by Karim Jessa

Created on: July 30, 2011   Last Updated: August 02, 2011

Facts are true, but truth is not the accumulation of facts. For example, all the information in a textbook may be true, but one does not think of it when discussing truth.

Consequently, in any discussion on the matter of finding truth it doesn't help to seek out the facts, for the simple reason that facts are already proven, and so are not in dispute.

On the other hand, beliefs are not based on fact; yet they are considered true for the most part. And they may come to be proven true, in which case they would not be beliefs anymore. They would have become facts.

So there appears to be some shady territory between proven facts and unproven beliefs. It is in this region that truth has its playground.

How does one go about finding truth, and how does one decide on truth? On what basis is it called truth?

It may, perhaps become necessary to speak of "a" truth rather than "the" truth, suggesting thereby that there may not be only one truth, but one among many. This would lead right into the heart of the controversy whether truth is relative.

As the reader can see, many strands begin opening up whenever an inquiry into finding truth is launched. It becomes more a matter of determining the appropriate questions to be asked rather than finding the answers.

It will be found that whenever one begins or joins an inquiry into truth, no one actually holds up any one or several items as truth. What happens is that the inquiry founders upon the definition of truth.

Any pragmatic philosopher would say that it is a futile inquiry. Neither will any truth emerge, nor will a consensus on the definition of truth ever be reached. And wherever the inquiry ends up, nothing in the real world will have changed thereby. So why bother?

Well, all philosophical questions are of this nature. They never seem to have any direct effect on the state of affairs, yet they have the greatest significance to the life of the individual.

In that respect, this inquiry into finding truth demands a prolongation. Somehow life doesn't feel complete if such questions are not examined.

It may help to try another spoke in the inquiry. The word "spoke" is intentional. The entire human project of examining various philosophical matters resembles a wheel. All begin at the periphery - the circumference. Every individual picks up a strand and works along it; sort of like working one's way along a spoke. Eventually, it is hoped, all strands, or spokes, will lead to the center; the hub; the finding of truth.

Whether

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