Truth

Philosophy is the eternal search for TRUTH - a search which inevitably fails.

Why is the failure inevitable?

"Absolute Truth - Inflexible Reality

"Absolute truth" is defined as inflexible reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts. For example, it is a fixed, invariable, unalterable fact that there are absolutely no square circles and there are absolutely no round squares.

Absolute Truth vs. Relativism
While absolute truth is a logical necessity, there are some religious orientations (atheistic humanists, for example) who argue against the existence of absolute truth. Humanism's exclusion of God necessitates moral relativism. Humanist John Dewey (1859-1952), co-author and signer of the Humanist Manifesto 1 (1933), declared, "There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes." Humanists believe one should do, as one feels is right.

Absolute Truth - A Logical Necessity
You can't logically argue against the existence of absolute truth. To argue against something is to establish that a truth exists. You cannot argue against absolute truth unless an absolute truth is the basis of your argument. Consider a few of the classic arguments and declarations made by those who seek to argue against the existence of absolute truth…

"There are no absolutes." First of all, the relativist is declaring there are absolutely no absolutes. That is an absolute statement. The statement is logically contradictory. If the statement is true, there is, in fact, an absolute - there are absolutely no absolutes.

"Truth is relative." Again, this is an absolute statement implying truth is absolutely relative. Besides positing an absolute, suppose the statement was true and "truth is relative." Everything including that statement would be relative. If a statement is relative, it is not always true. If "truth is relative" is not always true, sometimes truth is not relative. This means there are absolutes, which means the above statement is false. When you follow the logic, relativist arguments will always contradict themselves.

"Who knows what the truth is, right?" In the same sentence the speaker declares that no one knows what the truth is, then he turns around and asks those who are listening to affirm the truth of his statement.

"No one knows what the truth is." The speaker obviously believes his statement is true.

There are philosophers who actually spend countless hours toiling over thick volumes written on the "meaninglessness" of everything. We can assume they think the text is meaningful! Then there are those philosophy teachers who teach their students, "No one's opinion is superior to anyone else's. There is no hierarchy of truth or values. Anyone's viewpoint is just as valid as anyone else's viewpoint. We all have our own truth." Then they turn around and grade the papers!"

More here....

Is there such a thing as absolute truth?

"How illogical is it to answer this question 'no?' For, if the answer is 'no,' would that, itself, not be an absolute truth? The answer necessarily is 'yes,' because simply answering 'no' to the question means the answer is 'yes.'

The question, for the purpose of debate, might better phrased 'is it possible to know the absolute truth.' Again, though, the answer is 'yes.'"

More here....

6 comments:

  1. in my opinion, failure is a choice, if we've done something, we have two reality to face, its not right, the other thing is wrong or failure. Since I mostly spent my times with science, life is quite black and white, there are no gray side, even sometimes assuming is quite helpfull, but still, the only thing we will get might lead to triumph or failure.
    Again, I don't really believe in pre-destination, someone has written our life but to make it fun, we won't know what will happen in our next second, or minutes, or hours. It's quite funny how pre destination works, some say we have two destination, the destination we can't change (e.g death/soulmate/natural disaster) and the one we can change (e.g failure or success), since I believe in free will, that we create our own future, Failure is inevitable because we have to learn something from them to fix it in the future. Well, everybody makes mistake, we are not 'God', we are just a human beings that seeking the truth of life. Sometimes we fail to improve our skills on seeking the truth.

    And if we never know failure, life won't be this fun, isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This statement leads me to think in two possible answers:

    - The truth does not exists.
    - The truth is relative.

    And a very subjective answer
    - The human can't find the truth because it's beyond the limits of its mind.

    By mixing together these three statements we can get:
    The truth doesn't exists because it's a relative concept, determined by the explanation of phenomena, so we set up the boundaries of the truth to our mind, implying that the truth exist within our knowledge.

    And what if the truth exists beyond what we know? (otherwise we would have found truth before) That's why the search for truth leads to an inevitably failure.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I completely agree with Lestat and moreover even if the truth or absolute knowledge exists,it can not be permanent because the world around us changes and therefore "truth" changes as well. Plus as it said above there is no absolute truth-it is relative because only the perception of the person make something true or false, good or bad etc.

    ReplyDelete
  4. So it is an absolute truth there is no absolute truth....

    ReplyDelete
  5. truth- it is relative because only the perception of the person make something true or false, good or bad etc. THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS THE BEST :)

    ReplyDelete