Absolute

by Philo Gabriel

Created on: October 02, 2009   Last Updated: July 17, 2010

"Absolute truth" is redundant, because "conditional truth" or "relative truth" are confused or meaningless notions.

Put as simply as possible (and this is certainly amenable to many elaborations, qualifications, caveats, etc. - that’s what keeps philosophers employed), truth is a property of sentences (statements, propositions, claims, beliefs, assertions, etc.) whereby they correspond to reality. You can add "absolute" in front of that for emphasis if you like, but substantively it doesn't change anything. A sentence either corresponds to reality or it doesn't.

"Aloysius likes to play with goats" is true if and only if Aloysius likes to play with goats. It's also "absolutely" true if and only if Aloysius likes to play with goats.

A lot of times we get tripped up trying to understand a concept like that of truth by confusing it with other notions.  It’s easy to think that “What does it mean for something to be true?” is somehow equivalent to or dependent on a related matter such as “How do we know that something is true?” or “What entitles one to assert that something is true?” or even “When may we compel others to believe or act in accordance with something on the grounds that it’s true?”  When in fact, it’s not.

In order for "Aloysius likes to play with goats" to be true, would it also have to be provable that he does? Nope. "x is true" and "x is provable" are not equivalent. (Nor are "x is true" and "x has been proven.")

In order for "Aloysius likes to play with goats" to be true, would it also have to be the case that we know that he does? Nope. "x is true" and "x is known" are not equivalent.

In order for "Aloysius likes to play with goats" to be true, would it also have to be the case that there is a consensus that he does? Nope. "x is true" and "everyone believes x" are not equivalent.

In order for "Aloysius likes to play with goats" to be true, would it also have to be the case that someone believes that he does? Nope. "x is true" and "x is believed" are not equivalent.

In order for "Aloysius likes to play with goats" to be true, would it also have to be true in some timeless sense, would it have to be the case that there's no time at which he doesn't like to play with goats? Nope. "x is true" and "x has always been and always will be true" are not equivalent.

What would make "Aloysius likes to play with goats" true, or false, is solely a function of Aloysius and his goat-related propensities. How, or if, we can know that the sentence is true is a wonderful, fascinating, complex philosophical question of its own, but it's not the same question as asking what it means for the sentence to be true.

But one might say, "OK, that's what it means for a sentence to be true, or 'absolutely' true. But the question was whether there are such absolute truths."

And the answer is yes. Because even if "Aloysius likes to play with goats" is not (absolutely) true, then "It is not the case that Aloysius like to play with goats" would be. One or the other is (absolutely) true, therefore (absolute) truth exists.

So why then do so many people insist that truth is conditional or relative? 

As I suggested above, it’s because they’re not defining their terms and thinking through what they’re saying. They’re conflating related, but different, concepts and ideas.

By "there's no absolute truth," they really mean something like "There are no beliefs - at least on the "Big Questions" of life (God, morality, etc.) - on which there is total consensus, where all people at all times have believed the same thing." Or perhaps "There are no beliefs - at least on the "Big Questions" of life (God, morality, etc.) - that can be proven, that can be shown with certainty to be true." Or perhaps "There are no beliefs - at least on the "Big Questions" of life (God, morality, etc.) - that it is justified to compel people to believe."

Often that’s all people are really trying to express.  They aren’t attempting to speak in a literal way about these concepts.  They aren’t doing a technical analysis of what it would mean for all truth to be relative.  They’re speaking in an exaggerated or non-literal or rhetorical way to express the fact that they object to people claiming to know the truth in emotionally sensitive areas like religion and morality, and especially to those people trying to force others to abide by what they insist is the truth.

Insofar as that’s the case, I’m mostly in agreement with their emotional stance, but am merely pointing out that the way they tend to word it is nonsensical if taken literally.  It’s not that their revulsion concerning intolerance and arrogant know-it-alls and dogmatic religious folks and such is necessarily misplaced.  They’re just mistaken in thinking that somehow such revulsion entails or requires that there is no truth, or that everyone has their own truth, or that all truth is relative, etc.

Learn more about this author, Philo Gabriel.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.