by Donald Finley

Created on: April 23, 2008

Is truth absolute or conditional? Before answering this question, I'll offer an analogy about philosophy in general. Picture a circle. At the top of the circle is philosophical ignorance, the beginning point of knowledge, the position of not knowing and not understanding the world and the dynamics of it. As one matures and moves around the circle clockwise, his or her understanding increases and the wisdom becomes greater. But too often, philosophers continue too far around the circle. As they near the top again, full circle, they get back to ignorance. This is taking philosophical concepts to extremes that defy common sense.

An education in philosophy is thinking training. Part of that training is being given scenarios with "what would you do and why?" questions. If you practice thinking about things you don't normally think about, you will be better prepared to deal with unexpected and unforeseen circumstances in your life because you will have more thinking tools in your toolbox. The problem is that philosophy training focuses on ancient thinkers' viewpoints, which were almost always about some absolute they thought could explain everything. One thinker would find it, and the next would disprove it and explain his own absolute, then the next would disprove him, and explain his own, and on and on and on. It was the study of the evolution of thinking.

Nothing explains everything. There is always an exception to every rule. It is easy to construct a scenario where the absolute does not apply. There is nothing that applies to every situation. So is truth absolute? It can't be.

Say my eyes are blue. Everyone I ask agrees. Does that make it absolute truth? What if I put on sunglasses and ask someone what color my eyes are? They can either say they don't know, or they could guess. What if I ask someone who is color blind and they answer incorrectly? The point here is that truth has a perspective and that no matter how much I try to get the truth with sunglasses on or drill a color blind person to give it to me, the truth will not be the same as I know the truth to be.

Some may argue that this position makes everything relative, but that is contrary to common sense, and takes the concept back around toward ignorance. The definition of absolute means it applies in every case, every time, everywhere. One exception defeats that definition. Remember? There is always an exception. But what if I say that even though truth is not absolute, it's close? My eyes are blue. Putting

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