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| Absolute | 51% | 459 votes | Total: 904 votes | |
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Absolute
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Add to Favorites"Absolute truth" is redundant, because "conditional truth" or "relative truth" are confused or meaningless notions.
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.
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? Because they're not defining their terms and thinking through what they're saying. As suggested above, 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 peoples 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."
But if so, then they should say that, instead of obfuscating things by wording these claims as if they are equivalent to, or imply, an absence of (absolute) truth.
I mean, I'm not disagreeing with them on any of those points. I'm disagreeing that any of those points establish what their proponents think they do about truth.
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Conditional
Friedrich Nietzsche's thoughts about the good mirror our discussion about the truth. Nietzsche explained that there is no such thing as good. Each and every one of us has an understanding of what the good is. What we define as the good is our truth. However, my truth differs from my neighbor's truth. Therefore, truth differs according to each person. It is conditional.
Its almost like a math formula: Person A + B (for example: views on abortion) = X. Fran M + B (for example: same sex marriage) = X. The B in the equation is our life experience: the things that we have come across that have shaped our opinion. Evidently, the B changes according to each person. Because of this change, truth itself becomes conditional. We cannot say that all drugs are bad because somebody might have been healed by the very substance that society deems bad. We can't even argue that excessive drug use is bad because some children, for example 'crack-babies', require the excess of cocaine to survive. This only means that some truth cannot survive in one person's equation of life. Evidently, for myself, the excess of drug will kill me. So, Fran M + [B = does not consume drugs] (cocaine) = death!
A belief is conditional as well. It differs by person again by experience but also by context. A rounder woman is not considered attractive in North America, but is attractive in Africa.
So, does truth exist? Yes! Anything that is not man-made is truthful. I am blatantly taking my explanation of truth from ancient philosophers, such as Socrates and Aristotle. Nature, life and the earth is truthful. We know that the sun will rise in the morning even on a cloudy day, or else there would not be light. If we decided to bomb and destroy the sun, he would inherently remove a truth. We all know that the sun is vital to our existence. Man cannot create another sun because man is imperfect but also because,he has removed a truth to place his own which is conditional. Mother Nature does things for the earth to assure that trees will grow. But once we, humans, deter that process, we inherently remove a truth.
Another example! We all need to eat. It is part of our survival. We are all well aware of the effects that the suppression of food can do to out body. Nothing can replace the act of eating. Therefore, eating is a truth. When I mean truth I mean a necessity. What is a necessity is truthful because it cannot be replaced, debated, or even removed. To return to my 'crack-baby' analogy, we could argue that the mother has put the baby in that condition because she believed (truth) that she needed cocaine. We all may believe that cocaine is not a necessity. As well all know, an unborn baby is fed by his mother. It is natural! The child is born as a crack-baby by nature. He can be healed, but he will be inherently fixated to cocaine.
To conclude, a man's truth is conditional. It changes according to ones life experience. People may share the same truth but it does not make it necessarily true. People within the Nazi party believed that Jews were the cause of Germany's ills. That was their truth; but was it truly (no pun intended) true? Most of us believe that it is not. What is not man-made is an absolute truth. When I mean truth I mean a necessity. I can also conclude that what is a necessity is truthful; what is a belief is conditional.
Learn more about this author, F.M.
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