The Nature of Truth

It has been a rough semester. Personally, I cannot remember a time in my life when things have been more tumultuous, and from what I have noticed, everyone seems to be on the verge of breaking down. Along with the emotional stress caused by the tragic events of September 11, my body and mind have taken a beating this semester, since my immune system just does not seem to be putting up a fight any more and because difficult times often lead to even more difficult discussions about those times, which frequently cause headaches. On one such talk with my friend Will about the terrorist attacks, Will could not seem to comprehend how any religion could kill thousands of innocent people without remorse. As I explained to him how these zealots truly believed that their faith was the true faith, he interrupted me by asserting, "There is no truth." Could he be right about the absence of truth in the world or does his claim not have a leg to stand on? The purpose of this paper is to answer the preceding questions and study the nature of truth, in particular whether it is possible for humans to know truth and whether truth and morals are relative or absolute.

I am a stubborn, do-it-all-myself person. Rather than look through works of great minds for answers, I have decided to use my own intellect and reasoning. Although much of what I will have to say has probably been written and rewritten many times, I am not directly quoting or paraphrasing anyone�s ideas, but simply compiling the things that I have learned and studied for years. Any statement or analogy that is the exact or similar idea of another is purely coincidental.

To begin, we must define the meaning of the word "truth." The definition that I have always used in regard to the word is "the correspondence of a statement or belief to a fact in reality." In other words, the world is made up of facts that are completely objective and a statement that is true is one that corresponds to one of those facts in reality. Likewise, a statement that is untrue is one that does not have a corresponding objective fact. This definition does not sit well with many. Some individuals say that there is no objective truth in reality, that all is subjective and only matters of opinion, and others say that there is neither objective or subjective truth, such as my friend Will. Later in this paper, I will argue against these claims, but at this time I will simply give consequences of not accepting the aforementioned definition of "truth." Without a correspondence to actual fact, lying is impossible and nothing we say can ever be factually incorrect. I could say, "The sink is stopped up," and at the same time my roommate Juju could say, "The sink is not stopped up," and neither of our statements could be judged as true or false without a fact regarding whether the sink is in reality actually stopped up or not. In addition to this problem, discussion over factual topics would not be possible, since informative communication requires corresponding facts. If I told my roommate that he had a voice message, he would have no reason to believe that I was actually saying that he had a real voice message. Similarly, if he was about to walk in front of a moving vehicle and I tried to warn him, he would have to first consider my warning�s relevance to his system of beliefs before ever moving out of the way. More than likely, I would be getting "A�s" for the rest of the semester. Looking at the consequences of the lack of objective facts in reality, one can naturally assume that the facts must be there.

Now that we have established that there are objective facts, the question of can we know truth arises. After all, just because there are facts in the world does not mean that we can perceive them. Rather than get bogged down in trying to figure out how we can know things, which is an aspect of philosophy that I have never been able to get interested in, I have decided to concentrate on whether or not we actually do know some objective truths, which if shown that we do, will show that at least if some truth is knowable, then perhaps other truth will be as well. These truths must not be learned from our senses or our experiences, which can be imagined to deceive, but must be self-evident and obvious. The first of these is the truth of identity, which is the claim that "A" is "A" because if "A" were not "A" then it would be something else. In other words, the computer screen that I am looking at right now just so happens to be the computer screen that I am looking at right now. This truth is self-evident and obvious, and cannot be imagined otherwise without contradiction. The second self-evident truth is the truth of noncontradiction, which states that "A" is not non-"A". The hair on my head is not everything with the exception of the hair on my head. The last truth we will look at is a statement that exhausts all possibilities, such as, "Either I stayed up all night last night or I did not stay up all night last night." The basic form for this truth is either "A" or non-"A" must be true, because it is not possible to imagine neither case to be true without contradiction. There are other self-evident truths, but all of them can be somehow conformed into the law of noncontradiction. Descartes used a form of these rules to prove that he existed. He showed that in trying to deny his existence, he must exist, because something non-existing cannot attempt to deny its existence. Although many Eastern doctrines embrace the idea of contradictions and prefer to use the words "both/and" in place of "either/or," a world of contradictions seems completely implausible to my Western mind. After all, if I lived in the East, I would still "either" believe in contradictions "or" not.

The consequences of denying the self-evident laws are detrimental to the use of language and understanding. Words would be deprived of their fixed meaning and there would be no way to distinguish things. There would be no possibility for truth, because truth and falsity would be the same thing. Good and evil could not be separated and preference would have no use. Thus, without the laws of noncontradiction, the world would be an even more confusing place. The laws are not only necessary, but have also shown us that it is possible to know some objective truth, and knowing that, we can assume that it is possible to know other truths.

I would now like to return to the conversation that I was explaining between my friend Will and myself. Will had just interrupted me with his skeptical claim of, "There is no truth." A few seconds later, I responded with a question. "Oh, is that true?" I asked. Will thought for a few seconds and then replied in the affirmative. "So, you�re saying that there is at least one truth, that being that there is no truth, right?" I continued. Will, realizing he was caught, just decided to play along. "Exactly." "So, if there is at least that one truth, don�t you think it might be possible that there are more?" I finished, and not expecting Will to respond, I walked away victorious. "Nope," Will answered, "There is only one truth and that is the truth that there is only one truth." I think he enjoys his pessimism.

It amazes me that there are still people today who think that there is no truth, when that claim is so easily demolished in the manner that I used on Will. The statement "there is no truth" is either true, which means that there is at least one truth and the statement must be false, or the statement not true, which would obviously mean that there is truth. Either way, the statement helps to prove that there is at least one truth in the world, and therefore, pure skepticism is a ridiculous ideology.

Last night, I found myself in a similar discussion with another friend of mine, who honestly believed that one of the chairs at our table did not exist, but rather was something that our minds had put there. I tried to explain to Aaron that if he walked in and we offered him the chair to sit in, he most certainly would not be sitting in a figment of our imagination, which probably would not be able to hold anyone up, but he would be sitting in a real chair. He answered with the classic relativist response by saying, "That may be true for you, but it may not be true for me." As previously stated in the definition of truth, objective fact is a part of reality and truth is merely a corresponding statement to that fact, so two people of contrary beliefs cannot possibly both be correct. We can both have judgments on what is true, but that does not affect the objective truth of the matter at all.

Pure relativism is self-defeating much in the same way that pure skepticism proved itself wrong. The relativists claim that, "The theory of relativism is true." So, this theory is either true for everyone, or absolutely true, which would prove the theory false, or the theory is only relatively true to certain individuals. The next question that arises is, "To whom is the theory relatively true?" The relativists could give an answer by using someone�s name, Bernie, for instance. So, is the claim that relativism is true for Bernie absolutely true or relatively true? Again, if the relativist answers absolutely, the theory is false, and if relatively, he or she must explain whom the claim is relative to. Eventually, the relativist falls into infinite regression and will be unable to explain what is asserted when he claims that relativism is true. It would be much easier for the relativist just to admit that there are at some absolute truths.

Often, I have heard relativists say that many beliefs are matters of opinion, and personal opinion cannot be wrong. For instance, the relativist uses this to show that some people are of the opinion that God exists and others are of the opinion that he does not, and that either is a valid belief and can both be true. Personally, I think that there needs to be a greater distinction between beliefs which relate only to the individual, such as, "I believe wraps from the marketplace are the best meal on campus," and beliefs which can correspond with an objective truth in reality, such as, "I believe the only place you can find wraps on campus is the marketplace." The latter is a statement that can be checked and verified, because it has a corresponding fact in reality, whereas the former is only a matter of individual taste. About a week ago, I had to take my friend Kevin to the doctor because he thought he dislocated his shoulder. The doctor said that there were no dislocations or breaks, but that his muscles in his shoulder were in spasm and that they should be fine in no time. A few days later, Kevin decided to go see another doctor to get a "second opinion." It turned out that Kevin was not going to be fine. In fact, he needed immediate muscle therapy or else his entire arm would stiffen up. The "opinion" of the first doctor turned out to be wrong, which shows the relativist that "opinions," when they use the term loosely, can be false.

The consequences of living in a world where truth is relative are that contradiction would emerge into everyday life. My assertion that it is sunny outside would be right next to someone else�s belief that it is rainy, and we would both somehow be correct. All religions would be right about their claims, in spite of all the contradiction of their separate faiths. Learning would be impossible because it is a movement from an absolutely false belief to an absolutely true belief and there are no absolutes in relativism.

Alongside traditional relativism is moral relativism, which claims that each society decides for itself the morals that it wishes to uphold. It sounds like a decent theory at first glance. After all, who are we to judge what people in other countries do? They live in a completely different society and must have rules to fit their needs. However, moral relativism has several key criticisms that knock it down a notch or two. First, there are some evils that human beings cannot accept, even in other cultures. If Canada started torturing babies, would the moral relativist stand up and say that they should be allowed to since it is their culture and not ours? Likewise, the moral relativist could not even look down upon the Canadians for their acts, but would have to accept their society�s code. Often, individuals are members of several groups at once who have differing moral values. To which group would the moral relativist give precedence? Finally, the needs of groups change over time, so it can naturally be assumed that the society�s code would have to be updated sometime. How could a change even take place if bringing up a differing rule goes against a rule already in the code? How is it possible for moral reformers to exist if they are going against a society�s code? Would that make the moral reformer immoral for attempting to change the rules? These problems drastically change the outlook of moral relativism. What once seemed like a viable theory now just seems like another excuse to refuse absolute objective truth and morals.

In conclusion, the nature of truth is a widely discussed topic that from my standpoint seems very one-sided. I have shown that there are objective facts in reality that would lead to complete and utter uncertainty if they were not there. I have shown that it is possible to know at least some truth, and from this foot in the door, one can perhaps grasp other truths. Even the statement, "Truth is unknowable," is self-defeating, because one must wonder how it is possible to know that truth is unknowable and also question whether the claim is true. Pure skepticism and pure relativism were easily dealt with, as their main claims were completely self-defeating. Moral relativism appeared as a viable option to absolute truth, but after a closer look, even it had too many problems. The only option left is that there must be absolute objective truth, which I have shown to be not only necessary, but also attainable. For instance, it is true that this paper is almost exactly 2500 words. It is true that I bought a snowboard and cannot wait until exams are over. And it is most definitely true that after class today, I am taking the longest nap of my life.