Philosophy Attempts to Define Truth, Essay Example

Man has been attempting to make sense of his place in the world since time began.  The earliest historical records are creation myths, stories of man’s beginnings.  The systematic study of knowledge, what is knowable, was undertaken by the Greeks some 2000 years ago.  Philosophy was defined by the Greeks “love of wisdom”. Famous Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle brought forth ideas and arguments that attempted to define reality, to understand fundamental truths about humanity, the world, and the relationship between man and the world.

Philosophy attempts to define truth.  However, there are multiple versions of what truth is.  Correspondence truth defines truth as only being those statements which define reality.  A false statement is one that fails to correspond to reality.  We can say that the moon is made of cheese, however this statement can be  proven false by analyzing samples of the moon taken by NASA probes. Correspondence truth depends on the basic idea that everything is knowable through the five senses, and that anyone, anywhere and at anytime could have the ability to test truths and have the same results each time.  Anyone who goes to the moon, independent of their culture or background, using the previous example, would know that the moon was not made of cheese.  Thus, correspondence truths define reality for everyone, and is not objective.

Relative truth, on the other hand, defines truth objectively.  It says that individual cultures raise their children with a specific world view, and that a truth to one culture may not necessarily be a truth to another culture.  Based on their differing world views, some truths may differ from other cultures.  Relative truth says that if something is true to the believers, then it is true.  So truth is relative to the person experiencing the reality.  A person from a culture that practices polygamy would find it absurd that there is a law in the United States that outlaws this practice, since it is a cultural norm in their society.  The view point of most Americans, however, is that this practice is unethical, since it is a cultural taboo in America. The truth about the practice itself, then, is relative.   There are some truths to which relative truth fails to correspond to reality, however.  A thousand years ago, a lot of people believed the world was flat. They had a fear of sailing, because they believed they would fall off the edge of the earth.  The cultural belief that the world was flat was not true, but for them it was.  Their belief in the truth that the world was flat prevented them from sailing around the world.  Until explorers decided to test this truth, and discovered unequivocally that the world was indeed round, many people were stuck in an untrue paradigm that limited their worldview.

Pragmatic truth is another level to which relative truth can be taken.  This defines truth by its meaning to an individual.  If a person believes something, than for them, it is true.  This truth may be a correspondence truth, or it may be relative.  Pragmatic truth is meaningful at an individual level, and is used to define personal reality, but not necessarily a fundamental reality.

On a personal level, I believe truth to be a mixture of all three.  There are certain truths that are knowable to the five senses.  Some knowledge, however, cannot be defined by these senses, due to its nature.  The scientific method was developed to define correspondence truth, to use a logical method to deduce the correspondence truth between matter.  In a sense, it has accomplished much, although the system is not perfect.  Scientific truths are still somewhat relative, since they can be disproved simply when something happens that goes against the truth.  A scientist may study blackbirds all over the world, and after 10 years of documenting millions of blackbirds, make the statement, “All blackbirds are black.”  Yet, tomorrow he may walk out of his house and be stunned to see a white blackbird sitting in front of his house.  Now he must revise his truth, and claim that the real truth is that only some blackbirds are black, and some are white.  In a sense, our entire reality is based upon truths that are knowable until something changes.  Everyday new discoveries are being made that shake the foundation of our current scientific paradigm.  Science is based on the idea of correspondence truth, that everything is knowable through careful observation and experimentation.  Perhaps some things are, but some things appear to be relative.

Relative truths are a part of each persons worldview.  A persons worldview is created through the culture and life experiences that make up their life.  A persons beliefs make up their personal comprehensive view of reality.  Each culture infuses its beliefs and history into the new generation, and children grow to view the world through the eyes of those around them.  Each persons view on life is based on their experiences growing up, good and bad. They see the world through their culture, their parents, and their friends.  My worldview is shaped by my experiences growing up in America, enjoying the relative privileges of living in a first world country. Like other children in America, attending schools where we were taught history, math, science, and literature.  Since my worldview was created through participation in schools where the scientific method is considered the best way to know absolute truth, it is hard to accept truths that are not knowable by this method, such as the existence of God. A higher power may be a reality, however its very nature takes it outside the realm of science.  Thus, it cannot be subjected to the five sense test and proven one way or another.  Since my worldview has been forged by the five sense, correspondence reality, I have a difficult time accepting relative or objective truths.

The Greeks have been struggling with the matter of truth since the time of Homer, Greece’s oldest philosopher.  Plato’s theories were an attempt to reconcile the absolute truth of things with the ever changing world of reality that we experience on a day to day basis.  He made the assertion that the non-material world, a world unknowable to the five senses, was in fact more substantial than sensational reality.  He called this higher truth Forms.   This world of Forms, according to Plato, was a reality not subject to space and time, and thus was unchanging.  The world of our reality, subject to space and time, is in a constant state of flux and change.  For example, a tree that produces a seed may have an abnormal shape, due to an external force like lightening or high wind ripping it apart.  However, a seed produced from that tree will grow with a universal form until it is subject to outside force.  This fundamental reality is the world of Forms, and not the form of the tree itself.   The forms that we experience on a day to day basis, a tree, a rock, or even a river, according to Plato’s theory, are not real. They only mimic the real Form that is their structure.  In his famous allegory of the cave, Plato made described our world as a world of shadows.  The things we see and experience are only a shadow of the real things, the Forms, which we do not perceive directly.  Our understanding of the world, then, is through the mimicking of the world around us of universal archetypes.

Aristotle was a student of Plato’s who went on to be a great master and teacher of Alexander the Great.  His viewpoint on Forms differed greatly from his teacher.  Unlike Plato, Aristotle believed in the solidity of the five sense reality.  He did not believe that the world of form that we experience on a day to day basis was less real than an unknowable realm of Form.  Aristotle’s philosophy was defined on empiricism, things that can be known through observation.  In this sense, he is the father of the modern scientific method, which was developed in order to subject questions through a system that would give the scientist an empirical truth.  Aristotle said that their were four causes for the empirical reality that we see around us: material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause.   The material cause is the actual material the thing is made up, such as the wood that a table is made from.  The formal cause would be the shape of a table, four legs and a flat top.  The efficient cause would be how the table came about, the actions of a carpenter.  The final cause would be why the table was made in the first place, its purpose and design.  Aristotle’s view of reality differed mainly in the importance he gave to the form of thing in reality, not the Form of Plato.

Plato used an argument known as the third man argument, to criticize his own theory of Forms.  Aristotle furthered this argument to explain his objection to Plato’s theory.  The basic premise of the third man argument if a man is a man because he partakes in the form of man, then a third form would be required to explain how man and the form of man are both man.  This is a perplexing argument that many say make these arguments  null and void if, as Plato said originally, perfected forms exist in another world outside of human comprehension.

Another critique Aristotle made of Plato’s Forms was how we are to account for change and time, if the world of Forms lacked both.  Plato said that change and time were not a part of the world of Form, yet they obviously exist in the five sense reality we all experience every day.  So if a Form exists for each form on earth, where does the From of space and time exist?  This question is not solved by Plato and thus made an efficient argument for Aristotle in his critique of Plato.

Aristotle and Plato both used the idea of form to try to understand what is the cause of reality.  Plato’s argument can be seen as a relative truth since it its nature is outside the five sense reality and cannot be tested empirically.  Aristotle’s argument was that correspondence truth has more validity, and things should be able to be proven empirically by the five senses.  To Aristotle, the fact that Plato’s truth was relative was proof that Plato’s ideas were wrong, since he saw correspondence truth as being more true than relative truth.  Truths that corresponded to everyday reality had to have more truth than those which could only be talked about and not empirically proven.