Oh boy. This is a big one. I mean, it's not like humanity hasn't suffered from millennia long headaches trying to come up with a remotely intelligible answer to the question of ultimate reality. Today it seems like all possible angles of attack are spent, and yet beast is still out there somewhere, refusing to be pinned down. "What is true?", "What is truth?", "Does truth exist?", "Where does it come from?", "Construct or reality?" are all starting points for philosophical inquiry that have failed to create consensus around this issue we care so deeply about.
So, I was thinking I should give it a go. The question is simply too important not to. In fact, its significance to us is in some sense my starting point and the lens through which I see the possibility for some agreement.
You all know intimately well that should you take a stab at something someone regards as true, they will defend themselves as if their lives depended on it. However hard you try, you just cannot get them to see things your way. Now, you may say this is not the reality in every case:
Wait a second! I don't do that. After all, I'm an open mind, ready to change at a moment's notice, should the reasons be compelling enough. Ok. Ok. I'll grant you that, you special snowflake. Beliefs about what is true are surely apt to change. Instead I should have said: when you challenge that by which someone's truths are derived, which is something entirely different from the conclusions those processes eventually decide on. Even though we may let what we think be called into question, we will never let anyone disturb the way we think.
The urge to organize and articulate the ambiguous is at the core of human nature. It is how we cope with the world's chaos. We simply have to make structure out of the unknown; to have some pointers to live by, as solid footing is absolutely necessary in order for us to navigate the world in any meaningful way. And these beliefs have since childhood been meticulously crafted and integrated to the point where most of them are taken for granted. So no wonder we get agitated when we are forced to defend our beliefs! And we WILL defend them, for they are are what our existence revolves around. In these broad strokes we are all very much alike. The problem (one of them anyway) we face in reaching common ground is due to contrasting methods of organizing the world. With this in mind, let's have a look at what philosophers have been up to all this time. They haven't found anything universally true, that's for sure.
NB! I am wired in my own way, and tend to lean more to one side than any other. Still, I have made effort to keep my biases in check. The point is to transcend the differences.
Also, I always write "he" instead of "he/she" because it's more convenient.
Are you saying what I think you are saying? Am I really supposed to buy that no mind has ever come up with an universally true statement? Not one utterance? In some sense, yes. At least it's not clear to me how our perception of reality can stand independent from the perceiving, thinking observer. I am not even sure what that would entail. I am not saying that philosophy is a pile of hogwash. Quite the opposite. The philosopher is at the forefront of the least charted territory known to us. Inner space. For does the truth-value of something shrink if it, instead of existing in the world outside, is found only as constellations in the mind?
You may or may not have a philosophy/philosopher you subscribe to. Yeah, because he's right, duuh. Well, he is right in so far as he has managed to describe your way of thinking. I remember coming over Nietzsche, Kirkegaard and Spinoza, and was hit by what seemed like the ultimate answers. I felt so relieved over the fact that someone could frame things in just the right way. And you have probably had a similar encounter. When you can strongly relate. When some part of your being has been perfectly encapsulated. That is why they are right.
Again, that which derives truth. In other words, philosophers make content of that which content makes. At the arena of philosophy, what you think is how you think. How you are. And to accurately describe one's own being, there is two traits that is needed over all others. The first is introspection. While most of us just act out our cognition (and its philosophy), the philosopher is in contrast so aware of his own inner workings that they become available to more concrete thought. Therefore, his second ability is articulation, the quality of which finally decides how well you relate to his teaching.
Alike in the sense that they all score highly in both these traits, and with a deep-rooted need of making sense of the world. But still they manage to conjure up vastly different views. Different philosophies --> different ways of thinking --> different ways of organizing truth. And as previously said, when this structure is on the line we will never bend our opinion, at least at some deep level. We can however try to understand the other side the discussion. For I believe there are two fundamentally differing bodies of opinion in the matter of making order out of disarray.
I think, therefore I am.
I once had a friend (let's call him the Inquisitor) whose logical capabilities was above everyone else's. I mean, his mind was like a knife. If you dared to engage this guy in logical quarrel, you would get yourself a real good walloping. The Inquisitor just had that canny ability of suffocating your claim. Always questioning, carefully laying his word-traps, just waiting for the inconsistency to occur. And then spring the ambush! You knew he had got you when he finally said: "So basically, you're saying that...". And what follows that final summary of faulty logic, are your tears.
Careful! Or he'll poking holes in your claim.
To the logician, words are everything. I am even tempted to say that he is his words; his skills of using them hints at his dependence on them. His world is organized by an internal building of coherent sentences, with the axioms at bottom followed by all the assumptions he then logically can arrive at. Basically, first comes a stated truth which is then succeeded by a bunch of equality signs.
Furthermore, to him the truth-value something is entirely binary in its nature. Either completely true or altogether false. No ambiguity allowed in the search for truth! Less reductionistic approaches seem somewhat brutish and unrefined compared to the eloquent methods of critical thinking. If logical proofs should clash with facts, then the latter must give way. I'm not saying that the logician completely disregards facts, for should he ever find himself unable to unite the two, he would sooner question his own abilities than deny factual reality. Therefore, he is always pruning his technique. But should it really come down to it, the core logical principles will always trump the facts.
It needs only be sufficiently true.
Whereas the logician makes sense of things by coming up with a underlying logical structure, the pragmatist has his eyes set on the physical world. To achieve his idea of how things should be organized, every tool is allowed. Simply put, whatever works, goes. This is not to say that he neglects the power of logic, but that at the end of the day it is just another tool you have have to wield with practical efficiency. The pragmatist has little time for logic which serves only itself. In fact, his internal self is only minimally dependent upon articulated thought. He is not rational like the logician, but recognizes better the applicable value of something.
Unrefined or not, it definitely works!
In other words, the pragmatist embodies a thoroughly different notion of truth. Firstly, it allows for far more ambiguity compared to the criteria of absolute truth, since now a claim must only be true enough for the task at hand. He does not necessarily believe that reality as it is can ever be condensed to mere words. Instead, the true test of claim is not logical investigation, but rather the real world experiment. Just put it to the test! The better the results, the more truth was contained in the claim.
While both sides can to some degree appreciate and understand each other, we know as soon as the our psychological preferences are attempted undervalued, they must be looked after to ensure the survival of everything we are. This necessarily involves open conflict with the opposing side. We simply cannot stop being ourselves!
Today the authority on what is true is increasingly ceded to the field of neuroscience. Brain scans have proven that thinking is largely determined by which brain regions we rely on, and not on any inherent (or obvious) value in neither the claim nor the philosophy it represents.
Then what is the point of philosophical discussion? Is it all a big waste of time? No, not at all. Even though I have come to be very well aware of the impossible task of changing someone's thinking, I see some really great benefits of being challenged and having to defend your position; the most important being that through disagreement and friction you get a better feel for who you are and what views are central to you.
So, which attitude do you guys subscribe to? Do you think logic should be nested inside practical matters, or that truth is ultimately absolute?
Or let me know I'm totally off!
Thank you for your time.
