I crave to understand and know
how and why things are. I find joy in examining life and furthermore
I feel that no other life is better fit for me. There are several
things still that confuse me and keep me up at night. I find it then
an absolute necessity to pursue truth. (Though this pursuit too, I
often question.)
0 comments :
Post a Comment