(French philosopher of science, 1884-1962)
Bachelard is a philosopher of science. Science grows through a series of discontinuous changes, which he callls ‘epistemological breaks’ because they overcome epistemological obstacles. The path of enquiry is obstructed by a fixation on methodological and conceptual features inherited from common sense and outdated scientific ideas and theories. The major contribution of Bachelard to the philosophy of science has been his analysis of these epistemological obstacles, internal to thought itself in the unconscious, often cultural, depth of psychism. He upholds that scientific progress takes place by leaps and bounds in a discontinuous fashion. His ideas on scientific development anticipates Kuhn’s concept of revolutionary ‘paradigm’ (see Kuhn). Both defend the view that each new scientific framework rejects its predecessors as fundamentally erroneous.
Bachelard denounces the common idea that it is enough for us to start from an ‘object’ to think that we are ‘objective’. We marvel in front of the object and elaborate hypotheses and theories upon it. We form convictions which have the appearance of knowledge. Bachelard maintains that the initial source, the evidence of the object is not a fundamental truth. Scientific objectivity is possible only if we break away from the immediately given, if we refuse to be seduced by the first observation. Genuine objectivity gives the lie to the first contact with the object. It is its duty to first criticize everything: sensation, common sense, linguistic lure.
True knowledge is not the passive witness of things and events, it is creative of its relations to the world. Scientific knowledge manifests the life of the spirit; it shows that reason is initiative, that it is the result of a conquest over errors because our mind has a natural inclination towards the truth. We have to fight against our opinions, our subjectivity and common prejudices; we must criticize everything, formulate hypotheses, question nature, recreate a world in rejecting the first images. This task is achieved by imagination – which is not the faculty to form images of reality – but the faculty to distort images, that is, to form images that transcend realities. Creative imagination is an experience of openness through which one never ceases to overcome the acquired concepts.
No wonder that Bachelard rejects Descartes’s foundationalist claim that knowledge is founded on the infallible intuitions of first truths (see Descartes). All truth-claims are subject to revision in the light of further evidence. Reason in its conquest of truth remains always open to the future. It is always capable to question the principles on which it had been too readily leaning hitherto. Bachelard denounces the rigid and stiffened concept of reason in favour of a dialectical concept of knowledge in which imagination opens to way for creative liberty in scientific research. Rational knowledge is not the acknowledgment of fixed objectivities but a process that is constantly on the move and in need of being rectified at every stage of development. Error is not something negative to be eliminated, rather, it is an unavoidable element of growing knowledge.
* Bachelard, Gaston, The New Scientific Spirit, 1934. See The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, R.Audi ed., Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.67
(English philosopher, 1561-1626)
Francis Bacon is regarded as the champion of the inductive method for the discovery of natural laws. His aim was the separation of truth from error, reality from fiction. He considered that though the affirmations of Schoolmen might be true in the metaphysical sphere, their deductions in the region of ‘things’ were false. Bacon was concerned to insist that Truth is twofold: the truth of religion-metaphysics and the truth of science. These different kinds of truth must be separated, in order that the two kinds may not contaminate each other. “Sacred theology must be drawn from the word and oracles of God, not from the light of nature or the dictates of reason”. “From the absurd mixture of matters divine and human, proceed heresies and ‘fantastical philosophy’”. Bacon saw no problem provided that two realms of reason and revelation are kept separate. He was thus an advocate of “double truth”, that of reason and that of revelation.
Bacon denounces a double fallacy: first, to try to confirm the truths of religion by the principles of science, second, to try extract scientific truths out of the Scriptures, like some who “have endeavoured to build a system of natural philosophy on the first chapter of Genesis”. His concern seems to have been to separate religious truth and scientific truth in the interest of science, not of religion. He wished to keep science pure from religion and was probably far less interested in keeping religion pure from science. He was pleading for science in an age dominated by religion. Religious truth must be placed far out of reach, not in order that so it may be more devoutedly appproached, but in order to keep it out of mischief. In urging the separation of religion and science, he made sure that the new knowledge of natural laws through experimentation may be safely embraced without fear of endangering any religious beliefs.
* Bacon, Francis, Novum Organum, De Augmentis, quoted in Wiley, Basil, The Seventeenth Century Background, Chatto & Windus, London, 1946, p.26-31
(English medieval philosopher, 1214-1293)
For Roger Bacon the road to truth can be long and difficult; and, to be sure, it is never ending. But there are rules helping to denounce the four very significant stumbling blocks on the way of truth. He devotes the first part of his Opus Majus to the consideration of the four offendicula or causes of error: blind faith in a false authority, habit which keeps on what is false, prejudices of the ignorant crowd, false knowledge hidden behind ignorance. He reproaches the philosophy and theology of his time to work with unscientific methods and to deal with false problems.
1.Experiment, which is self-conscious and purposive experience, can validate the claims of genuine authority but external authority cannot supply the fruits of experiment.
2. Custom is often anchored in social expediency, but real knowledge cannot be rooted in ad hoc and peremptory speculations.
3. Experimentation needs the patient development of true skill in meditation and perception, for the senses alone will mislead the uncultivated and disordered mind.
4. Most dangerous of all, however, is the deliberate cloaking of ignorance behind pretended knowledge, the pathetic consolidation of errors arising from fragmentation of consciousness.
When these offendicula are purged, one may readily perceive the unity of science and recognize the need for an encyclopaedic approach to Nature.
* Robert Belle Burke, Bacon Roger Opus Majus, New York, Russel & Russel, 1962
(Moroccan born French philosopher, b.1937)
Truth for Badiou is not a matter of theory, but a "practical question", something that happens. It is not the adequacy or correspondence of something known to its object, but a process from which emerges something new. This notion of truth has nothing to do with what can be proved or demonstrated. Truth is not recognition or contemplation, it is a matter of active intervention by a subject.
In fact Badiou invents his own radical concept of truth : truth is what disturbs or destroys or interrupts the order of knowledge. What is true is a realization that rips apart our categories of understanding and forces us to commit ourselves to some new idea or new world of ideas. He says: "I will start with the following idea: a truth is, first of all, something new. What transmits, what repeats, I shall call knowledge." For Badiou distinguishing truth from knowledge is essential. Knowledge as such only gives us repetition, it is concerned only with what already is. All truth, for him, is something new, hence it must be submitted to thought not as judgment or proposition but as a process in the real. Truth is a process that begins and for the process of truth to begin, something must happen. Truth introduces a transformative innovation in any situation. Every such innovation can only begin with some sort of exceptional break with the status quo, an 'event'. Truth is always a challenge to what we already know. Truth is both a commitment and an openness. It is something that to which we commit ourselves, but that at the same time we must always remain open, because a new truth may strike at any time.
Thus for Badiou dealing with truth is not only an epistemological matter but also an ethical one, as he identifies evil as the attempt to create and live within a closed system of knowledge. Evil is the impulse to monopolize or determine or force all truths: it is something that one could call totalitarianism or fundamentalism. Human goodness is, for Badiou, a deep or even total openness to a belief that is not yet knowledge. Truth hence arrives as a disturbance of consensus and convention, as something that cannot be assimilated into the current state of knowledge, and it arrives because someone has the resoluteness to face it and hold to it, even alone.
* Badiou, Alain, Théorie du Sujet, Le Seuil, Paris, 1982. 352 p., L'être et l'événement , Le Seuil, Paris, 1988. 564 p.
(Founder of the Baha’i faith, 1817-1892)
1. All religions are from God. They differ only on account of time and culture. One should treat members of all religions as they are of our own. If religions are the cause of disunity, it is better to be without religion. God is one Being therefore truth must be one. Still truth is relative to the circumstances in which it is being applied. Religious truth is relative to the capacity, needs and understanding of people and culture.
Differences have been created by God. No two humans are the same. These differences do not diminish men and women’s spiritual equality: all human beings are the fruits of one tree. No one should exalt him/herself over another, no religion over another. Diversity of individuals and societies must be protected: it is a strength, not a weakness.
No human being is infallible. No one has the right to compel another to believe and think in the same way as he does. Conflict and contention are forbidden. Since individuals were created differently by God it is only out of the meeting of differing opinions that truth can be made known. Only if we respect and tolerate each other, can the truth be made evident, otherwise it remains obscure.
2. Baha’u’llah emphasizes the fundamental obligation of human beings to acquire knowledge with their “own eyes and not through the eyes of others”. One of the main sources of conflict in the world is the fact that many people blindly and uncritically follow various traditions, movements and opinions. God has given each human being a mind and the capacity to differentiate truth from falsehood. If individuals fail to use their reasoning capacities and choose instead to accept without question certain opinions and ideas, either out of admiration for or fear of those who hold them, then they are neglecting their basic moral responsibility as human beings. Moreover when people act in this way, they often become attached to some particular ideology or tradition and thus become intolerant of those who do not share it. Such attachments lead to conflicts.
Baha’u’llah believes that, if only people would search out truth, they would find themselves united. The fact that many imagine themselves to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest of all obstacles in the path towards unity. Unity is necessary if we want to reach truth, for truth is one.
* See Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, London Baha’I Publishing trust, 1969
(American foundress of the Christian Science movement, 1881-1910)
From the personal error to the impersonal Truth of being.
There is no escape from sin, sickness, and death, except on the Principle that God is the only Life and Intelligence of man. So long as man admits Life, sensation, and Intelligence in matter, he will be governed by his body, and at the mercy of death, sickness, and sin. Life, health, and holiness, together with all harmonies, are Truth; sin, sickness, and death, are error, the opposite of Truth, harmony and Life, and these opposites never blend.
The Soul's attraction is Truth; but the attraction of the personal sense is error. The former elevates and immortalizes man, the latter debases and makes mortal. The two cannot blend; one rules out the other as light shuts out darkness and darkness light. Our beliefs of a personal Deity place infinite Life and Love within the stature of a man, make man God, or put God into matter, which is atheism. Error is the basis of all belief; we need, instead, the true idea, based on the understanding of God the impersonal Principle, Truth, and Life of man, which is not body, but Soul.
Doctrines, opinions and belief are the "tree of knowledge" against which Wisdom warns man; knowledge is obtained from false premises, from the personal sense, that affords only the mortal evidences of man. Sickness, sin, and death are darkness, or moral ignorance that hide Truth, Life, and Love, but cannot extinguish them, or their idea cannot destroy God or man. The standpoint whence to reckon man is not matter, but Spirit. The Soul of man is never lost, insomuch as it is God, Principle, and man its idea, and both are eternal. The infinite is achieved only as we turn from the finite, and from the personal error to the impersonal Truth of being.
We must seek outside of the personal sense in the Principle of things, their true interpretation and remedy. To seek Truth through belief is to ask the changing and erring for the immutable and immortal; or to call belief Truth, is ignorance of God. We learn from the Scripture "God is Love," and this certainly is the Principle instead of a person. God is the Principle, or the Soul of all that is real, and nothing is real that does not express Him and is controlled by Him, and immortal. The Soul is lost sight of by the personal sense, but cannot be lost in science (Mary Baker’s “science”). The example Jesus presented for us to follow, and the Principle he demonstrated in healing, was beyond question, “science” ; but the error of past and present ages is our wrong interpretation of Jesus and Christ, or man and God, namely that the doctrine or belief, that Principle is in a person, and Soul in a body. The personal sense is the error that embraces all mistakes, wherein falsehood is considered fact until it is understood otherwise and the belief is destroyed. One of the beliefs of the personal sense, named sickness, we destroy mentally with the Truth of being, and the sickness is gone.
Eddy, Mary Baker G. , Retrospection and Introspection, Cambridge: University Press (published 1915),
(Contemporary American physicist)
Science is not a search for truth, it is the search for useful theories
Baker is an instrumentalist, by which he means that scientific theories are “instruments” that are useful in modeling nature as opposed to embodiments of truth. However, he is not an instrumentalist in the wider philosophical sense of thinking that ideas are only true if they’re useful. He thinks that ideas are true if they’re true and false if they’re false, and that the axes of truth and utility are not coincident. There are plenty of things that are true but of very little use, and there are also plenty of things that we know to be false and yet are extremely handy in practice. The great value of scientific theories is not their supposed truth, but rather their extreme usefulness. Indeed, scientific explanations of the world are among the most useful structures ever devised by human intellect.
The idea that science is the search for truth is an old one, but it’s not true. Let’s consider what it would mean for a physical theory to be true. A theory might then be considered to be true if those postulated entities are things that really exist and the behaviours inherent in the theory are the ways those entities really behave. In other words, a true theory is an exact representation of some aspect of reality. If science were a search for truth, then the structures and relationships in successive scientific theories in a given field would presumably have to be successively more like the structures and relationships that exist out there in the world. But this isn’t the case.The problem with the idea of science as the search for truth is that successive theories often contain structures that are utterly unlike each other. Even if we are destined to finally arrive at a theory of everything, we must surely doubt that the entities in our current theories bear even the slightest resemblance to the deep structures of the world.
If physics isn’t a search for truth, it is simply that it is the search for useful theories. In other words, physics is the search for theories about the universe that are ever more comprehensive and which ever more closely match experimental data. It is not cumulative: we don’t learn one “law of nature” and then another. Nor is is always gradual: later theories are often radically unlike earlier ones.
So why do people persist in seeing physics as the search for truth? Some people seem to worry that if science is anything less than the search for Truth then the whole edifice will be swept away by the deluge of postmodernist philosophy that claims that no way of viewing the world is better than any other. But the whole world is so full of evidence for the efficacy of science that the pathetic inadequacy of supposed “alternative ways of knowing” seems unlikely.
*See Internet on Richard Baker
(Russian Philosopher, 1895-1975)
Bakhtin’s philosophy allows for one absolute, which he calls dialogue. Dialogue in his view is not merely a form of communication, but the most fundamental human relation. “ ‘To be’ means to communicate dialogically. When dialogue ends, everything ends. All else is the means; dialogue is the end. A single voice ends nothing and resolves nothing”. No statement can claim truth without interaction with other, contradictory statements. Single statements and lonely voices have no significance. On the other hand no existing statement is refused to enter the big dialogue, or the polyphonic truth.
Truth for Bakhtin requires a multiplicity of bearers. It simply cannot be uttered by a single mouth. Truth does not consist in a statement, but in a multitude of simultaneous and contradictory statements. Authentic voices are those that are parts of a chorus. The fictive voices are those expressed outside a genuine dialogue. Truth is not ‘being in touch with one’s inner feelings’ but being in touch with the world of other human beings. The authentic self does not belong to the individual. There is no true self without other selves. Authenticity requires being different in different situations and with different people. Dialogue which constitutes the truth is a non-teleological concept. Dialogue cannot be used for some further end, but is an end in itself.
But if truth is polyphonic, how does one distinguish polyphony from cacophony, when all the different voices coexist but never touch each other? The multitude of representations by itself is not enough to constitute the truth. Bakhtin’s answer to this objection is first that the different representations constitute a dialogical whole only when they are part of the same conversation, even though they have differing opinions on the subject. The other requirement of the ‘polyphonic truth’ is what Bakhtin calls “inclusion”. The truth is in essence everything every one has to say on a subject, whether right or wrong notions. Truth is all inclusive. Neither the statements of the minority group nor the statements of the majority group represent the truth. The truth is there when real living people engage in dialogue around two (or many) sets of statements, even if apparently contradictory.
Bakhtin rejects the idea of ‘absolute’ truth because of its internal structure, namely, that it speaks in a single voice. No individual discourse is capable of producing truth on its own, just because no single voice has enough capacity to generate the truth. Bakhtin thinks of truth as a number of simultaneous statements about the same topic without trying to reconcile or “average” them.
* Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981
(Swiss theologian, 1905-1988)
Truth is hardly knowable without love. Beauty leads to goodness and goodness leads to truth
1. In the Truth of the World Balthasar begins by reflecting on the coinherence of truth, goodness, and beauty. For him the reduction of a knowledge of the truth to a purely theoretical kind of evidence from which all living, personal, and ethical decisions have been excluded entails such a palpable narrowing of the field of truth that it is already robbed of its universality and thus of its own proper essence. Truth and goodness are both transcendental properties of being, therefore both must interpenetrate each other. Correspondingly, the same also goes for the last transcendental property of being, that of beauty; she too makes a claim staked on her universal validity; she too can never be separated from her two sisters. Only a constant, living unity of theoretical (truth), ethical (goodness), and aesthetic (beauty) attitudes can mediate true knowledge of being.
The recognition of the true requires a commitment to the true and so what is recognized as truly good must be lived as well. But the perception of the true is also the unveiling of beauty. In fact, for Balthasar, truth is what happens when beauty is unveiled.
The meaning of being lies in love, and knowledge is only explainable through love and for love. From this follows the insight that love is never separable from the truth. Just as little as there could be knowledge without the will, so also truth is hardly knowable without love
2. Thus Balthasar argues that there can be no reflection on the truth of Christian revelation until it is lived out in committed action, which a Christian will never feel called to do without having first perceived revelation in all its inherent beauty. The fundamental property of beauty elicits a response; and for Balthasar, revelation is primarily a disclosure of the beauty of the Lord. Beauty compels, and a Christianity without beauty has lost its ability to compel.
Christianity, for Balthasar, has no need of apologetics of the conventional sort. The Church should instead endeavor to make her Lord visible. Christians must take up the endeavor to "shine through". Balthasar makes the "apology of holiness." He argues that the 'perfect' Christian is also the perfect proof of Christianity: in the Christian's existential transparency, Christianity becomes comprehensible both in itself and to the world and itself exhibits a spiritual transparency. The saint is the apology for the Christian religion. It is through living a holy life that a person can convince him/herself that the Christian faith is true, and that the God which is believed in is a real God.
* Balthasar, Hans Urs von, Theo-Logic: Theological Logical Theory : The Truth of the World, Ignatius Press, 2001
(American scholar on science and religion, b.1923)
There are four criteria for assessing the value or theories in normal scientific research:
* Agreement with data. This is the most important criterion, though it never provides proof that a theory is true. For other theories not yet developed may fit the data as well or better. Theories are always undetermined by data. However agreement with data constitute impressive supports for a theory.
* Coherence. A theory should be consistent with other accepted theories and, if possible, conceptually interconnected with them.
* Scope. Theories can be judged by their comprehensiveness or generality. A theory is valued if it unifies previously disparate domains.
* Fertility. A theory is evaluated not just by its past accomplishment but by its current ability and future promise in providing the framework for an ongoing research program.
In Western thought three main views of truth have been elaborated and each emphasises particular criteria from the list above. For the correspondence view, a proposition is true if it corresponds to reality. This is the common-sense understanding of truth. It is the position adopted by classical realism. It seems to fit with the empirical side of science according to which theories must agree with the data. But we have seen that there are no theory-free data with which a theory can be compared.
The coherence theory says that a set of propositions is true if it is internally coherent. This view has been adopted by rationalists and philosophical idealists, and it seems to fit with the theoretical side of science. No scientific theory can be evaluated in isolation. But this also problematic because there can be more than one internally coherent set of theories.
The pragmatic view says that a proposition is true if it works in practice. We should judge by the consequences. Scientific enquiry is indeed problem-solving and that is the fourth criteria mentioned above: fertility. But taken alone that criterion is inadequate. It is too vague to say that an idea “works” or is “useful” unless these concepts are further specified by other criteria.
Barbour’s conclusion is that the meaning of truth is correspondence with reality. But because reality is inaccessible to us, the criteria of truth must include all the four of the criteria mentioned above. The criteria taken together include the valid insights in all these views of truth. One or another of the criteria may be more important at a particular stage of scientific enquiry. Because correspondence is taken as the definition of truth, this is a form of realism, but it is a critical realism because a combination of criteria is used. In any case science does not lead to certainty. Its conclusions are always tentative, incomplete, and subject to revision. Theories change in time, and we should expect them to be modified or overthrown, as previous ones have been.
* Barbour, Ian, Religion in an Age of Science, SCM Press, London, 1990, p 34-37
(Contemporary Canadian philosophers)
The role of belief as a way of coming to truth in collaboration
1. Belief is not the same as knowledge. The knower is the person who examines the relevant facts, rightly understands and intelligently concludes with true judgment, as is the case, for instance, with the weatherman who has at his disposal all the required instruments. For TV viewers and newspaper readers, this is not the case: they are believers rather than knowers. Knowledge is immanently generated, while belief is the acceptance of reliably communicated knowledge. The weatherman knows, the listener believes. There is a clear difference between knowledge and belief. 2. Belief meets a real need in scientific activity as much as in daily life. It is part of successful human collaboration , and collaboration is essential to human progress. We need to rely on the knowledge of others. No person alone can know everything about everything. Collaboration involves belief.
3. Therefore not only knowledge but also belief are ways of coming to the truth. We rely on our own direct understanding ( knowledge) of things and situations and also on the understanding of others (belief). In practice knowledge and belief – though distinct – are woven together inextricably. Belief, the second way of coming to the truth, is basically possible because of the first way of direct knowledge. It is also possible because the truth reached by direct knowledge has an objective character, independent of the subject. The knower can communicate the truth to another who accepts it. In most cases – albeit not in all - the truth of knowledge is communicable. 4. Coming to believe a given truth involves a complex of personal judgments prior to the act of belief. First, we act on the conviction that belief in general is of value and that to communicate to others the knowledge we have and accept the same from others is possible and well-founded. Second, we must ascertain the accuracy of the communication from the orginal source of truth and the reliability of the source itself. Indeed a belief is always a secondary way to possess the truth. The proposition believed has to be knowledge for some one. Third, the ‘reliability of the source’ does not mean that we are looking for evidence of the truth of the particular proposition but for evidence of belief in that proposition. There is no general rule here to follow and no alternative to the intelligent and critical reflection on the sufficiency of accumulated evidence for the belief.
* G. Barden & P. McShane, Towards Self-meaning, Gill and McMillan, Dublin, 1969, p.63-78
(Byzantine humanist and theologian, 1290- 13480)
The identity between philosophical and theological truth
Barlaam, one of the pioneers of the Renaissance, reached the point of identifying the objects, the method and the achievements of philosophy and theology, supporting his endavour with arguments to the effect that every human good is a gift of God and therefore all are of high quality. Just as, he used to say, there are not two kinds of health - the one provided by God and the other secured by physicians - in the same way, there are not two kinds of knowledge - the human and the divine - but only one. Philosophy and theology, as gifts of God, are of equal worth.
That is why he raised the Greek philosophers to the same level as Moses and the prophets; and this tendency was later extended to the point of introducing such persons as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other sages to the iconographical circle of Greek Orthodox Churches. Barlaam maintained that «both the sayings of the divine men with the wisdom that is within them and profane philosophy aim at a unique object and therefore have a common purpose, the finding of truth; for truth existing in all these is but one. This truth was given to the apostles at the beginning by God; by ourselves, however, it is found through diligence and purity. Philosophical studies naturally contribute to the truth given to the apostles by God and assist greatly in reaching out to the first immaterial principles».
In complete constrast to Barlaam’s view, Gregory Palamas drew a sharp distinction between philosophy and theology, rejecting Barlaam’s equation of the two disciplines. Their object, he said, must be clearly distinguished. Philosophy aims on the one hand at the exploration of the nature and movement of beings, and on the other hand at the definition of principles of social life. If it moves within these boundaries, it is «a dissertation of truth»; if it looks for something beyond them, it becomes an absurd, useless and dangerous occupation; because it belongs to theology to aim at the invisible and the eternal. But, since the objects of the two disciplines are distinct, the conclusions of both may be true.
This shows that according to Palamas’ teaching worldly knowledge and theological knowledge are clearly distinguished and proceed on parallel paths. The destination of each determines its value. The one intended for this transient life is a useful handmaid, but is not indispensable for salvation; the other intended for the eternal life is more precious and is absolutely indispensable for spiritual perfection and salvation. This is the only distinction for which Palamas uses the term «double knowledge» or double truth, which Barlaam rejects in upholding the unity of philosophical and theological truth.
See John Meyendorf, Byzantine Theology: Historical trends and doctrinal themes, Fordham University Press; 2 edition, 1987,
(British philosopher, b.1942)
Perhaps the truth is that there are many truths
We refer to truth all the time, extol it as a virtue, imagining it perhaps as a path we can follow, one of moral exactitude that will lead us to sainthood. But do any of us really tread this path? Think for a moment of all those occasions when we stray from the truth. We stray when we exaggerate, when we make excuses, when we offer an insincere compliment or remain silent when we ought to really speak out. We stray when we misinform children about Father Christmas, or even when we pretend to be well and happy when we are not. All these – and there are many more – are examples of us departing from what we believe to be the truth. It would seem then that our days are spent in a fog of make-believe, surrounded by advertisers hype, deceptions, denials and concealments. In our every day lives truth is not natural to us. So why do we persist in our belief in truth when none of us uses us as a currency? For one thing, in an uncertain world, it is comforting to have absolutes to cling to. They give us an identity and a moral purpose, and yet all too often are most fiercely held convictions are capable of doing enormous damage, either by inhibiting change – so necessary to our vitality – or by wishing to destroy that which is not encompassed by our versions of the truth. We have seen this writ large in political pogroms and religious persecutions and crusades, but what about in our own private dealings? Our lives become smaller when we believe in certainties, for we close ourselves off to the wealth of diversity. It begins with the misconception that if I am to be right it is necessary for you to be wrong, and all too frequently it ends with the desire to shun all those who disagree. Or worse. The pursuit of ultimate truth has led men and women into great difficulties and darkness. Can one really distil all thought and opinions into one ideal? There have been those who have tried and whose ideas are more worthy than others, but often even these have been distorted by followers with their own agendas. It is obvious that we need a code of morality, and law and order, but these operate for the common good, and do not force obscure truths upon unwilling people. In the final analysis, perhaps the truth is that there are many truths. A snowdrop is not wrong to bloom in winter just because a rose blooms in summer. I have a notion that we should learn to be curious about what others think. We should allow them time to speak and to say what they wish. And we should listen.
* BARNES, Jonathan. Truth, etc. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.
(Contemporary American philosopher)
The discontinuity between knowledge and truth
That knowledge must be true is a longstanding presupposition of Western thought. Yet there are many instances of knowledge that cannot be called true. These include knowledge expressed in technological objects like a bridge or satellite, or in works of art and the imagination. A technological artifact or a work of art is not true (or false) in the way a proposition is. In the face of this discontinuity between knowledge and truth, one may question whether truth properly has the value for knowledge philosophers tend to suppose, or one may make subtle distinctions, dividing knowledge so as to preserve the necessary truth of its best and highest instances. Unsurprisingly, philosophers prefer to distinguish and preserve. Twentieth-century analysts discovered a "semantic" or "conceptual" distinction between knowing how and knowing that. Western thought consistently ignores, misdescribes, and underappreciates the knowledge involved in art and technology. To the philosophers, how-to (or technē) knowledge is routine, mechanical, and thoughtless, while knowledge of truth is a disinterested grasp of nature and reality.
Philosophers even preferred to invent new concepts of truth rather than question whether the best and most important knowledge has to be true.
Certainly there is some difference between knowing that the earth rotates around the sun (a true proposition) and knowing how to play the flute (a skill or art). But is the difference one in kinds of knowledge? What is obviously different about them is how the knowledge is expressed. In one case by producing a proposition, in the other by a musical performance. In both cases the knowledge concerns artifacts, constructions of ours, whether propositions or musical performances. Heliocentric astronomy and musical artistry are therefore not so different as knowledge. Whether we speak of knowing that (such and such is true) or knowing how, we are qualifying capacities for performance at a certain high level with artifacts of some kind.
Knowing how and knowing that are not different kinds of knowledge. They are different kinds of use for different artifacts, all expressing the only kind of knowledge there is: a human capacity for superlative artifactual performance.
* Allen, Barry. Knowledge and Civilization. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2004. Truth in Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 199
(Swiss protestant theologian, 1886-1968)
Truth can only come from Truth, i.e. from God. Religions are human fabrications and therefore they are false. Like Feuerbach, Barth regards man’s ideas of God as projections of man’s own wishes. If the coming of the truth to humanity is possible, it is only through divine revelation. Of himself man is not in a position to apprehend the truth. He ought to renounce even all attempts to try to apprehend the truth. The man who thinks that the truth comes from himself or humanity does not listen, he is not ready to believe. In ‘religions’ man endeavours to grasp God by his own power. Hence religions are the major obstacle for welcoming the divine revelation. In religions people bolt themselves against revelation by providing substitutes : they take away in advance that which can be given only by God himself. The ‘human’ God reached by religions, philosophies and natural theologies is a complete fiction which has no relation to the true God. It is an anti-God which has to be discarded in order that Truth may reveal itself. The Truth can come only to human beings who have emptied themselves of all claims to reach the divine. Divine revelation is the truth besides which there is no other truth. Truth is totally transcendent and there is no immanent human truth. Truth is sheer ‘grace’, the free and unmerited favour of God. Revelation does not link up with human religion which is already present and practised. On the contrary it contradicts it. There can be no question of a harmonious co-operating of man with the revelation of God, as if religion were a kind of outstretched hand which is filled by God in his revelation. There is no continuity and compatibility but only contradiction between religion and revelation, between unbelief and belief, between falsehood and truth.
Religion is never true in itself and as such. The revelation of God denies that any religion or any philosophy is true. Revelation is the truth besides which there is no other truth, over which there is only lying and wrong. No religion is true, for all religions are human products and truth can only come from without. If nonetheless we want to speak of “true religion”, it means that such a religion is the creature of grace. And grace is the revelation of God. In this sense Barth has no hesitation to say that only Christianity is “true” because it alone is the locus of divine revelation.
* K. Barth, The Revelation of God as the abolition of religion, in Christianity and other Religions, Ed. by J. Hick and B. Hebblewaithe, Collins, 1980, p.36-50
( American philosopher,1934-1990)
Truth: neither dogmatism nor relativism but ‘critical preference’
Bartley rejects the dogmatic 'true belief' framework of Western thought, which prevents problem solving and imaginative criticism. This framework, he contends, generates on the one hand true believers who insist that they have the truth in their grasp, on the other hand relativists and nihilists who think that truth and falsehood are indistinguishable. Bartley’s insight into the authoritarian tradition inspired him to pursue a fundamental critique of the quest for positively justified beliefs, an error, which he labeled "justificationism". The target of his critique is the dogmatic or 'true belief' theory of rationality which demands positive justification as the criterion of rationality. This demand is summed up in the formula: beliefs must be justified by an appeal to an authority of some kind, generally the source of the belief in question, and this justification makes the belief either rational, or if not rational at least valid for the person who holds it.
In the Anglo Saxon tradition of Empiricism the authority of sense experience was adopted. In the Continental Rationalist tradition, following Descartes, the locus of authority resides with the intellectual intuition. Both Empiricism and Rationalism did not challenge the deep-seated theory of justificationism, which provided the common framework of thought in which the rival schools waged their battles for intellectual, moral and political authority.
The “justificationist” position has given rise to either relativism or fideism. On the one hand relativists tend to be disappointed dogmatists who realize that positive confirmation cannot be achieved. From this correct premise they proceed to the false conclusion that all positions are pretty much the same and none can really claim to be better than any other. There is no such thing as the truth, no way to get nearer to the truth and there is no such thing as a rational position. On the other hand fideists are people who believe that knowledge is based on an act of faith. Consequently they embrace whatever they want to regard as the truth. If they stop to think about it they may accept that there is no logical way to establish a positive justification for their beliefs or any others, so they insist that we make our choice regardless of reason: 'Here I stand!'. Most forms of rationalism up to date have, at rock bottom, shared this attitude with the irrationalists and other fundamentalists because they share the same 'true belief' structure of thought.
The solution suggested by Bartley is to abandon the quest for positive justification and instead to settle for a critical preference for one option rather than others, in the light of critical arguments and evidence offered to that point. A preference may (or may not) be revised in the light of new evidence and arguments. This is a simple, commonsense position but it defies the dominant traditions of Western thought which have almost all taught that some authority provides (or ought to provide) grounds for positively justified beliefs.
According to Bartley’s stance of critical preference no position can be positively justified but it is quite likely that one, (or some) will turn out to be better than others are in the light of critical discussion and tests. This type of rationality holds all its positions and propositions open to criticism. A standard objection to this stance is that it is empty; just holding our positions open to criticism provides no guidance as to what position we should adopt in any particular situation. But for Bartley this criticism misses its mark for two reasons. First, the stance of critical preference is not a position, it is a metacontext and as such it is not directed at solving the kind of problems that are solved by adopting a position on some issue or other. It is concerned with the way that such positions are adopted, criticized, defended and relinquished. Second, Bartley does provide guidance on adopting positions; we may adopt the position that to this moment has stood up to criticism most effectively. Of course this is no help for dogmatists who seek stronger reasons for belief, but that is a problem for them, not for exponents of critical preference
* Bartley William Warren, The Retreat from Commitment, Knopf, New York, 1962
(French social and literary critic, 1915-1980)
Words and thoughts never reach the truth
Bataille took Nietzsche’s epistemological skepticism to its extreme. He dared to profess what the implications of Nietzsche´s philosophy were. For it not only implied the death of God, but the death of his own humanity, of philosophy, also. If there is no permanent and absolute meaning to be found in the inner and outer world, then all philosophical statements are ´false´ in as far as they are provisional. All the constructions we make, be they material, mental, emotional or spiritual, are nothing but empty epiphenomena on an ever receding world of darkness that can never be grasped by the limitations of our thinking. We think we know something but this is only what Bataille used to call ´escape´. We are lured away from the fundamental unknowability of the world into thinking that somewhere there must be an epistemological anchor that connects us to the true reality that we are and where we live in.
Bataille’s radical views about thought and meaning have their bearings upon all his writings. He never seems to make a claim. His sentences are never propositional, but always tentative and probing. He is hard to pin down to definite philosophical views and statements. He seems to suggest that he wants to avoid presenting a philosophy of his own, because in that case he would have succumbed to ´the escape´.
For Bataille the poet and the philosopher of the inner experience have this in common that they both use the known the reach the unknown. They want to take the reader to the very limits of the possible, into ´the impossible´. This made Bataille very uneasy and also bored with philosophical discourse because the only result discursive thought could offer was to ´chop up´ the world in digestible fragments. But it never reached the inner experience of the world. But neither did poetry. Because poetry was still dependent upon words. So we find sentences in Bataille like ´I could have said.... but that bores me´ where he warns us that words have a tendency to become authoritative, despite the fact that they never reach the truth. The factuality of words and thoughts give the impression that they have reality and must be true for that reason.
According to Bataille the greatest philosophical misconception rampant in the world is the idea that being can be isolated, autonomous. The obvious fact that being is always ´being in context´, ´being in communion´, escapes us the most. We ignorantly perceive ourselves to be beings on our own, ´ipse-beings´, who are in combat with the world we live in. We want this isolation to end, because subconsciously we feel that it is unnatural for a being to be a ipse-being. The ipse-being is contra naturam. To annihilate this unnatural isolation we strive with the power and the exploitation of our knowledge to be the all and everything. But this is exactly what makes us so tragic. Because an ipse-being can never be the all. Finally man has to concede that he cannot be the all and that his attempts at knowing the all are futile. Fear rises because he has to admit that he knows nothing.
* Bataille George, The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge, Stuart Kendall and Michelle Kendall, 2004, University of Minnesota Press.
(British social scientist and anthroplogist, 1904-1980)
Bateson stated that the individual can never encounter the world as it actually is. We do not have access to the territory, as such, but only to maps of the territory and our descriptions are part of that map. There are innumerable characteristics or data contained in any event or entity. We can never choose all the distinctions to put on a map or to include in our research. In our daily lives, we systematically select certain differences from a vast array of sights, smells, and sounds to enter into the circuit of transformation and become information. In research, we also strive to bring some order and meaning to a large collection of data in order to make sense of it. This search for meaning generates structure, patterns, and categories. Every image we encounter requires coding and mapping. There is no such thing as true knowledge or a real picture of the world that is independent of any knower. There is always a blend of the phenomena and the way in which one distinguishes it. One doesn't cause the other to have meaning. They have meaning together, in relationship to each other. Differences are not present in things without the presence of a living organism to recognize that difference. Bateson stressed the idea that data are not events or objects but are always records of descriptions or memories of events or objects. "Always there is a transformation or recording of the raw event which intervenes between the scientist and the object. In a strict sense, therefore, no data are truly "raw," and every record has been somehow subjected to editing and transformation. There is an infinite line of separation between a moment or event and one's perception of that event. We can never capture or possess a moment. Reality is not palpable. It is impossible for language to be adequate to the phenomena. We can only scan it and attempt to convey its vitality. What we have is the facsimile of expression or a representation of reality. Something is lost and gained in every representation.
Bateson did not believe that things could be objectively observed and measured because observations demands involvement. Information is not a material thing. Information is relative to how I operate on what is out there. It is the researcher who must supply the thought and energy that is needed to decipher any information. Bateson concluded that in the world of mental process, there are not real things, only messages carried by things.
Research plans and methods are primarily determined by the researcher's opinions and assumptions about what sort of thing he is dealing with, so it follows that part of research should be to study the nature and process of research itself. If it is me as the researcher who is the primary instrument, it is important for me to examine how I participate in the observed since my own frame of reference will heavily guide what I choose to present as significant. Since I cannot analyze data as representing some objective state of events, research becomes a task of examining what I am doing to construct a particular representation of reality. My methodology becomes a reflection or discussion about my own epistemology or way of knowing, and what I as a researcher believe can be known, as well as who can be a knower. Thus Bateson was interested in how the observer observes and how we are able to make distinctions and distinguish between our distinctions. He believed in enlarging the view of science as a dialogical paradigm in which the observer is revealed in his descriptions.
* Bateson, Gregory, Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press. 1972
(Postmodern French social critic and philosopher,1929-2007)
We live in an illusory world in which the idol of truth has no place According to Baudrillard we are living in a world dominated by mass media, images, signs, any other simulacra. It is a realm of ‘hyperreality’ and simulations where truths no longer exist. We live in a Disneyworld in which illusion has become reality, a fantasy world - ‘a simulacrum’ – which is the duplicate of nothing because the real world has disappeared. We live in a logic of simulation which has nothing to do with a logic of facts and an order of reasons. The belief in truth is part of the elementary forms of religious life. It is the last stronghold for the supporters of morality and rationality for which the reality principle cannot be questioned. These defenders of realism reduce their own life to an accumulation of facts and proofs, of causes and effects.
According to Baudrillard there is an insoluble relationship between thought and the real. Thought in the past had always been the accomplice of the real. It took for granted that thought refers to reality. But Baudrillard’s “radical” thought is ex-centric to reality and is incompatible with it. The happy conjunction of thought and reality affirmed by the Enlightenment and modernity is now over. In contrast to the discourse of reality, rationality and meaning which preserves the notion of an objective truth and a decipherable world, radical thought opts for the illusion of the world, the non-veracity of facts, the meaninglessness of the world, nothingness rather something.
We live in an illusory world, but for an illusion to take place, there needs to be a real – and there is no real. There is no real to be recaptured beyond the illusion – it is all illusion with no real to be its opposite and therefore no illusion either since illusion is definable by the existence of the real, as its opposite. The problem is that people go on speaking as if there is a real, and therefore an illusion or vice versa. In fact everything is a “simulacra”, that is a fake of the real that isn’t there. There no value, no truth, no reality that is recoverable. It is all simulation without anchor. Baudrillard calls it “hyperreality”.
The real world has become a myth, a simulacrum and that entails the death of truth, knowledge and philosophy itself. This situation that defines postmodernity is the outcome of the Nietzschean program of denunciation of those “free spirits who still have faith in truth, science and knowledge”. For Baudrillard it is the idol of truth itself, that had replaced the idol of God, that must be demolished.
* Baudrillard Jean, Simulacra and Simulation and Radical Thought, in Jean Baudrillard Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster, Stanford University press, 1988
(German philosopher, 1714-1762)
Aesthetic cognition has its own truth claim.
Art, for Baumgarten, denotes a special cognitive domain, that of sensual thinking, which he argues is distinct from rational or logical thought. Baumgarten's new 'science of sensible knowledge' would deal as fully with truth as did logic, but truth in so far as it is known through the senses. For Baumgarten, sensible knowledge is a faculty of the mind that he termed an analogon rationis—an analogue of reason: in short, a unique mode of reasoning in its own right.
Baumgarten states that aesthetic cognition has its own truth claim. He argues that there are several levels of truth that coincide with the levels of cognition. A metaphysical truth seems the equivalent of an intuitive and adequate cognition, that is, something that transcends the capacity of human knowledge. As far as man is concerned, his rational insights produce a truth that Baumgarten labels logical. The third truth is the result of confused cognition, namely, aesthetic truth. Baumgarten elaborates on how he understands aesthetic truth by situating it between falsehood and the certainty we achieve through correct employment of our rational faculties. Aesthetic truth for Baumgarten seems to come rather close to the rhetorical conception of truth, namely, probability.
In the rhetorical tradition, an argument was true if it was convincing, probable, or more likely to be true than other contenders for truth, but it did not have to agree with the substance of the object as the philosophical adaequatio -theory demanded. An argument would be deemed probable if we hold something to be true without having any logical proof for this belief. Likewise the object of aesthetic truth, Baumgarten writes, “is neither certain nor is its truth perceived in full light”. Although logical truth, and logical truth only, can provide us with certainty, it pays a high price for it. Baumgarten regards logical truth to be an impoverished abstraction, that is, a movement from concrete instances to a general concept. The multitude of concrete sensual experiences carries with it a sense of fullness, vibrancy, and liveliness that gets lost in abstraction. We are to think of abstract logical truth as somewhat pale and somewhat lifeless in comparison to the probability that the aesthetic faculty provides. Aesthetic truth, in opposition, celebrates “richness, chaos and matter”, he writes.
Baumgarten wanted to persuade his fellow rationalist philosophers that questions of art were as worthy of their attention as the more abstract spheres of thought with which they had theretofore concerned themselves.
* Baumgarter, Alexander, Aesthetica, 1758
(French philosopher, 1647-1706)
Bayle emphasizes the weakness of reason and the impossibility of answering inescapable philosophical questions on fundamental issues. But Bayle’s doubt about many things is not enough to call him a sceptic in the classical sense of the term. Bayle did not advocate the practice of suspense of judgement like the ancient Academic sceptics. Neither did he follow the Pyrrhonian sceptics who came to accept suspense of judgement in order to achieve peace of mind. For both schools of ancient scepticism, nothing being certain, philosophical thinking is pointless. Bayle was not a sceptic of this type. Undoubtedly he had a sharp eye for bad argument, a good memory for alleged fact, a settled habit of testing every theory or assertion on any subject, a great inventiveness in devising objections and an urge to upset the complacency of people who think they know. He was more a kind of latter-day Socrates who wanted to show that on many matters certainty is not attainable. The goal of knowledge for him was neither suspense of judgement nor peace of mind. Rather, he was a disappointed and not very hopeful truth-seeker. His unsparing criticism of theories and historical assertions had the purpose to eliminate error masquerading as truth but he had no intention to show like the sceptics that thought is futile.
In fact human reason is better adapted for the detection of errors than for the positive discovery of truth. This is surely the case for theological controversies. Bayle considered them confused and pointless. Most controversies depend for their life on lack of proper judgement and prejudices. Bayle extends his scepticism to the field of metaphysics. The problem of evil, for instance, has never found a satisfactory solution. No proof has ever been given that the human soul is immortal. This does not mean that this doctrine is false, only that it is incapable of rational proof. As for the so-called truths of religion they belong to the sphere of the non-rational and that is why it is futile to indulge in theological argument and controversy. Religious truths for Bayle contain much that is repugnant to reason. He placed faith outside the field of reason and thus totally separated the truths of religion and the truths of reason.
* See Copleston, F., A History of Philosophy, Vol. VI, London, Burns Oates, 1960, p. 6-8; also Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Pierre Bayle’s Skepticism.
(Scottish poet and essayist, 1735-1803)
Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth is an attempt to expose scepticism's absurdities and dangers. Inspired by Thomas Reid, he feels that God implanted several common sense intuitions within human nature, particularly beliefs about the integrity of reason, sense perceptions, and moral virtue. According to him common sense not only guides us towards truth, but it defines and is the criterion of truth. In his words, "that to us is truth which we feel that we must believe; and that to us is falsehood which we feel that we must disbelieve." In contemporary terminology, he is offering a theory of truth that radically differs from the familiar correspondence theory.
Beattie's doctrine is that all genuine reasoning does ultimately terminate in certain principles, which it is impossible to disbelieve, and also impossible to prove: that therefore the ultimate standard of truth to us is common sense, or that instinctive conviction into which all true reasoning does resolve itself. Therefore what contradicts common sense is in itself absurd, however subtle the arguments which support it.
Beattie's point is that we cannot judge truth and falsehood by inspecting reality itself since that is beyond what we can know. Second, he makes clear that common sense is the "standard" of truth, and not simply a guide or indicator of truth. Few people would object to the modest claim that common sense is a basic guide for recognizing the truth of at least some contentions. For example, our common sense inclines us to believe that the tree in front of us physically exists and, so, it is plausible for us to judge that this belief is true. However, Beattie goes much further in suggesting that "X is true" means that X is grounded in an instinctive common sense conviction. It is in this sense that he is offering a definition of truth to be placed for consideration along side other theories of truth.
Beattie's views on the nature of truth was attacked by several critics, notably J.B. Priestley. The upshot of the critique was that common sense is notoriously variable from person to person, and Beattie's attempt to ground truth in common sense was in fact entirely subversive of all truth. Priestley argued that all that we can ever say is, that certain maxims and propositions appear to be true with respect to ourselves, but we cannot tell how they may appear to others. We cannot know the instinctive beliefs of others. It is absurd to argue that our private instinctive beliefs form the basis of truth. Common sense is too variable to function as an adequate criterion of truth.
* Beattie, Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, ed. James Fieser, Vol. 2 of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2000.
(Contemporary British philosophers)
The importance of Truth for the human species
Truth has always been a central preoccupation of philosophy in all its forms and traditions. However, in the late twentieth century truth became suddenly rather unfashionable. The precedence given to assorted political and ideological agendas, along with the rise of relativism, postmodernism and pseudoscience in academia, led to a decline both of truth as a serious subject, and an intellectual tradition that began with the Enlightenment. Benson and Stangroom’s Why Truth Matters is a look at how and why modern thought and culture lost sight of the importance of truth. Their project is to 'fight fashionable nonsense' - identify and debunk such nonsense, and the spurious claims made for it, in all its forms. They denounce world-views that hold that there is no historical truth and almost everything is a mere social construction.
They deal with the necessity of defending objective and scientific truth against the threats to rational thinking allegedly posed by religious fundamentalism, pseudoscience, wishful thinking, postmodernism and relativism.
As Benson and Stangroom argue, “Truth-claims, evidence, reason, logic, warrant, are not some fiefdom or gated community or exclusive club. On the contrary. They are the property of everyone, and the only way to refute lies and mistakes… The real tyranny is being required to let humans – the community, the mullahs, the Vatican, the Southern Baptists Convention – decide what the truth is independent of the evidence.”
The great Enlightenment goal of pursuing the truth wherever it may lead us – even to ideas we find totally unexpected, or initially horrifying – is under siege. To its right, it is being assaulted by religious fundamentalists who want to ring-fence their own ludicrous propositions from critical inquiry. To the left, it is being assaulted by the postmodernists who argue that rationality is simply a police-state of the mind, demanding we follow its own arbitrary rules.
The main point Stangroom and Benson are making is that ‘truth matters because human beings are the only species capable of finding it out.' However there is no question for them to go back to a naïve ‘correspondence theory of truth’, where it is assumed that we have very simple, straightforward access to the objective world. All our understandings of the world are, as Wittgenstein showed, filtered through our language and culture. We need to always put in place controls and checks (as the scientific method demands) to minimize the problems that arise from this. But that does not stop it the world from being there, and from the need for us to try to maximize our understanding of it.
* Benson Ophelia & Stangroom Jeremy, Why truth matters, Continuum, 2007
( British social philosopher, 1748-1832)
Bentham, the founder of "utilitarianism" investigated human actions through the pleasure and pain that they entail. He founded all his reasonings on these observations and concluded that truth and utility 'walk together'. He claimed that the investigator who discovers what is useful is not far from the truth. It is easier to reach the truth through the search of utility than to find the truth without having the useful as guide. What is useful belongs to the field of experience while the domain of truth is a matter of mere conjectures.
For Bentham, the value of an action is based solely on its consequences, namely, the pleasure generated or the pain avoided. There is no intrinsic nature of an action nor is the value based on the intentions of the actor. If telling a lie creates more pleasure than pain, then it is a good act. If telling the truth creates more pain than pleasure, then it is a "bad" act.
This means that for Bentham truth is not a primary value for it cannot play its role unless subordinated to other values, especially the most fundamental value of "the greatest happiness for the largest number of people".
According to Bentham's Utilitarianism the final arbiter of "truth" and "significance" is the utility, the usefulness, or the practical workability for the person or groups of persons affirming "truth" and "significance". It presumes that the consequences of an action are the only measure of value.
* Bentham Jeremy, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, London: The Athlone Press, 1970.
(Russian existentialist philosopher, 1874-1948)
1. Truth is not something in knowledge that corresponds to a reality outside man. It is not the intellectual submissiveness of the part of the cognitive mind to a reality presented to it from outside. To know the truth is not to recognize reality ‘as it is’. Reality or Being is all darkness. Human knowledge operates a breakthrough, a victory of light over darkness. The subject illumines the darkness of the world in giving meaning to it. Truth is the creative transforming of reality, it is the meaning of reality, the value of reality, not reality ‘as it is’. Truth is above reality. It is the process of instilling spirit into the material objective reality. Truth is the light breaking through reality and transfiguring it. It is the introduction into the world of a quality that the world did not possess before truth was revealed. It is the letting-in of light in the world.
Hence truth is not passive submission or obedience to reality. It is not the repetition of reality in the knower. It is not slavery to the real. Truth is a conquest, which is achieved by the subject’s creative act. It is the creative transforming of reality, the creative light that gives meaning to a meaningless world. Truth liberates being from darkness. Truth is the transfiguration of reality. It is the light breaking through reality; it is the letting-in of light in the world to transfigure it.
Berdiaev praises Nietzsche for having said that Truth is a value that is created by man – and not a merely passive reflection of reality in the knower. This dynamic understanding of truth was a breakthrough against the old static interpretation of it.
Truth is the victory of spirit over matter, it is the voice of eternity in time, a ray of light in the world. It judges the world. It even judges revelation. No religion is higher than truth. Religious revelations must be the revelation of the truth. Truth is the supreme value.
2. Truth is existential, subjective, ‘aristocratic’ and ‘prophetic’.
Truth is existential. It is the creative act of the whole person, intellect and will. When truth is made a matter of intellect and reason only, it is objectified. This is the case with the partial truths which are worked out by the various sciences: they refer to the objectified world. But Truth with a capital T is subjective and individual even though universal in its individuality. It is a quality and therefore it is ‘aristocratic’, not imposed on all, but revealed to some persons under certain conditions and rejected by others. It depends on the degree of consciousness of each subject. It is the object of a personal discovery, conquered by a creative act. Truth is ‘prophetic’ and the prophet often stands alone. Even if it is meant for all and is communal, still it can never be imposed by authoritarian collectivism. The socialisation of the truth is a great danger.
It follows that there are no criteria of truth outside itself and no objective standards of truth. The Spirit implies risk and it has to be so. There is no standard of truth outside the witness of truth itself. The search for an absolute guarantee is a false track. It is only in the acceptance of things visible, the so-called partial truths of the visible world in science, that there is no risk.
* N. Berdiaev, The Beginning and the End, Geoffrey Bles, London, 1952, p. 42-54; The Meaning of the Creative Act, Collier Books, N.Y., 1962, p.33-44; Truth and Revelation, London, Geoffrey Bles, 1953
(American sociologist, b. 1929)
Berger’s interest is in the sociological analysis of truth in the modern world.
1. In the stable societies of ancient civilisations and religions, answers to the problem of life could be given in a tone of great assurance. The socially defined reality had a very high degree of objectivity. The typical condition of pre-modern human beings was one of absolute certainty about all the perennial questions of existence and its meaning and value. Berger calls the pre-modern world a ‘world of fate’, inhabited by uncritically accepted traditions. Truth was defined once for all and it never came to the mind of any one to question it, except for a few ‘heretics’ who were soon silenced and ostracised.
2. Whereas formerly truth was imposed and uncritically accepted by all, in modern times the situation in regard to the truth has undergone a radical transformation. Today it has become ‘imperative’ to choose the truth in questioning all the traditions received from the past. Each individual today is compelled to assume the attitude of a ‘heretic’, i.e. some one who chooses (airein, in Greek) after critical examination. To the old world of Fate is substituted the world of Choice. Even more, one should say that modern man is condemned to the freedom of choice concerning the truths of life. There is a ‘market-place’ of ideologies and visions of life in the face of which every thinking person is called to make his/her own choice. The tension that the new situation provokes is mostly felt in the domain of religion. If the typical condition of pre-modern man was one of religious certainty, that of modern man is that of religious doubt.
3. This new situation provokes two main reactions: one of liberation and one of deep anxiety. Liberation, because truth and freedom are found side by side and no longer antagonized, but anxiety too because human beings are left alone to give meaning to life and find the truth without social support. The old feeling of certainty disappears and doubt creeps in. The transition from fate to free-choice is a welcome but also a painful experience. Now every individual is called to think by himself and take his responsibility. He is left alone to make his options with the disappearance of the official truth of the world of Fate.
* P. Berger, The Heretical Imperative, Anchor Books, New York, 1979
(French philosopher, 1859-1941)
1. Philosophical questions cannot be treated by the usual means of common parlance and scientific rationality. Genuine thinking that aims at truth is a spiritual exercise which has nothing to do with objective knowledge, but with the interior life of conscience that alone reaches the source of reality. Bergson’s ‘ontological’ revolution is that being is becoming, movement, evolution, elan vital. Temporality or, better, ‘duration’ is the essence of reality and the self. Science does not understand time because it begins by measuring it, that is, by transforming it into space. For Bergson duration is a metaphysical, almost mystical experience, something else than the scientific time.
2. A cental theme of Bergsonian philosophy is the opposition between intelligence and intuition. Our intelligence is radically inadapted to understand life-duration. It only thinks the motionless, the quantitative and the spatial. Intelligence analyses reality, classifies it, fragments it, reduces it to stable states through conceptualisation. Concepts being abstract and general define things by what they are not. Moreover intelligence expresses itself in language. No words can correspond to what is intimately lived; they betray life in transforming the real into labels and preventing us to see the world as it is. Intelligence which is turned to the static and the material is useful in science and for action but not for the knowledge of reality.
Intuition only is that by which the truth of reality is apprehended. It is the immediate perception of life by the spirit just as sensation is the perception of reality by the body. Whereas intelligence is the instrument of science, intuition is the instrument of philosophy. Science and philosophy do not have the same object and the same finality. Science studies matter and is at the service of action. Philosophy (metaphysics) deals with spirit and aims at knowing the truth through the use of intuition. Unlike other areas of study that resort to the mediation of language, concepts and theories, metaphysics does not represent reality by forms, symbols or viewpoints. It relies on intuition that brings about the fusion and coincidence of conscience with reality by “sympathy”.The absence of go-between in intuition justifies the claim of metaphysics that it reaches absolute knowledge in which reality is pure presence to conscience.
3. Bergson is not the enemy of science but of positivism. Human language is naturally positivist. Bergson reacts against the basic prejudice: that true knowledge has to be primarily objective, whereas, belonging to conscience, it is by nature subjective. Man’s inclination tends to petrify the living and objectify it in order to manipulate it. This positivist turning of subjectivity into objectivity is a fatal betrayal of reality. In his search of true knowledge, Bergson has chosen interiority against the values of objectivity and exteriority. Human existence is the field of subjective interiority. Therefore it is essential to recognize its primacy over objective exteriority. This view changes the philosophical scenery. The essential truth about reality is always something lived outside the reach of analysis and rationalisation. It can only be reached by intuition.
* Bergson, Henri, Les données immédiates de la conscience, Paris, PUF, 1889 ; See : Puech, Michel, La Philosophie en clair, Paris, Ellipses, 1999, p.96-108
(Irish philosopher. 1685-1753)
Reality is purely mental: hence truth is not a matter of correspondence but coherence between ideas
Berkeley’s famous immaterialist thesis, Esse est percipi, postulated that there was no such thing as an unperceived material reality. His world view was based on the marriage of two truths that he considered were self evident: - that the things which are immediately perceived are real things, and - that the things that are immediately perceived are ideas which exist only in the mind. This means that minds and ideas, which can be empirically verified, are the only realities and that reality is identical with appearance. Hence no place in his system for a correspondence theory of truth.
He argues that if the only evidence for an object's existence is its being perceived, then the conclusion is that existence consists entirely in being perceived or perceiving and that minds and their ideas constitute reality. Because we can never know anything outside of our own minds, we must conclude that there is no such thing as a real (material) world. Instead of saying that we often perceive what really exists, Berkeley argues that what really exists is what we or some other minds (God included!) perceive.
Berkeley held that the representationalist epistemologies led directly to skepticism. This is because it placed truth on a foundation of correspondence between our ideas and that which they represent. If there is no way to compare our representations with the reality that they are supposed to represent, then one really ought to be skeptical about whether there is any correspondence at all. If, instead, one embraces Berkeley’s idealism, this skeptical problem seems to disappear. Our knowledge of the “external world”—that is, our knowledge of the objects and events that make up ordinary experience—does not depend on a relation between our ideas of those things and some hidden reality that is said to be their cause. Instead, our empirical knowledge is trustworthy because of its internal coherence. Truth is not a matter of correspondence but of coherence between ideas. We never find that an idea is false or illusory by comparing it with “reality,” but only by comparing it with other ideas.
* Berkeley George, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
(British philosopher and political theorist, 1909-1997)
“Value pluralism” that Berlin espouses can perhaps be better understood by contrasting it with its antithesis, that is, the idea of monism. Monism is the idea, dating back to Plato, but also underlying much of modern Western philosophy, that, even though we may not always be able to see it, there is an underlying harmony in human values and that conflicts among them can be resolved by appeal to some higher principle or standard. The assumption is that behind the phenomenon of life, there is a timeless and eternal model to be uncovered. This kind of Monism is the idea that all truly good things are linked to one another in a single, perfect whole and that the realization of the pattern formed by them is the one true end of all rational activity, both public and private. Monism entails the notion of the perfect whole, the ultimate solution, in which all good things coexist.
But Berlin rejects the seductive Western idea of monism in favour of pluralism and his most cogent answer is that, from our own ordinary experience of the world, we know that our values often do conflict with one another in irreconcilable ways and that, in the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, there seems little reason to reject the reality of this experience.
His idea of “value pluralism” is that many of the values or ends that we hold dear are incompatible and cannot be reconciled with one another. It is the idea that there might exist ends which are equally ultimate, but incompatible with one another, that there might exist no single universal standard that would enable human beings to choose rationally between them. Hence according to ‘value incompatibility’, the pursuit of certain values must inevitably compromise or limit our ability to pursue certain other values. The more we seek to attain some of these values, the less able we are to attain the others.
Now the conflicts between incompatible values can occur at different levels. Values can not only clash within the conscience of a single individual, but they can also be incompatible between cultures, or groups in the same culture, or between one person and another. In other words, value conflicts can make themselves known at personal, interpersonal, inter-group, and inter-cultural levels. This multi-faceted character of value conflict is important, because it means that value conflict presents individuals or groups with not simply a moral problem, but also a political problem.
The anthropological key concept of Berlin’s work is his idea that man is a fallible, complex combination of opposites, some reconcilable, others incapable of being resolved or harmonized, unable to cease from his search for truth and happiness and with no guarantee, theological or logical or scientific, of being able to attain them. He maintains that the old perennial belief in the possibility of realizing ultimate harmony is nothing but a fallacy. Moreover, the truth is something which we may never attain: it depends upon too many circumstances over which we have no power.
For Berlin, the idea of a perfectly happy world, a world with no error or evil, a world of one truth and a single set of values, is not so much unrealistic as incoherent. According to Berlin, political philosophy exists because it presupposes a world where one goal looses against other goals when they collide in a pluralistic environment. Therefore, in a society where there is no one truth and one answer to all social and political problems, any process of choice-making is at the same time a process of accepting other men’s choices as a result of a democratic agreement. Berlin’s thought reminds us that toleration and moderation are possible or even necessary because the values we hold are mere preferences rather than absolute truths. This is a warning against the optimism of fanatics who believe in the existence of a perfect world and a single truth. It is reasonable to assume, as Berlin does, that without tolerance the conditions for rational discussion are destroyed.
The necessity of choice and conflict between absolute truth claims is an inescapable characteristic of human condition.
* Isaiah Berlin, John Gray, London, Harper Collins, 1995
(French physiologist, 1813-1878)
In science what is observably true is the only authority
On the subject of the scientific method Claude Bernard describes what makes a scientific theory good and what makes a scientist important, a true discoverer: it is how well he or she has penetrated into the unknown. In areas of science where the facts are known to everyone, all scientists are more or less equal—we cannot know who is great. But in the area of science that is still obscure and unknown the great are recognized: “They are marked by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure and carry science forward”.
It is through the experimental method that science is carried forward - not through uncritically accepting the authority of academic or scholastic sources. In the experimental method, observable reality is our only authority. ”When we meet a fact which contradicts a prevailing theory, we must accept the fact and abandon the theory, even when the theory is supported by great names and generally accepted”.
Experimental science is a constant interchange between theory and fact, induction and deduction. Induction, reasoning from the particular to the general, and deduction, or reasoning from the general to the particular, are never truly separate. A general theory and our theoretical deductions from it must be tested with specific experiments designed to confirm or deny their truth; while these particular experiments may lead us to formulate new theories.
The scientist tries to determine the relation of cause and effect. This is true for all sciences: the goal is to connect a “natural phenomenon” with its “immediate cause.” We formulate hypotheses elucidating, as we see it, the relation of cause and effect for particular phenomena. We test the hypotheses. And when an hypothesis is proved, it is a scientific theory. “Before that we have only groping and empiricism” Bernard explains what makes a theory good or bad scientifically:“Theories are only hypotheses, verified by more or less numerous facts. Those verified by the most facts are the best, but even then they are never final, never to be absolutely believed.”
Proof that a given condition always precedes or accompanies a phenomenon does not warrant concluding with certainty that a given condition is the immediate cause of that phenomenon. It must still be established that when this condition is removed, the phenomen will no longer appear.
We must always try to disprove our own theories. “We can solidly settle our ideas only by trying to destroy our own conclusions by counter-experiments”. What is observably true is the only authority. If through experiment, you contradict your own conclusions - you must accept the contradiction - but only on one condition: that the contradiction is proved.
The “philosophic spirit,” writes Bernard, is always active in its desire for truth. It stimulates a “kind of thirst for the unknown” which ennobles and enlivens science - where, as experimenters, we need “only to stand face to face with nature”. The minds that are great “are never self-satisfied, but still continue to strive”.
Ardent desire for knowledge, in fact, is the one motive attracting and supporting investigators in their efforts; and just this knowledge, really grasped and yet always flying before them, becomes at once their sole torment and their sole happiness. A man of science rises ever, in seeking truth; and if he never finds it in its wholeness, he discovers nevertheless very significant fragments; and these fragments of universal truth are precisely what constitutes science.
*Bernard, Claude. An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, 1865. First English translation by Henry Copley Greene, published by Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1927; reprinted in 1949.
(Contemporary German theologian)
Fundamentalism and the claim of absolute truth in religion
1. The absolutist attitude about truth is at the heart of fundamentalism. One’s own religion has sole, exclusive and complete possession of the truth, elevated to the status of eternal and unchangeable validity, protected against criticism and progress of knowledge. The resistance to the free quest for truth derives from an overwhelming ‘desire for certainty’ that submerges the ‘desire to know reality’. This is the fundamentalist attitude which begins where convictions are absolutised i.e. derived from “ultimate truths” which are held to be absolutely valid and behind which it is impossible to investigate. What is required of believers is not insight but submission. Critical thought must stop at these ultimate truths and intellectual freedom must surrender. What is demanded is a naively realistic understanding of truth, and that is, correct information and literal understanding about things on earth and heaven as disclosed by sacred scriptures. For fundamentalism the epistemological and hermeneutical problems do not exist.
In addition there is a claim to universal validity, a totalitarian claim about the interpretation of reality and the aims of life for all people at all times. Truth is one and therefore there can be no pluralism of different perspectives on the truth. Anything that contradicts revealed objective truth can only be untruth. The absolutist attitude is characterised by dualism. Reality and the knowledge of reality are either white or black. People are classified as either believers or pagans, either saved or lost, either living in light or in darkness. Any one not on the side of the truth must be opposed. Open communication with the other side is impossible. Nothing is done to understand the other, on the contrary a compulsion towards hostility prevails.
2. However the claim of absoluteness in religion has acquired some justification and legitimacy from several renown modern philosopher-theologians.. At the centre of their positive approach to the problem, lies the distinction between natural (or intuitive, pre-reflective) and artificial absoluteness.
- Troeltsch sees the source of any claim to absolute truth in religion in the encounter with the Absolute itself, in the experience of God. In that experience there is the feeling of compelling certainty to have met the final and absolute truth. But when this original experience of certainty is intellectualised and channelled into apologetic and dogmatic principles, an artificial claim to absoluteness arises. The claim to absoluteness is now fossilised in theological notions and doctrines for which an unconditional claim to validity is made.
- Jaspers (see Jaspers) takes a similar direction through his distinction between existential and rational truth. The truths of faith are existential, not rational. Rational truths are universally valid; their correctness can be proved, but they are not absolute and unconditional. On the contrary existential truths are unconditional and absolute but not universal in their objective expressibility. The religious claim to universality arises when there is a narrowing down of existential truth to rational correctness.
- G. Mensching (1901-1976) makes the distinction between intensive experience and extensive assertion. In the highly personal “intensive” experience of God, there is a legimate claim to absoluteness, but no universality because it is personal. But when this personal certainty becomes a claim binding all believers universally, the legitimate intensive experience becomes an extensive claim to absoluteness. An inappropriate generalisation takes place through the transference from the personal to the universal.
Bernhardt sums up the critical approach of these three authors as follows: it is directed against the generalisation of certainties which cannot be generalised. The unconditional existential truth can only be relational, i.e. related to the person who experiences it. In other words, it is absolute without being universal.
* Bernhardt, Reinhold, Christianity Without Absolutes, SCM Press, London, 1994, p. 22-26,98-100
(Austrian born biologist, 1901-1972)
Humans create their own reality, not because objective reality does not exist but because human knowledge depends on what humans are able and willing to perceive. Hence no world view and general systems are ultimately truth about reality. Each is a perspective or an aspect, owing to man’s natural and cultural limitations. No one can jump over his own shadow. Bertalanffy’s “General Systems Theory” is perspectivist, not a “nothing-but” philosophy but a view that is tolerant of other views and experiences. The world is rich with the truth of many perspectives. Every human accomplishment is always the outcome of human modelling: there is always something missing, something distorted or even wrong, because everything in modelling is dependent on the perspective it has created.
Such a view helps to comprehend the fallacy of absolutism in the name of which fanatical believers, all through mankind’s history, have perpetrated horrible crimes. Perspectivism is in line with Socrates’ maxim that the wise person is some one who is aware of his/her ignorance. Indeed the human mind needs to maintain continuously open his mind to valuable new ideas, those generated by other than him/herself and his/her community.
Bertalanffian perspectivism is a way of getting closer and closer diversely to the ‘absolute truth’ of every aspect of the whole reality. Obviously all the perspectives, as views explicitly expressed of a certain aspect of reality, are valid. At the same time none of them is more authentic than the other. This perspectivism is the proper alternative between nihilism – the rejection to make an effort towards the absolute truth because it is something impossible to reach –and absolutism – the dogmatism that has generated the scientism which assigns value to nothing but science itself.
* Bertalanffy Von, Perspectives on General Systems Theory, E. Taschedjian ed., New York, 1975
(British theosophist, 1847-1933)
The esoteric truth of all religions
Annie Besant, renowned esotericist and Theosophist, asserts that there is a hidden or esoteric truth underlying all religions, a truth so deep and secret that until revealed we cannot truly reach the Divine. While many scholars, theologians and followers of conventional Christianity may not believe in such uniformity, people of all faiths can agree there are unknown elements of the Divine we all seek that are yet to be revealed. Esoteric Christianity shows this hidden truth that is lacking from the traditional exoteric teachings of Christianity: the Divine does not come from an external, outside source; it is something that can only be found within ourselves.
When Besant ceased to judge her beliefs in terms of revealed religion, she elevated truth into an almost religious ideal to be put before all other considerations. Thus, when people later attacked her atheism as negative, she replied that humans should live in accord with truth, not superstition: 'it is an error,' she explained, 'to regard my truth as negative and barren, for all truth is positive and fruitful'. Truth provided an ideal by which to live one's life. She even wanted her tomb to bear the epitaph 'She Tried To Follow Truth.'
More particularly, she felt that an account of the physical nature of the universe could not be considered true unless it were compatible with modern science and especially a theory of evolution. She had rejected Christianity because the supernatural revelations of the Bible did not accord with the empirical discoveries of the natural and human sciences. From now on, she would accept only natural accounts of the universe. Supernatural explanations were unacceptable.
Besant implies that Theosophy is not a passing fad or a new idea; it has an ancient pedigree. She goes on to delineate this pedigree by putting Theosophy, in its "religious aspect," within the context of "all true Religion," the object of which is the "direct knowledge of God". The inner, or esoteric, side of religion is found in all the great faiths of the world, more or less explicitly declared, but always existing as the heart of the religion, beyond all the dogmas which form the exoteric side. All the world's religions have a mystical aspect, many of the features of which Besant claims are similar to one another. She concludes from this that all religions come from a common source of Divine Wisdom. Theosophy recognizes this unity, and therefore embraces all religions. It is "an eclectic system, which accepts truth wherever it is to be found, and cares little for its outer trappings". Theosophy, Besant claims, represents a modern face of Sanatana Dharma, "the eternal truth," as the proper religion, the motto of which is: "There is no religion higher than Truth."
* Besant, Annie Wood, Annie Besant: an autobiography, Madras, India: Theosophical Pub. House, 1983
(British philosopher, b.1944)
“Truth Tetrapolity”: the four aspects of truth
1. Bhaskar’s critical realism denounces what he calls the epistemic fallacy. It argues that it is a mistake to focus exclusively on epistemology, the study of knowledge, and thus to neglect ontology, the study of what can be known. In reducing reality to what is known, one denies the reality of that which exists in the first place.
According to him, for science to happen there must be a reality independent of our knowledge of it. Of this reality, Bhaskar makes a useful analytical distinction between the intransitive and transitive objects of knowledge. Intransitive objects are the world of things and structures that are independent of our knowledge of them. These are the “brute facts”, that are ‘objective’ “in the sense that they are not a matter of your or my preferences, evaluations or moral attitudes”. The transitive objects are the “raw materials of human knowledge – the artificial objects fashioned into items of knowledge by the science of the day”. Thus, while our knowledge of the world (transitive) constitutes a part of the world (intransitive), the existence of the world is not dependent upon this knowledge. This distinction allows for the combination of ontological realism with epistemological relativism – aptly called critical realism. The intransitive dimension in the philosophy of science corresponds roughly to ontology and the transitive dimension roughly to epistemology. Knowledge exists as a real social object in the transitive dimension and is about real objects in the intransitive dimension, which exists independently of mental activity.
2. This brings Bhaskar to consider the notion of truth as a many-layered phenomenon. He distinguishes four types of truth and calls it "Truth Tetrapolity". - 1. First, the fiduciary notion of truth: to say that something is true is to say 'trust me, act on it'. We have to have a workable notion of truth to enable us to get around in a world we have only a limited grasp of. This is a pragmatic necessity. - 2. The second aspect of truth is truth as warrantedly assertable. This is the truth as epistemological, as relative to our knowledge, in the transitive dimension - 3. The notion that lies behind the first two notions is the idea of truth as absolute. To say something is true is to say this is the way reality is. This is absolutely indispensable for any notion of intentional action and hence for any notion we as human beings can have. This is our commitment to beliefs as expressive of reality. - 4. What lies behind the truth of a well attested scientific or moral proposition is a higher order proposition, the truth of that truth : the reality that generates it. It is a proposition at a higher level, and it is truth as ontological, no longer tied to language-use as such and in this sense objective, situated in the intransitive dimension.
* See Collier, A., Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar's Philosophy, London, 1996
(Contemporary American philosopher of religion}
True religion must be atheistic and declare God redundant.
According to Ray Billington, religion and atheism are entirely compatible. He objects to the common argument that morality, human nature, human destiny and even mystical experiences can only be discussed in a theistic context. As a result, he seeks to “save” religion from God.
He wants to rid religion of theology, to rescue it from God, to declare God redundant. The religious experience is one that is potentially available to everyone without their having to make obeisance in the direction of the supernatural. Religion is not a gift bestowed upon grateful receivers by an act of revelation from on high: it is a natural part of human experience which embraces many more people than actually claim to be religious. Religion is something natural, fundamental and unavoidable — God, however, is artificial, superficial and redundant.
For people in the West, religion and theism always appear together in the major religions which are common in their culture. However, throughout the rest of the world, a number of religious traditions have dispensed with the absolute need for gods and have managed to survive just fine. This is especially noticeable when one considers the question of mystical experiences. Mystical experiences are one type of religious experience which is not only common among many different religions, but which is in fact common outside of religion as well. Mysticism is neither inherently religious nor inherently theistic. It may be defined as a form of direct communication with ultimate reality or spiritual truth, brought about not through the five senses or by any kind of rational process, but by direct intuition, insight or illumination. It involves the loss of personal self-consciousness by a process of what may be termed absorption in the ultimate, the achievement of a non-dualistic state, that is, one in which there is no more “me” here and “you,” “that,” or “them” out there: the individual self and the object of the self’s consciousness have become one; the state which is reached is then on longer dualistic, but monistic.
It is through such experiences that religion without theism can develop. It is also through such experiences that non-theistic religious traditions have developed in both Hinduism and Buddhism. According to Billington, theism is ultimately harmful to religion because it creates and encourages a superstitious view of morality. Postulating an absolute god with ultimate authority over morality results in a humanity without responsibility and without autonomy.
An atheistic religion, on the contrary, results in no such abrogation of individual autonomy because whatever the ultimate causes of mystical experiences, people are still responsible for what they do and the principles which guide them.
* Billington Ray, Religion without God, Routledge 2002
(British philosopher, b.1944)
The truth-war rages between what Blackburn identifies as absolutist and relativist camps. The absolutist view of truth holds that there are mind-independent facts (truth-makers) that confirm or deny the content of a proposition p. The absolutist believes that there is a stamp of truth, independent of us, and independent of our wishes, emotions and desires. True propositions have authority, since true propositions are the instruments through which one gains knowledge about the world.
On the other hand the relativist doctrine advances the idea that individual feelings and desires are the gauge of truth. There are no universal norms or standards against which our propositions, ideas, or values might be measured. The sole measure is the individual human and his or her basic desires. The relativist holds that truth has only particular authority, extending only to the individual, and that this is based on her attitude or desires. The casual observer will notice the unflinching, dogged persistence that either camp displays, for the battle appears to be at an impasse. This is what Blackburn terms the "truth war".
According to him both the absolutist and the relativist are guilty of a shared misunderstanding about the nature of truth. The dispute over authority - which mobilizes the absolutist against the relativist - is energy misdirected. The "truce" Blackburn proposes comes in the form of a minimalist view of truth. This view recommends, "you tell me what the issue is, and I will tell you what the truth about the issue consists in". The minimalist view limits the scope of truth, not to a grand story (the Truth with a capital T) or individually pursued ends (the truth for me or for you), but rather to a particular issue or proposition. Blackburn contends that in real conversation, "we do not raise the temperature by talking of truth". Rather, one simply agrees with a proposition, disagrees with it, or suspends judgment. The minimalist view is advanced for its empirical value, analyzing particular claims qua particular claims and not as examples of more general or theoretical ideas. The implication is that minimalism makes truth available to everyone. If one can easily identify the problem in the proposition (i.e., "the price of petrol is rising,"), then one knows enough to know the truth for oneself.
Minimalism can produce widespread agreement on questions most of us view as straightforward and factual, but it stands mute before huge metaphysical questions. It can do nothing, according to Blackburn, to diminish the chance of conflict over grand philosophical issues where minimalism leads to disagreement rather than consensus. But to Blackburn, this is entirely healthy.
* Blackburn Simon, Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed, 210pp, Allen Lane
(English psychologist, b. 1951)
Blackmore is interested in what is called “memetics”, the theory that studies the replication, spread and evolution of “memes”. Just as genes are units of biological information, so "memes" are units of cultural information. Memes are cognitive or behavioral patterns that can be transmitted from one individual to another one.
Blackmore looks at how memetics can illuminate sociobiology, in relation to sex, altruism, science and religions. She is not afraid to make clear where her own preferences lie: she holds that science is, in a sense, superior to religion, even though both are masses of ‘memeplexes’. Science does not offer us Ultimate Truth but a set of methods for trying to distinguish true memes from false ones. Religions, in contrast, are hostile to the testing of their theories about the world.
The truth trickery is liberally used in religions, she claims. In most of them, God and Truth are virtually synonymous. Rejecting the faith means turning away from Truth; converting others means giving them the gift of the true faith. This may seem odd when so many religious claims are clearly false, but there are many reasons why it works. For Blackmore memetics has the answer. For example, people who have a profound experience in a religious context are inclined to take on the memes of that religion; people who like and admire someone may believe their truth claims without question. The core features a religion must have in order to achieve successful memetic duplication or adherence is almost the same as those that allow chain letters to survive: desire and fear. In religion, however, desire can be dressed up in some fancy garb like "heaven," "nirvana, "happy hunting grounds." Fear, likewise, can take on a much more scary face like, "hell," damnation," “samsara", "hades," and so on. Couple desire and fear with a meme that says it is your duty to "spread" the message vigorously and you have a potential "winning" religion. Popular religions appeal to fundamental human needs in order to succeed. But, more importantly, those appeals don't have to be necessarily true, provided that they "appear" viable.The key point in all of this is propagation and successful duplication.
Religious belief systems arose thousands of years ago to respond to human needs, mostly our questions about the universe. Today we have a new tool for answering our questions about the world: science. No doubt science is also a memeplex, but it is one that uses a process of observation and experimentation to distinguish false memes from true ones. This makes science a much more superior tool for investigating the world. While false theories can thrive within science for the same reason that certain ideas are popular within religion, science is a self-correcting process that eventually eliminates them by demanding they be proven.
In spite of it all religion remains, simply because it can. It is a memeplex, a mass of ideas reproducing themselves. Any thing that can replicate will replicate. The ideas they offer are far more pleasing to many people than the cold truths offered by science. Religion still fulfills its original role for many people. It provides answers to tough questions. It offers comforting ideas about justice and life after death. Religion remains an important part of human society.
* Blackmore, Susan, The Meme Machine, Oxford University Press, 1999
(American philosopher, 1892-1987)
1. According to Blanshard, coherence is not only the sole criterion of truth, but also a theory of truth, that defines the nature of truth. Our beliefs are true when they cohere with the whole. Coherence with the total system is the evidence of their truth. Even more coherence is truth. Blanshard’s presupposition is that Reality is a system, completely ordered and fully intelligible. Therefore the degree of truth of any proposition is accounted for by its coherence with the whole. Coherence is a relationship of mutual dependence between the part and the whole. A proposition is true only if it coheres with the rest of the system. Reality as a whole is the Absolute, the integral Truth. Anything less is only partially coherent and therefore partially true, being true to the degree that it expresses the whole. Blanshard’s idealist metaphysics conceives the universe as a totally interconnected whole, which is ideal in character.
2. According to Blanshard the realist theory of truth as correspondence is meaningless. There can be no correspondence between statements and facts because cognition can never get outside of itself. He argues that the fact that corresponds to our judgment is a “pure fiction”. There are no unadulterated brute fact given directly to our senses and providing a solid reality to which our thought is to correspond. The brute-fact view of perception is mistaken because perception essentially involves judgment. There can be no pre-judgmental sense perception of anything and no sensory consciousness of a fact without judgment. Thus when we try to get at a fact to see whether it ‘corresponds’ with a judgment, we only succeed in getting a different judgment. We do not compare a judgment with a fact, but a judgment with another judgment.
3. Moreover Blanshard argues that the correspondence theory of truth according to which one has access to the world of fact beyond thought and language makes it impossible for perception to be mistaken. He pins the correspondence theory to the requirement that our cognition be infallible and indubitable and infers from this that the brute-fact view of perception, unmediated by conceptualisation and judgment, is unacceptable because of the evidence that our perception can be mistaken and that error is possible. If we simply passively receive the fact itself, nothing can go wrong. But we know too well that our cognitions are not immune from doubt and error. This is enough to show that our apprehension of facts is achieved through our judgments and that our role is not confined to receiving what is given to us. Our judgmental, interpretative activity is involved and makes doubt and error possible.
4. Some reputable philosophers, says Blanshard, have held the the test of truth is coherence, while holding that the nature of truth is correspondence. But the result of such a claim is itself incoherent. For if we accept coherence as our test, we must use it everywhere. We must use it to test the suggestion that truth is other than coherence. But if we do, we shall find that we must reject the suggestion as leading to incoherence. Indeed if one holds that truth is correspondence, one cannot intelligibly hold either that it is tested by coherence or that there is any other dependable test at all. If you place the nature of truth in one sort of character and its test in something quite different, the two will fall apart. It is impossible to argue from a high degree of coherence within experience to its correspondence with anything outside it. Blanshard concludes: assume coherence as the test only, and you will be driven by the incoherence of your alternatives to the conclusion that it is also the nature of truth.
* Blanshard B. Coherence as the Nature of Truth, in The Nature of Truth, Ed. by M.P. Lynch, A Bradford Book, Cambridge, Massachussets, 2001, p 103-121; See Alston, W. A Realist Conception of Truth, Cornell University press, Ithaca, 1996, p. 87-102
( Ukrainian foundress of Theosophy, 1831-1891)
The ‘theosophical’ truth : to be one with the ‘universal mind’
There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them. However,
in every age, there have been Sages who had mastered the absolute and yet could teach but relative truths.
For none yet, born of mortal woman in our race, has, or could have given out, the whole and the final truth to another man, for every one of us has to find that (to him) final knowledge in himself. As no two minds can be absolutely alike, each has to receive the supreme illumination through itself, according to its capacity, and from no human light. The greatest adept living can reveal of the Universal Truth only so much as the mind he is impressing it upon can assimilate, and no more.
To reach the Sun of Truth we must work in dead earnest for the development of our higher nature, the animal man in us must make room for the spiritual. This is what the great adepts, the Yogis in the East and the Mystics in the West, have always done and are still doing.
But we also know, that with a few exceptions, no man of the world, no materialist, will ever believe in the existence of such adepts, or even in the possibility of such a spiritual or psychic development.
Most of us are as incapable of seeing an absolute truth. As physical man, limited and trammeled from every side by illusions, cannot reach truth by the light of his terrestrial perceptions. “Man, know thyself,” no greater or more important truth was ever taught. Without such perception, man will remain ever blind to even many a relative, let alone absolute, truth. Man has to know himself, i.e., acquire the inner perceptions which never deceive, before he can master any absolute truth. Absolute truth is the symbol of Eternity, and no finite mind can ever grasp the eternal, hence, no truth in its fullness can ever dawn upon it. To reach the state during which man sees and senses it, we have to paralyze the senses of the external man of clay. This is a difficult task, we may be told, and most people will, at this rate, prefer to remain satisfied with relative truths. Outside a
certain highly spiritual and elevated state of mind, during which Man is at one with the UNIVERSAL MIND—he can get nought on earth but relative truth, or truths, from whatsoever philosophy or religion. Concerning the deeper spiritual, and one may almost say religious, beliefs, no true Theosophist ought to degrade these by subjecting them to public discussion, but ought rather to treasure and hide them deep within the sanctuary of his innermost soul. Theosophical truths, when they transcend a certain limit of speculation, had better remain concealed from public view, for the “evidence of things not seen” is no evidence save to him who sees, hears, and senses it.
*See Hanson, Virginia , H.P. Blavatsky and The secret doctrine, A Quest book, Theosophical Pub. House, 1988
(German Marxist philosopher, 1885-1977)
Bloch develops a philosophy of hope and the future, a dreaming forward, a projection of a vision of a future kingdom of freedom. It is his conviction that only when we project our future in the light of what is, what has been, and what could be, can we engage in the creative practice that will produce a world in which we are at home and realize humanities deepest dreams.
He rejects what he calls the 'half-enlightenment' of classical Marxist philosophy because it deludes itself by thinking that truth and enlightenment can be obtained solely by eliminating error rather than offering something positive and attractive. Genuine enlightenment, for Bloch, goes further than just criticizing any distortions in an ideological product: it goes on to read it closely for any critical or emancipatory potential. He argues that genuine ideology does not consist in merely unmasking or de-mystification, but also in uncovering and discovery: revelations of unrealized dreams, lost possibilities, abortive hopes - that can be resurrected and enlivened and realized in our current situation. Bloch's cultural criticism thus accentuates the positive, the utopian-emancipatory possibilities, the testimony to hopes for a better world.
For Bloch the world, and humanity in it, are unfinished. Humanity's only authentic task is the completion of the world and therefore ourselves: "the world is untrue, but it wants to return home through man and through truth". As we shape the world through our work so we come to a condition of self-possession. Bloch's conception of authenticity is as a coming-to-ourselves, in which we have reclaimed our human capacities from our alienation, manifest in the worship of false gods and masters.
Hope is the moral conditioner of Bloch's project: "Only hope understands and also completes the past, opens the long, common highway". Hope is both goal and always sought for.
* See Münster, Arno, L'utopie concrète d'Ernst Bloch, Kimé, Paris, 2001
(French philosopher, 1861-1949)
Philosophy must not be treated as a self-contained system, in which the revealed truth could appear as a mere intruder. The world of reason and experience is not a self-sufficient world. The supernatural order is sometimes treated as an unnecessary superstructure over and above the truths of reason and experience. This view that Blondel calls “extrinsicism” must be rejected. A philosophy that operates without any reference to faith inevitably becomes aware of its own limits. It discovers within the human person a dynamism toward a goal that nature cannot reach and toward a truth that reason cannot discover. Though Blondel rejects the idea of a philosophy that would be Christian on account of being based on revelation, he holds that all sound philosophy leads to the threshold of revealed truth. In other words philosophy is affected by the natural desire for the supernatural: it is oriented toward revelation as its own completion. Thus philosophy cannot be a closed system of rational knowledge. An autonomous philosophy cannot be self-sufficient. The journey of philosophy cannot be completed without faith.
Blondel’s position that the human spirit has an inbuilt restlessness toward the divine, an inner exigency for the supernatural message of salvation is basically an Augustinian position. It differs from the traditional medieval scholastic approach that treats Christian truth as a content to be imposed on the inquirer from the outside and through arguments abstract from the demand of life. Blondel wants to distance himself from this ‘extrincist’ approach in favour of the ‘method of immanence’. He defends it against scholastic philosophers who object that this method undermines the old justification of Christian beliefs in opening the way to subjectivism and relativism. The weakness of the traditional doctrine, Blondel argues, is its excessive objectivism, which has lost sight of the subject. The rationalistic cast of this approach neglects the role of the will. Indeed faith is not principally directed to objective truths. Faith is a knowledge by connaturality which is given in a spiritual experience where all the personality, intelligence, will and sentiment, is engaged.
Faith, he writes, appears as the encounter of two loves and not as the liaison of two ideas: it is not an abstract conclusion, it is a living action. The objective proofs of the revealed truths are not efficacious if the subject is not prepared interiorly by grace and personal disposition. Adherence to the truths of faith is not a matter of understanding without the involvement of the whole personality. The will and the heart help to see.
* Blondel, Maurice, Les Exigences Philosophiques du Christianisme, Paris , 1950
(Contemporary British sociologist)
Truth reduced to social convention
According to Bloor, knowledge in sociology is distinguished from belief only in that it is collectively held. The sociology of knowledge seeks to provide causal explanations of how our ideas about the world change, how they are transmitted, created, maintained, organized into disciplines.
He explains his stand on truth:
1. What most people mean by truth is something like correspondence with reality.
2. However, it is very difficult to get clear about exactly what this means. The notion of correspondence to reality is vague. At no point do we ever have independent access to reality that would allow us to see that our theories correspond to it. Besides
the evaluation of scientific theories takes place entirely "internally" to our theories, standards, interests, problems, etc. Given this problem with defining truth, why not give it up entirely and conclude that our theories are simply "conventional
instruments" for coping with our environment? So, instead of trying to define truth, Bloor examines how notions of truth and correspondence are used in practice.
The functions of the idea of truth are triple:
1. a discriminatory function: we use the words "true" and "false"to distinguish those ideas that work from those that do not.
2. a rhetorical function: that is, we use terms like "true" and "false" in argument, criticism, and persuasion
3. a materialist (i.e. realist) function: the fact that all of our thinking rests on the assumption of the existence of an external world with a determinate structure so that
we use the word "true" to mean exactly how this world is. This may vary from culture to culture.
To the objections to the idea that scientific theories, methods and
results are social conventions, Bloor replies that conventions are not arbitrary:
for not anything can be accepted as a convention: it must be credible and useful.
The acceptance of a theory by a group does not make it true but the acceptance of an idea by a group makes it knowledge for them.
* Bloor David, Knowledge and Social Imagery (Routledge, 1976; 2nd edition Chicago University Press, 1991)
( Danish – Swedish philosopher, 1230-1285)
The double truth theory ?
Boethius of Dacia adopted essentially the same attitude as Siger of Brabant. His central position was that philosophy has to follow the arguments where they lead, regardless of their conflict with religious faith. For him, philosophy is the supreme human activity, and in this world, only philosophers attain wisdom.
However Boetius attempted to reconcile his religious beliefs with his philosophical position by assigning the investigation of the world and of human nature to philosophy, while to religion he assigned supernatural revelation and divine miracles. He was condemned for holding the doctrine of double truth, though he was careful to avoid calling philosophical conclusions that ran contrary to religion true simpliciter; in each branch of knowledge, he asserted, one must be careful to qualify one's conclusions. The conclusions that the philosopher reaches are true "according to natural causes and principles".
He did not himself argue for a theory of double truth; rather, he reserved the term truth in an ultimate sense for revealed doctrine and never claimed the possibility that there could ever be two equally true contradictory truths specific to the competing requirements of theological and philosophical discourse. Nonetheless, he recognized that reason rightly used could reach conclusions that did not agree with revealed doctrine. He thought that correct philosophical reasoning, based on valid premises, can lead to conclusions that are (revealed to be) false . As a result, he "strongly warned against attempting to justify faith" through philosophical arguments” . In this way Boethius attempted to protect both faith and philosophy by separating the two. He did not advocate the much-maligned pseudo-doctrine of the double truth. Boethius was not a secret rationalist, but a sincere Christian, confronted with a dramatic gulf between his deeply held religious beliefs and the conclusions of his philosophical pursuits. He adjusted the conflict by setting the revealed truths totally outside the natural order. Then he declared all descriptions of that order, produced by philosophy, to be statements of a limited, probable, and hypothetical nature. The doctrine of two contradictory truths was imposed on him by his adversaries who suspected him of heresy.
* Boethius of Dacia: On the Supreme Good, on the Eternity of the World, on Dreams, tr. by John F. Wippel, Pontifical Inst., 1987
(American quantum physicist, 1917-1994)
According to the quantum physicist David Bohm, the subatomic particles are thoroughly interconnected with each other. Such an interconnection indicates that the universe viewed as composed of “parts” is in fact organized by a basic wholeness. Bohm arrives at the conclusion that “the universe is a giant hologram”.
All of existence is one undivided, interconnected whole. We, however, see ourselves as separate individuals. In reality, we are all part of one whole but seeing from different perspectives, with different paradigms, seeing different realities. Any form of thought, concept, idea which becomes crystalised as the “whole truth and nothing but the truth” interferes with the natural flow of reality which is ever changing and never static, and this includes ideas as well which are insights about this flow.
We debate our various views, trying to convince others that what we see is correct. However, we are all merely seeing incoherent fragments, of which, none are completely correct. Only by synthesizing all of our various, fragmented perspectives together do we stand a chance of understanding the synthesized whole.
We must be able to think together through dialogue and common consciousness. People will, however, come to a group with different interests and assumptions. In dialogue they should be ready to suspend carrying out their impulses, suspend their assumptions and look at them, then they could all stand in the same state of consciousness. In dialogue the whole structure of defensiveness and opinions and division can collapse; and suddenly the feeling can change to one of fellowship, participation and sharing. It isn't necessary that everybody be convinced to have the same view. This sharing of mind, of consciousness, is more important than the content of the opinions. Truth does not emerge from opinions; it must emerge from something else.
Besides, dialogue may not be concerned directly with truth—it may arrive at truth, but it is concerned with meaning. If the meaning is incoherent you will never arrive at truth. You may think, "My meaning is coherent and somebody else's isn't," but then we'll never have meaning shared. And if some of us come to the "truth", while a lot of people are left out, it's not going to solve the problem. You will have the "truth" for yourself and for your own group, whatever consolation that is. But we will continue to have conflict. Therefore it is necessary to share meaning.
In a dialogue, unlike in discussion with people batting their ideas back and forth in order to win the game, there is no attempt to gain points, or to make one’s particular view prevail. It is more a common participation, in which people are not playing a game against each other but with each other. In a dialogue, everybody wins.
*Bohm, David, On Dialogue. Ed. Lee Nichol. London: Routledge, 1996
(Danish physicist, 1885-1962)
Bohr, one of the founder of quantum physics, discovered that nature at the subatomic level apparently does not conform to normal logic. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, Western logic, through Aristotle's law of excluded middle, has demanded an "either-or" in our relationship with the universe. For instance, either light is a particle or it is not a particle; either light is a wave or it is not a wave. It was assumed that views about the cosmos should be consistent with common sense and every day's experience, namely the perception of a world undisturbed by human thoughts, wishes and desires, full of things, spatially separated from each other, and interacting with each other through distinct recognizable forces. Within that perspective it would be natural today to think of electrons or photons as some sort of independent things, showing signs of being particles independent of our observations of them. They would be taken for distinct realities that we discover with our thinking, not something that we create with our thinking.
But then Niels Bohr and some other philosophically minded physicists realised that nature at the subatomic level was trying to tell us something very different than common sense. They established that electrons showed signs of being waves, and that means that electrons are waves and particles at the same time. The wave-particle duality seems to be nature's way of informing us that we cannot impose our human concepts on the subatomic level. Just as Einstein had discovered that we cannot impose our normal assumptions of space and time to all levels of reality, so quantum physics reveals that we have no empirical justification to impose our most basic thoughts about the nature of reality on the subatomic realm. According to Bohr, nature empirically reveals this understanding to us by showing that we can have only complementary (contradictory?) views of reality. If we set up an experimental arrangement that allows for a wave manifestation of subatomic phenomena, wave effects will be observed. If we set up an experimental arrangement to view subatomic phenomena as particles, particle effects will be observed. Thus it seems that what we observe in our experiments is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our methods of questioning nature. In short, an electron is not a thing until we observe it.
For Bohr this was a momentous epistemological discovery about ourselves and the nature of science. The complementary view of reality (the wave-particle dualism) rather than only one unified view, is as important as Einstein's discovery that the reference frame of an observer is crucial for measuring space and time.
The question of whether this epistemological discovery is also an ontological one came to the fore in the famous Bohr-Einstein confrontation. Einstein could not agree with Bohr's interpretation, according to which, if an electron is not a thing until it is observed by some instrument, we are bound to say that reality depends on our observations and the thoughts we use to frame the world. Einstein, being a realist, rejected the view that reality is created by human thoughts.
But Bohr's advice was that physicists should be interested primarily in being able to predict experimental results and not in the question of what is real. The question of what is real is primarily an unanswerable philosophical question. He simply argued that the results of quantum experiments provide empirical evidence that nature does not have a hidden true self that can be pictured with human concepts. Einstein failed, according to Bohr, to understand that the empirical evidence demonstrates that the faith in a hidden, objective reality is but faith in a dogma.
* Bohr, Niels, Discussion with Albert Einstein on Epistemological Problems in Atomic Physics, See Internet
(German philosopher, 1903-1991)
Objectivity is the common mark distinguishing scientific views from unscientific views. It means the exclusion of all forms of subjective bias, such as prejudices and vested interests. It is thanks to its method of objectivity that science has been highly successful. But to preserve objectivity it seems that the price to pay is the exclusion of the personal, subjective and existential dimension. If this is the case, it appears that only the natural sciences can be regarded as objective whereas the human sciences are unqualified to the claim of objectivity.
However it is a mistaken view to think that the criterion of objectivity in the human sciences has to be identical to the criterion of objectivity in the natural sciences.
1. The criterion of objectivity in the natural sciences is universal validity. The personal , the subjective, the existential are eliminated. The guarantee of universal validity rests on two facts: first that any experiment can be repeated at will so that the findings of one scientist can be checked by another; second, that all phenomena investigated are reduced to their measurable, quantitative aspects. All the non-checkable observations are eliminated.
2. The criterion of objectivity in human sciences (history, psychology, sociology, etc.) cannot consist in the same ideal of reaching ‘universal validity’. The human sciences are also ‘subjective’ and dependent on the knower. If they have a claim to be objective, it has to be in a different sense than the objectivity of universal validity. It has to be an objectivity that includes the subjective element.
We must show that the necessarily subjective approach of the human sciences does not exclude ‘objectivity’. It all depends of our understanding of ‘subjectivity’. It is not the ‘bad’ subjectivity of prejudices and vested interests, but the positive subjectivity which is an integral part of any process of knowledge in which the subject encounters the object. Thus it is possible to give a new definition of ‘objectivity’ for the human sciences: not universal validity but the relation to and the reaching of the object in the best possible adequate way. Objectivity and subjectivity are not viewed as opposed but as complementary. One acknowledges that some truths are not accessible in a universally valid way and still they are truths.
3. Once this point is admitted, the question remains: if the criteria of truth and objectivity in human sciences are not universal validity, what are the new criteria of truth, specific to these sciences?
Three conditions must be fulfilled to satisfy the requirement of criteria of truth in the human sciences. These criteria are found in the knower. What is it in the knower that is the mark of genuine truth? What are the criteria of ‘subjective’ truth?
- First condition: the resistance of things, objects and facts. The scholar has to face the reality, how painful it may be. He must bend to the facts and not indulge in subjective projections, ingenious constructions, theories and ideologies. Hence the analytic attitude is to be preferred to too quick synthetic views.
- Second condition: the inter-subjectivity (or super-subjectivity) of the truth. Truth must be open for other people. One must be able to come to an understanding of the facts with others. There is no truth that holds only for one individual. This is different from ‘universal validity’ of the natural sciences. Truth-searchers in the human sciences are not necessarily of the same opinion. There must be dialogue with complete openness, not to reach agreement but to seek the truth together. Openness to dialogue is the criterion of super-subjectivity. There is no esoteric truth; truth is openness.
- Third condition: the truthfulness of the knower. This is an ethical requirement of honesty and transparency to oneself.
* Bollnow, O.F.,The Objectivity of the Human Sciences and the Nature of Truth, Philosophy Today, Spring 1963, p.39-51
(Austrian-Czech philosopher, 1781-1848)
It is mainly in order to combat radical skepticism that Bolzano found it necessary to affirm the existence of truth-in-themselves, prior to and independent of language and man. These truths he carefully distinguished from truths expressed in words and conceived truths.
Bolzano develops a theory of the ‘proposition in itself’. He draws a distinction between the ‘proposition in itself ‘and the judgement or proposition that is thought, expressed, or uttered. The former is an abstract entity belonging to a special logical realm beyond the realm of what exists in space and time; the latter belongs to the concrete realm of speech and language. The primary element in a proposition is its objective content or meaning, irrespective of whether anyone has ever formulated it in words, or even irrespective of whether it has ever been present in any mind as a thought. Now, if there are propositions in themselves, there must be also truths in themselves, namely those propositions that are in fact true. Their truth does not depend in any way on their being expressed or affirmed in judgements by thinking subjects. This holds good not only of finite subjects but also of God. Truths in themselves are true not because God posits them; God thinks them because they are true. Bolzano arrives at that conclusion because he looks on the matter from the logician’s viewpoint. The truth of a mathematical proposition depends on the meaning of the terms, not on whether it is thought and expressed by a mathematician, human or divine. The mind of Bolzano is clear: he wants to de-psychologize logic, to formalize it and set it free from any intrinsic connection with subjective factors.
Bolzano’s theory like Platonistic theories in general, is designed to serve as basis for a defence of the objectivity and eternity of truth. Every truth is mind-independent in the sense that it obtains independently of whether it is ever thought or recognised. Every truth is absolute and eternal in the sense that it does not depend on the context in which it is judged or asserted.
* Bolzano, The Theory of Science, Blackwell, Oxford, 1972 ; See Copleston, F., History of Philosoph,
(Medieval theologian and philosopher, 1221-1274)
Like Plato and Augustine, Bonaventure found two conditions necessary for truth and certitude: immutability of the object and infallibility of the knowing subject. These two prerequisites cannot be adequately accounted for by changing sensible objects or by a fallible, mutable mind. Therefore if man’s intellectual soul is infallibly converted to immutable intelligible objects such as God, the soul itself and necessary principles, it can be so only insofar as it is influenced by God’s infallible, unchangeable light, or eternal ideas. To reach what is infallible in God’s light and what is unchangeable in his truth, superior reason must experience an immediate contact with God’s eternal principles. Whatever the variable content obtained by abstraction or reflection, it is only the divine illumination that assures the mind of certitude in infallibly grasping the invariable formality of truth, though without implying a direct vision of God’s ideas. With God present in human knowledge as an image naturally infused into the intellect, Bonaventure reaffirmed the position of Augustine that the human mind can be certain of truths in the light of divine truth. True knowledge in the soul is an image of eternal truth. However the divine light, without which nothing can be understood, is not directly known, remaining inaccessible to intuition. The divine ideas are only indirectly affirmed by thought in view of the results flowing from them, as the existence of an unseen source is known in the flowing waters that are seen. The mind mediately apprehends God’s presence in his effects — the soul, things, and transcendent principles — immediately experienced.
* See F.Copleston, History of Philosophy, vol.2, p.240 sq, London, Burns Oates, 1950
(German theologian, 1906- 1945)
‘Truth telling’ can be destructive
One of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's concern was the problematization of conventional understandings of "telling the truth." Truth is contextual, Bonhoeffer urged, and " 'telling the truth' means something different according to the particular situation in which one stands. Account must be taken of the one's relationships at each particular time. Further, not all who inquire have the right to know the truth -- and in particular, Bonhoeffer noted, not everything regarding sexuality is meant to be exposed. "Exposure is cynical," wrote Bonhoeffer, "and even if the cynic appears to himself to be specially honest, or if he sets himself up as a fanatical devotee of truth, he nevertheless fails to achieve the truth which is of decisive importance, namely, the truth that since the Fall there has been a need also for concealment and secrecy." Bonhoeffer wrote that often "those who pretend to be executing God's judgment" are in fact pursuing "a truth which is of Satan." Such fanatical truth-seeking "wounds shame, desecrates mystery, breaks confidence, betrays the community in which man lives, and laughs arrogantly at the devastation he has wrought and at human weakness which cannot bear the truth.”
Bonhoeffer maintains that telling the truth “is a matter of correct appreciation of real situations and of serious reflection upon them.” He is emphatic that communicating in a truthful manner must go well beyond questions of factual accuracy. He insists, for example, that a “lie cannot be defined in formal terms as a discrepancy between thought and speech.” More specifically, “there is a way of speaking which is in this respect entirely correct and unexceptionable, but which is, nevertheless, a lie.” This occurs, Bonhoeffer asserts, “when an apparently correct statement contains some deliberate ambiguity or deliberately omits the essential part of the truth.”
For Bonhoeffer, “an individual utterance is always part of a total reality which seeks expression in this utterance.” It does not rest in the literal factual accuracy of a particular communication separate from that larger reality. The more complex the actual situations of a man’s life, the more responsible and the more difficult will be his task of ‘telling the truth.’
Journalists do assume a particular responsibility in light of their claim to be professional communicators. By appropriating the professional title, journalists accept an obligation to learn how to communicate in a truthful manner. Communicating in a genuinely truthful manner, Bonhoeffer wrote, is “something which must be learnt.” It involves “serious reflection” upon that which is being communicated and a recognition of the very real complexity of the task that confronts any journalist who aspires to authentic professionalism. The obligation to communicate in a truthful manner is not something theoretical. Neither can it be subjected to a process of “mental gymnastics” that allows one to plead that they have not told a formal lie, when they are in fact attempting to deceive or mislead those entitled to the truth.
For Bonhoeffer, truth is not a static principle but a dynamic force deeper than simple correspondence of speech to certain facts. If a notorious liar tells "the truth" in order to mislead, this could be considered a lie. Or if a child is pushed by the teacher to reveal family secrets in front of the class, then the child has a right to lie because the question should not have been asked. The child's lie contains a greater truth. Truthfulness does not mean disclosing everything. In fact, in a fallen world a certain amount of concealment is imperative.
* Bonhoeffer Dietrich, The Cost of Discipleship , John D. Godsey (editor); Geffrey B. Kelly (editor). Fortress Press, 2000
(American philosopher, b. 1943)
The correspondence theory of truth must be combined with a coherence theory of empirical justification.
Classical – idealist - coherence theories of truth hold that truth is to be simply identified with coherence with some specified sort of system. This is not the coherentism adopted by Bonjour. He is a classical realist who adheres to a correspondence theory of truth. However BonJour points out the distinction between theories regarding the nature of truth and theories regarding the criterion of truth. According to him, the latter theories should be called coherence theories of justification: theories about the criteria or standards or rules which should be appealed to in deciding or judging whether or not something is true.
The correspondence theory of the nature of truth is characterized as the view which holds that a belief or statement is true if it corresponds to or agrees with the appropriate independent reality. According to BonJour, this is the central tenet of metaphysical realism. To deny this would be to adhere to metaphysical idealism – which he rejects.
He develops an argument for his own view, combining a correspondence theory of truth with a coherence theory of justification . For him it is crucial to make clear the role justification plays, relative to cognitive claims, and the entirely distinct issue of truth-determination. He admits that a combination of a coherence theory of empirical justification with a correspondence theory of truth is most unusual from an historical standpoint, but it is arguably the only hope for avoiding both foundationalism and skepticism while preserving a dialectically independent basis for defending an account of empirical justification.
If on the one hand Bonjour rejects the idealist identification of coherence and truth, on the other hand he argues that only coherence among a set of empirical beliefs can provide justification for those beliefs, in the sense of rendering them likely to be true. He repudiates all forms of foundationalism for empirical beliefs. He stresses that cognitively spontaneous beliefs are not to be construed as foundational, for although they are initially acquired without the exercise of inference, they are not justified unless and until we find reasons for them. If we do not have any reasons (distinct from the beliefs themselves) for thinking our cognitively spontaneous beliefs are likely to be true, then although we may continue to hold them, we won't be epistemically justified in holding them. Our observation beliefs start out with no initial degree of justification whatever, and coherence alone provides justification for them. He claims that we have no satisfactory explanation of why foundational beliefs are likely to be true. The cornerstone of his theory is to show that coherent beliefs alone (and no fundational beliefs) are likely to be true.
Bonjour Laurence, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 198u
(Contemporary Canadian philosopher)
1. Our understanding of the world can steadily improve. It all depends on whether language can intentionally be changed and improved to express more effectively the data of our experiences. It has been claimed that our thinking is the ‘prisoner’ of the language we use (Wittgenstein’s claim, for instance). However there are cogent reasons to follow Gadamer (see Gadamer) who contends that language has the capacity for improvement. We can stretch the boundaries of language. Reason and experience are always ahead of language. Thought escapes the prison of language. Experience can recognize the error of one’s conceptions. Our human experience is infinitely perfectible. and calls for new views of the world, even though they may never be the views of a ‘world-in-itself”. Polanyi too (see Polanyi) emphasizes that we always know more than can be put into words. There is a gap between what we know and what we say. Of course we are heavily influenced by the language we speak. But then one must take great care in choosing our language and modifying it.
Both Gadamer and Polanyi recognize that our language can be modified so as to incorporate what we discover in our constant questioning into the nature of things. The corrigibility of language implies that any perspectival view we have may serve as a starting point in our search for truth and that we can continue to approach a true and adequate understanding of the world’s nature.
2. However the truth that we hope to approach cannot be the actual correspondence of our ideas and schemes to mind-independent objects. We have to define truth in another way than staightforward correspondence. Truth should be understood as the ideal towards which we tend through the various approximations that we express through the use of a constantly reformed language. Our schemes of representation constitute our conception of the real. Such schemes are a kind of ‘objectvity for us’ in the present circumstances. But we can imagine that it is possible to achieve an ideal form, a perfect form of the world as we experience it. All along we keep the important distinction of the conceptual scheme–reality while holding that we can always improve the conceptual scheme of reality. We are aware than a certain scheme is defective and we endeavour to improve it. We search for more and more approximation of the truth.
Bontekoe calls this approach the “spiralling route” to truth. Truth is approachable through the progressive elimination of anomalies from our theories. This procedure will take us through every detour imaginable. But every improvement thus achieved will carry us in the direction of truth. We cannot presume that the attainment of a final truth is possible but this cannot have any bearing on the way in which we pursue truth or on the question of whether we should pursue truth. If we are genuinely interested in pursuing truth, we have no option but to follow the “spiralling route” toward truth.
* Bontekoe, Ron. , Rorty’s Pragmatism, in Int.Phil.Quat., n_30, 1990, 235-245; Metaphysics: should it be Revisionary or Descriptive? IPQ, June 1992, p. 156-160
(British idealist philosopher, 1848-1923)
Bosanquet’s concept of logic determines his metaphysical standpoint: for logic is the science that enables to seize totality: “truth is the whole”. To think logically is to pass from a piecemeal experience to a system that contains that fragmentary experience as a part, now enriched of all its correlations with the system in its totality. Logic being “the spirit of totality” is the key to understand reality, value and freedom. The quality of ideas and works of art is measured by their logical ability, their aptitude to promote and reinforce the coherence with the totality. Like the majority of idealist philosophers, Bosanquet adopts the coherence theory of truth.
However Bosanquet is less concerned with metaphysical questions than with the lofty experiences such as art, science and the life of human communities. According to him, for instance, the detailed analysis of one single day in the life of an individual would be enough to establish all what in principle he needs to affirm the absolute and live in the truth. It would reveal the transmutation of all disorders into order, all evils into good, all sufferings into joy, all hatred into love, etc. The person would soon find himself immersed in the deepest experience of the totality beyond the narrow limits of his ego.
In religion man recognizes himself for the dependent being that he is. He must give up every vestige of independence and surrender his separate finite selfhood in his membership of the Absolute, the true “individual” and the ultimate value. Thus the true destiny of the finite self is neither destruction nor immortality, but transmutation in the Absolute. This is not something future because transmutation of the finite self can and should experienced here and now. The truth of the human destiny lies in the evanescence of personality and absorption in a deeper experience available to every day life.
* Bosanquet, Bernard, The Value and Destiny of the Individual, See:Dictionnaire des Philosophes, Pariis , Albin Michel, 2001, p.266-267; Macxquarrie, John, Twentieth Century Religious Thought, Harper & Row, New York, 1963, p.32-33
(The name of a group of French mathematicians, 1935 onwards)
The eternal character of mathematical truth
Mathematics is a priori knowledge, i.e., not based on experience. Mathematics, therefore, is not an empirical science and, thus, not a natural science (although it can serve science). Mathematical results, therefore, are verifiable through reason, not through experience. This explains why mathematical truths are not merely approximate findings, but absolutes and, therefore, infallible.
These ideas foster a view that separates Mathematics from sensory experience and other natural sciences, eliminating the role played by empirical intuition and eradicating the heuristic and approximative approach of mathematical practice. Thus Mathematics becomes a pure, abstract, lofty, eternal, absolute and infallible knowledge.
The so-called Platonism in mathematics, which holds that there is a universe of mathematical objects beyond human consciousness, independent of individuals, and perceivable through reason, has found a lot of strength in that vision. According to that vision, the work of mathematicians is only to describe that abstract universe.
Like many other mathematicians, past and contemporary, Bourbaki understood the historical development of mathematics as a series of necessary stages inexorably leading to its current state—meaning by this, the specific perspective that Bourbaki had adopted and were promoting. Unlike anyone else, Bourbaki actively put forward the view that their conception of mathematic was not only illuminating and useful to deal with the current concerns of mathematics, but in fact, that this was the ultimate stage in the evolution of mathematics, bound to remain unchanged by any future development of this science. In this way, they were extending in an unprecedented way the domain of validity of the belief in the eternal character of mathematical truths, from the body to the images of mathematical knowledge as well.
* "Bourbaki: Towards a Philosophy of Modern Mathematics", J.Fang, Paideia Press, Hauppauge, New York 1970
(French philosopher, b. 1940)
A plea for rational truth to counter postmodern nihilism and religious revivals
1. Bouveresse deplores that nowadays people’s minds are not on the side of reason and science, but on the side of pseudo-sciences, religions and mythologies. Religious revivals as much as postmodernist nihilism converge in their rejection of the most fundamental certainties of reason.
Rather than adhering once and for all to the supremacy of reason, many today are inclined to take refuge in beliefs to the point that the freedom of not believing has again become suspect. Bouveresse concedes that it is not only possible, but often necessary not to believe, because all forms of belief are not of equal values. In any case it is always necessary to evaluate beliefs on the basis of rationality. Scientists have their articles of faith but that faith has nothing to do with the beliefs of religious fictions. To believe in order to know is not the same as to believe by tradition or instinct. Even if there seems to be a fundamental disposition of the human mind to be a believer, one should seriously consider how not to be a believer. Unbelief today is perceived by many as a kind of intolerable dogmatism and sectarism.
According to Bouveresse the incapacity and refusal of distinguishing the true from the false can only engender violence, arbitrariness and tyranny. He does not think that the religious revivals of our times can contribute to the betterment of humanity. On the other hand, in destroying the ideas of science, truth and certitudes, postmodernists have prepared the minds if not to religions but at least to the idea of their inescapable return. It is not in doing away with the idea of truth that we shall be able to make humanity more democratic and tolerant. One must hold on to the value of reason and with it search without arrogance for the truth.
2. The truth of religion and the truth of science are not the same. In the first case it is a revealed truth, given all at once. In the second case it is an ultimate horizon towards which one approaches by successive approximations. The notion of progress is crucial for scientific truth. The ultimate truth, if one can speak of such a notion in hoping to reach it one day, cannot be attained, if at all, except at the end. For the scientist the idea of a final and definitive truth has no real meaning and that is why some people keep away from science to take refuge in religion.
Nonetheless Bouveresse does not think that it is impossible for a scientist to adhere to a religious faith, but this creates tensions and even insurmountable contradictions. Still there is a relatively simple way to render science and religious belief compatible, in considering – as Wittgenstein explains well – that they are not concerned with the same problems. Once science has said all what it has to say, there remains our existential questions which science in unable to deal with. It is here that religions can come in. Several theologians have suggested a distribution of tasks between science and religion: whereas science tackles the questions of knowledge, religion is concerned with problems of life and action. Still those who adopt this view have a tendency to minimize the importance of the doctrinal content of religion in favour of more or less symbolical interpretations. This solution is scarcely satisfactory because religions are not compatible with relativism. But if in religion what counts is morality and not dogma, it is surely easier to reconcile science with religion.
* Bouveresse Jacques, Peut-on ne pas Croire? Paris, Agone, 2007
(Contemporary English theologian)
Difficulties around the truth of Christianity began to emerge particularly as a result of the rise of modern science in the seventeenth century and the feeling of many that the world and human knowledge have changed to such a degree that what is said about Christianity must change also. Christianity today runs the risk of being turned into a less than desirable ideology in the bad sense of the term. Ideology in its negative connotation denote the way in which a group disguises in its thinking and attitudes the real nature of the situation, since to recognise that reality would not be in its interest. The doubt whether Christianity must be regarded as truth or ideology has sprung up from its incompetence to cope adequately with intellectual challenges to its views and its inability to answer an enormous number of new questions that have arisen from the realm of history, science, psychology , sociology , etc. It belongs to Christianity today to explain how its beliefs are still viable. How has this radical change taken place in history?
During the first fifteen centuries of Christian history, the Bible in the Western world was considered the sole source and focal point of all knowledge. The Bible was all in all an encyclopaedia which contained all knowledge useful to man, both sacred and profane. No one doubted its essential truth. As the Middle Ages came to a close the situation changed dramatically, through new discoveries, specially in the field of astronomy and geography. A new source of truth had emerged. Biblical knowledge lost the monopoly of the knowledge of truth. But it took a long time to acknowledge the fact. Every kind of device was adopted in defence of the old view. Everything was done to avoid the problem of two conflicting sources of truth. Galileo was its first victim, even though he was concerned to find a way of reconciling the two apparently conflicting truths. He was the first representative of the many who were to face similar problems in defending the view that the new scientific knowledge represents a second source of truth. Since then the evidence in favour of a source of truth that is not the Bible has grown quickly. Today it is no longer a question of taking one’s stand on the Bible and seeking to explain new phenomena which corroborate it. Rather the opposite: one takes stand on the world-view that emerges from science and a greater knowledge of the world, and it questions everything else, Bible included. This means that the burden of proof has shifted. From now on, Christians and those of other religious traditions as well, have to face the possibility that in reality there is again one source of truth: but this time that source is not the Bible or any other religious book or authority.
* Bowden, John, Jesus: Unanswered Questions, London, SCM Press, 1988, p.16-31
( English theologian, b.1935)
We must accept the limitations of language without giving up the pursuit of truth
In many areas of knowledge, we trace today the collapse of realist ambitions and with it the possibility of saying something true about what is the case. The relativity, incompleteness and subjectivity of virtually all our judgements are taken for granted. “Realism is dead “ has become the motto of several anarchist theory of knowledge (Feyerabend) and the same devastating conclusions have been drawn in the domain of theology (Don Cupitt).
But realism is not dead except, may be, in the forms of the obvious naive realism according to which the evidence of one’s senses is incorrigible. This is the naive empiricism that hundred years of antirealism has made untenable. In contrast, critical realism has accepted the incompleteness, approximation and corrigibility of all our judgements. It admits that many of our ways of imagining, describing or thinking can turn out to be incomplete and maybe wrong in some or many respects from another and later perspective. But critical realism has contributed to irreversible gains and enduring achievements; not everything is swept away. For instance philosophy today can no longer be written without a careful attention to language and sentences. We have learned to accept the limitations of language and in that sense we can be anti-realist in relation to theories. But at the same time we must remain unashamedly realist in the way in which we live and act upon the world. We can be relativist in relation to languages, and absolutist in relation to the constraints on judgements based on strong evidence. We must accept the limitations of language without giving up the pursuit of truth
The contemplative account of knowledge (in which reality is apprehended passively and speaks for itself) operates side by side with the instrumentalist account of knowledge (in which knowledge is the product of minds operating in terms of interests). Both accounts must be held in conjunction. Everything known is embedded in theory, still every view portrays the reality in its own way.
Therefore all theological pictures, propositions and imaginings carry with them the possibility of being defective or even wrong. One should not be surprised or alarmed that this is so. But the fact that the theological imagination is corrigible and historically traceable, does not mean that imagination is not “about” some reality independent of itself. There is a difference in saying that our judgements are corrigible, approximate and no doubt frequently wrong , and saying that we cannot rely on anything.
Our language about God can never be descriptively complete. Our present condition is that we see through a glass darkly. What is known only in part is not false, it helps us at least to begin to see. That is why all accounts of God, in religions, inevitably end up with the via negativa of Christianity or the neti, neti of Hinduism.
* Bowker, John, Licensed Insanities, Darton & Longman, London, 1987, p. 60-65, 76-78
(British idealist philosopher, 1846-1924)
1. “What satisfies the intellect is true and what satisfies the intellect is real” : these are two distinct assertions, but for Bradley and absolute idealism they are not separable. The basis of Bradley’s position is a certain view of the central activity of the intellect, that is, the judgment. Judgment is, for him, the intellectual function which defines reality by significant ideas, and in so doing affirms the reality of those ideas. The real is the subject of every judgment. Reality is such as it is expressed in the judgment.
In other words it is a mistake to suppose that thought is “about” a reality other then thought. The reality to which thought refers is simply thought itself in its ideal completion. Truth is “an ideal expression of the Universe, at once coherent and complete”. A proposition is true if it coheres with the comprehensive whole. Truth is attained in a system of beliefs that is maximally comprehensive and coherent.
2. Bradley’s view of judgment goes against all forms of epistemological dualism for which judgments and ideas are distinct from the things themselves. Bradley contends that his theory of judgment is warranted by experience. Indeed the mind can never be separated from the external order of nature. The classical epistemological problem of how the mind can know reality is a meaningless problem. It assumes wrongly that there is an entity called mind on the one side and another entity having no relation to mind called nature on the other side. But the standpoint of experience itself is that these realities are not opposed but related and complementary. Ideas and judgments are not representations of reality, but characterisations of the real world. Truth is the form that reality assumes when expressed through such ideas. If ideas do not express reality and if reality has no expressions in ideas, the essence of truth is destroyed.
Thus Bradley’s view is sometimes called an ‘identity theory of truth’. According to the correspondence theory of truth, the relation of the truth-bearer (the proposition) to the truth-maker (the fact or what is the case) is correspondence. But Bradley’s contention is that correspondentists are wrong in placing a gap between mind and world, between truth-bearer and truth-maker, between judgements and facts. He rejects ‘correspondence’ to replace it by ‘identity’, the ‘identity theory of truth’. This identity theory is clearly absurd for all those who believe that truth-bearers are linguistic sentences and truth-makers are non-linguistic state-of-affairs. But that is not the view of Bradley and idealist philosophies for which reality is made to coincide with experience.
If truth were not the same thing as reality, there would be a difference between the two and then truth would be defective, hence truth cannot be anything else than reality. Reality for Bradley is a monistic coherent system. Hence a judgmenet is true only if its content belongs to a coherent system of reality, the Absolute. But the coincidence between an isolated judgement and reality is never perfect. No truth is ever a perfect truth except when it coheres with others to become the Absolute. This is why Bradley says that a judgement is always “conditional” and that there are degrees of truth, since the perfect identity between thought and reality “can never be stated”. Thus Bradley’s so-called identity theory of truth is unstable. Since reality as well as the thought which, ideally, would be identical to it, is a coherent whole, Bradley identity theory looks more like a coherence theory of truth.
3. According to Bradley neither common sense nor physical science can ever describe the world as it is. They at best can reach parts of the appearance of the world. They are powerless to reveal the true reality. One needs a method that will enable to advance to a point of view outside that of common sense and scientific inference. It must enable to see the world in its completeness, as an absolute totality. Reality or Truth is this Absolute totality. However this goal is unattainable because our relational thinking is not fitted to grasp reality as it is, as one fully coherent and comprehensive whole.
As there are degrees of reality, there are degrees of truth. Some appearances stand nearer to reality than others; the test is that of comprehensiveness and coherence. For instance the Christian religion does not provide utimate truth: its personal God is not the ultimate truth of the universe, because the notion of personality belongs to appearance. Metaphysics deals with the ultimate truth, and in this respect stands higher than religion. There is a demand for a new religion and philosophy could supply this, a religion with a creed which metaphysics could justify. Metaphysics would be compatible with an idealized form of religion.
* Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 1893, See A History of Philosophical Systems,, Ed. Vergelius Fern, NY, The Philosophical Library, 1950, p.320-322
(English mathematician and philosopher, 1295-1349)
Every proposition signifies that it itself is true
The essence of Thomas Bradwardine’s theory of truth consists in the claim that an utterance is true if and only if everything the utterance says is the case. The essence of his solution to the Liar paradox flows from this, and consists in the claim that a Liar utterance is false: indeed, as in addition to its saying of itself that it is false, it also says of itself that it is true, and so, by contravalence (no utterance is both true and false), not everything it says is the case.
For Bradwardine's theory of truth, by virtue of their constituent terms, propositions signify things; but, in addition, a proposition as a whole signifies that such-and-such is the case. It is this latter kind of signification that is the basis for his theory of truth.
For him, a proposition is true if, and only if, it signifies only as is the case (tantum sicut est), and false if and only if it signifies otherwise than is the case (aliter quam est). In order for a proposition to be true, all of what it signifies to be the case must in fact be the case; if any of what it signifies to be the case fails to be the case, the proposition is false.
This general theory of truth provides a simple solution to insolubles. For it follows from Bradwardine's semantics that every proposition signifies that it itself is true. Given this, consider the insoluble case where a = ‘a is false’. Now a signifies that a itself is false. We also know that it cannot signify just that, but must also signify that a is true, and in general whatever else follows from a. But then proposition a cannot be true. If it were, then it would signify only as is the case, and so, since it signifies that it itself is false, it would have to be false, not true. But if a is false, there is no way to argue, in the other direction, that a is true after all. All that follows is that a signifies somehow otherwise than is the case. And it certainly does, since it signifies that a is true. The paradox is broken. Insolubles, then, are simply false. They are false not because of what they signify on the face of it, because that much of what they signify holds. Rather, they are false because in addition they also signify that they are true, and that does not hold.
See Burton, Edwin. "Thomas of Bradwardine." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York
(British philosopher of moral sciences, 1900-1990)
It is not possible to admit that religious assertions are true because they are neither empirically verifiable propositions nor tautologies (neither a posteriori, nor a priori true). However one should not conclude, as many do, that these assertions are meaningless. They may not be true but they have a value. Religious assertions are moral assertions, they have a use in guiding conduct and therefore they are meaningful.
For instance, the central Christian assertion that ‘God is love’ does not convey any truth about God’s existence or nature. Rather it declares the Christian’s intention to follow a ‘agapeistic’ way of life. Religion is primarily a matter of commitment of believers to a set of moral principles. But it differs from plain morality in that its message is conveyed by the stories that belong to its lore. Whether these stories are true or false is of no importance, because what matters is that they be a stimulant to the mind of the religious person to carry out the ‘agapeistic’ way of life.
* Braithwaite, Richard, An Empiricist Vies of the Nature of Religious Belief, see Macquarrie, J., Twentieth-century Religious Thought, Harper & Row, New York, 1963, p. 312-314SSe
(Austrian philosopher, 1838-1917)
Brentano holds a psychological theory of judgement. Judgements are subjective phenomena. They are mental episodes of individual judging subjects. To determine the truth and falsity of a judgement, it is the internal act of judging itself that is primary. This view eliminates any account of truth and falsity as timeless properties. The question is then of how Brentano can tie the subjective realm of mental acts of judgement to the objective realm of truth. He rejects the traditional conception of truth as correspondence. The main reason for him is that the correspondence theory does not yield a criterion of truth. Brentano was convinced that a theory of truth must solve the problem of knowledge, that is to say, it should provide a means by which we can intelligibly pick out truths from falsehoods. He finds such a criterion – so he thinks – in relation to what is for him a large class of judging acts pertaining to the sphere of inner perception. He divides judgements of facts into judgements of inner and of outer perception. A judgement is judged with evidence, only where there is what he calls an ‘identity’ of the judger and that which is judged. The experience of such identity is illustrated by the Cartesian Cogito: “I think , therefore I am (thinking)”. The validity of this inference is fundamental, it is evident, it cannot be explained further. The identity of judger and judged is perfect. On the contrary that identity is ruled out for judgements of outer perception. Evidence belongs only to judgements of inner perception.
Brentano’s treatment of the concept of evidence is important, because it is through it that an empirical subject can come to know objective truth.
Still Brentano does not deny that one can judge about the external world but such judgements remain a matter of guesswork. They do not belong to the domain of knowledge in a strict sense. Truth, for Brentano, is linked to the experience of evidence. That experience of evidence can be obtained only with respect to certain classes of judgements: those of inner perception. Brentano’s understanding of truth leaves us with hardly any account of how judgements of necessity, a priori propositions and logical truths which he calls ‘axioms’ can be valid. Indeed for him the evidence-based concept of truth relates always only to single cognitive acts and thus always only to a single judging subject. How can he explain the fact that logic is a common possession of all thinkers?
* Brentano, Frank, The Truth and the Evident , Ed. by Oscar Kraus, New York, Humanities Press, 1966
(contemporary American computer scientist and psychologist )
Memetics” is the study of memes. “Memes” are basically ideas or concepts that are good at spreading. They are the basic building blocks of our minds and culture, pieces of mental programming or conditioning that people acquire throughout their lives, in the same way that genes are the basic building blocks of biological life. For instance, the latest women's fashion is a meme, that spreads from one woman to another. A cult or religion would be another example, according to Brodie. Because memes can spread, and because most people aren't aware of the concept of memes, therefore they are susceptible to picking up all sorts of memes without even valuing them, because they're good at spreading. Why do so many people think the goal of life is to make money? Because they've been "infected" with the money is important meme. Memes don’t care whether or not they represent the truth, they just want to survive and be passed along to other hosts.
Brodie introduces the "Virus of the Mind" concept in all cases where the memes that become the most wide-spread are not necessarily "good" memes but simply memes that are good spreaders. Thus, for instance, Nazism (which isn't a good idea) was good at spreading, and thus became a popular meme in its day (at least in Germany). Religions are just memes that have been particularly good at spreading. By starting with a meme 'this is the Absolute Truth', religions become particularly clingy and hard to shake off, regardless of whether they actually are true or not.
Thus for Brodie memes are not necessarily socially beneficial phenomena, and he urges caution with respect to memes that become “mind viruses” which limit opportunities or that do harm to people. “Mind viruses” are memes that infect a mind without the mind being conscious of the infection. If people become robotically enslaved by advertising, religion, sexual fantasy, cults, etc. it is all because of "mind viruses," or "memes," and those who understand how to plant them into other's minds.
Still Brodie is not all doom and gloom. Even if he acknowledges that there is no absolute truth and that everything is a half-truth, he wants his readers to know about memes so that, rather than being mindless infected by whatever memes are in vogue or whatever we're brought up with, that instead we can step back and really think about what types of memes we're accepting, and which ones we're spreading. He challenges people to turn the power of memes and mind viruses to socially positive ends by consciously spreading potentially beneficial mind viruses to as many people as possible.
* Brodie, Richard, Virus of the Mind, the New Science of the Meme, Integral Press, 1995
(Dutch mathematician, 1881-1966)
Intuitionism was first put forward by the Dutch mathematician L.E.J. Brouwer. It holds that mathematical objects are not real and independent of us, as Platonist realists hold, but constructed by mathematicians. Mathematics is a free creation of the mind, mathematical objects are mental constructs, and mathematics is independent of any language or Platonic reality. Therefore, there are no mathematical truths independently of our knowledge.
A mathematical statement is simply the report by a mathematician of what he has constructed, and is true or false just in case there is either a proof or disproof of it. In cases where no such proof or disproof exists, the statement has no truth value - is neither true nor false. Truth has its ultimate locus in the human mind. Mathematics is "only concerned with mental constructions".
On Brouwer's view, there is no determinant of mathematical truth outside the activity of thinking, a proposition only becomes true when the subject has experienced its truth (by having carried out an appropriate mental construction); similarly, a proposition only becomes false when the subject has experienced its falsehood (by realizing that an appropriate mental construction is not possible). By 'is true' Brouwer means 'is provable' and by 'is false' he means 'is refutable' (i.e. disprovable). Thus he claimed that 'there are no non-experienced truths'. Propositions cannot be true nor false if we are not capable of determining their truth or falsity.
One of the primary concerns of his (and all) 'intuitionism' is the proper use of the law of excluded middle (p v ~p): either some proposition p is the case or p is not the case. In semantics this is called the principle of bivalence, that every proposition is either true or false. So there are only two possible truth-values (thus its similarity with the law of excluded middle). But Brouwer does not want to use excluded middle and other principles and inferences that rely upon excluded middle. He argues that excluded middle and related inferences rely upon a belief in the independent existence of mathematical objects. Put less metaphysically, excluded middles rely upon a belief that mathematical propositions have truth-values independent of the mathematician. So with all intuitionists he argues that excluded middle is a consequence of realism in ontology or realism in truth-value, which he rejects.
* L.E.J. Brouwer, Brouwer's Cambridge Lectures on Intuitionism, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
(Swiss reformed theologian, 1889- 1966)
Truth as encounter, which Brunner considers as the Christian concept of truth, the revealed truth conceived as God’s self-communication, dominates his whole theology. Encounter points to a personal meeting or experience of reality. Truth is not a matter of knowledge but an encounter in which truth happens. Truth is not in us but comes to us, then we are in the truth, which makes us free in restoring to us our authentic being.
Brunner owes much to the ‘I-Thou’ philosophy of Buber. He distinguishes between two varieties of truth. First there is the truth of everyday affairs, mathematics and science: the field of “abstract” truth. Brunner calls it It-truth to distinguish it from the second variety which he calls the Thou-Truth. As we pass from science and philosophy on to theology, we leave the abstract It-truth and enter the realm of personal relationships. Here man is no mere neutral observer, but rather he is himself affected by truth and exercises faith and personal trust. In this experience of personal confrontation the traditional distinction between subject and object is transcended, and the new truth becomes a relationship of subject to subject. Abstract thought cannot say what is really true. Abstract, verbal propositional truth is merely a pointer to the personal truth. Some propositions point more directly than other, but even the words of Scriptures are only pointers
Brunner’s personalist and existential notion of truth as encounter is directed against theological subjectivism as well as intellectual objectivism. Against subjectivism Brunner describes the unique interpersonal God-man relationship as a historical event centering on Jesus Christ. Against objectivism he points out that revelation is not primarily a doctrine but an act. Revelation is a “personal correspondence” between God and humanity. God does not reveal this or that truth, he reveals himself as the truth in communicating himself.
* Brunner, Emil, The Divine-human Encounter, Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1943
(French philosopher, 1869-1940)
The only religion of truth is the ‘religio philosophica’, the religion of Reason
For Brunschvicg there is no limit to the power of explanation and understanding of human Reason, which one could qualify as divine. Such is the meaning of Brunschvicg’s idealism. A ‘beyond thought and reason’ is unthinkable. The only religion of truth is the religio philosophica, the sole purpose of the pursuit of truth. Brunschvicg never ceased to denounce the “positive religions”, which all have been the cause of religious wars. He opposes to them the religion of the Spirit, the religion of immanent Reason, the only God that can bring unity and peace among human beings, le "Dieu des philosophes et des savants", opposed to Pascal’s “God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”.
For Brunschvicg the law that directs the actitivity of thought to truth, beauty and morality, is the law of unity. The superior destiny of man is found in the never ceasing effort towards truth, beauty and morality and there is nothing for the human mind to search beyond this unity, the supreme law of man’s spirit. It is senseless to want to relate that supreme law to a Being which would exists apart and beyond the human mind. For the religio philosophica, that supreme law is immanent to man who incarnates within himself the superior principle which is the ideal of spiritual life.
The true philosopher rejects a priori any access to truth by way of vision, intuition, dream or revelation. In this world there is no divine light that can help to obtain the right interpretation of reality. The only source of knowledge is the autonomous movement of immanent reason. The God who speaks is the God of reason, theorem and logic, the foundation of genuine religion and spirituality.
* Brunschvicg, Léon, La Raison et la religion, Paris, Alcan, 1939.
(Controversial racist American writer, 1943-2009)
Truth Is a matter of opinion
According to Bryant, there is no such thing as truth, but only various opinions. This does not mean that truth does not exist, but only that we cannot know that it exists. What we can know -- or at least what we can have a strong opinion about -- is that men's opinions often converge, and that such convergence makes it convenient to say that we have "discovered some truth" at the point of convergence. However the fact that men's opinions often converge is not sufficient to prove the existence of truth, or even a truth, for men's opinions once converged in agreeing to the truth of the proposition that the world is flat, and yet most men would not now say that such a proposition is (or was ever) true.
With the famous Harvard philosopher WV Quine, Bryant agrees that truth is "a good and useful myth". It is helpful in speaking about things, in part because the theory that truth exists is fundamental to our linguistic structure, or at least closely interwoven with it. But is it essential? That is, can we abandon speaking of truth in favor of speaking only of opinion, i.e. , can we translate all statements of the form "X is true" into "It is my opinion that-x"? The answer, surprisingly, is No, because the latter statement is a covert expression of the theory that truth exists, because it is a sotto voce expression of the statement "It is my opinion that x is true". Or in other words, our very linguistic structure requires us to employ a theory which is false -- or at least false “in my humble opinion”, asserts Bryant.
Both believers and non-believers in truth agree (or mostly agree) that the thing called truth -- whether real or just a good and useful myth -- is determined or indicated by convergence of opinion, so it seems that there is no "objective" problem of determining "the truth", no matter how much we may disagree about its "ultimate nature". The problem -- if you can call it that -- is that for the "truth believers", convergence of opinion represents a metaphysical-like reality while for the non-believers it represents a ghost-like entity which is admitted to the company of other more respectable ideas only because nothing can keep it out. So this then leaves the non-believer but one alternative, namely, to accept the existence of truth but to deny that it can be known, or alternately, to accept its existence but say that it can be known only with uncertainty or degree of probability. He can, of course, happily point out that he doesn't "really" believe in truth, because something whose existence cannot be perceived (except in the ghostly outline of opinion convergence) does not "really" exist.
*Bryant John, the Birdman, see Internet
(Austrian Jewish philosopher, 1878-1965)
1. The kind of mysticism which aims at the absorption of the finite self into the Infinite is an escapism before the reality of life. In the fleeting moments of the experience of mystical union, we cease to be the person that we really are. The mystic regards everyday life as an obscuring of the true life. He turns away from his existence as a unique human person, The truth of life consists in a frank acceptance of the personal form of being in which every individual is destined to live through dialogue in person-to-person relations. Man must live in the truth of his being and that truth is the personal mode of existence.
There are two primary attitudes that one can take up to the world: the ‘I-It’ and the ‘I-Thou’. Buber calls the first ‘experience’, the second ‘relation’. The ‘I-It’ attitude can never be spoken with the whole being. It applies to those activities which have something for their object as in the case of perceiving, willing, thinking and the whole range of objectifying experience in science, etc. If any man were to live purely on the level of the ‘I-It’ attitude, he would be less than a man.
The ‘I-Thou’ attitude, on the contrary, involves the whole being. Buber calls it the world of ‘relation’, meeting and encounter of subject to subject, involving mutuality and response, all features absent in the detached objective attitude of ‘experience’. The ‘I-Thou’ relation can be between two persons in dialogical speech. It can be achieved also between a person and nature when a plant or an animal ceases to be an ‘It’ so that the relation is mutual. Thus the ‘I-Thou’ attitude may extend its range beyond human persons and even extend to man’s relation with God. God is personal in the sense he has revealed himself in his creative and redeeming acts.
The truth of human life in often turned in untruth when other persons and God himself become ‘Its’ as we cease to address them and transform them into objects among objects. For just as every ‘It’ is potentially a ‘Thou’, so every ‘Thou’ can indeed sink back into an ‘It’. The ills and untruths of the contemporary world spring from the injury that has been done to the essentially personal nature of man, between man and man, man and nature, man and God. There can be no truth of life except in the constant renewal of interpersonal ‘dialogical immediacy’.
2. It is unfortunate that the truth has become questionable through its being politicized. The sociological doctrine of our age has had a relativising effect on the concept of truth. It has bound the “truth” of a human being to his/her conditioning reality. In doing so, it has lost the understanding of the person in his/her total reality. But the force of the peron’s desire for truth can burst the “ideological” bonds of his social being. For the person who lives and thinks “existentially” the relation to the truth is a matter of personal responsibility. To counteract the theory of modern collectivisms there is need of persons who are not collectivised and of a truth that is not politicised. There is need of people of faith in the truth as that which is independent of him and with which he can enter into a real and direct relation in his very life. The true community is not the collectivity that imposes the life interests of the group as its legitimate truth. Rather it is the commonwealth of those for whom human truth is bound up with the responsibility of each person.
* Buber, M., Between Man and Man, Fontana, Collins, 1947, 106-108; see Macquarrie, John, Twentieth-century Religious Thought, Harper & Row, New York, 1963, p.195-197
The truth that is silence
1. According to the most important philosophical school of Mahâyâna Buddhism, called S’ûnyavâda, none of the views (or drishti) about reality can be true. Reason is incompetent to comprehend reality. The S’ûnyavâda dialectic consists in disproving all the theses of its opponents while claiming that it does prove any theses of its own. It is sheer disproof without the least intention to prove anything.
Why are all views rejected? Why are they all false? The answer is that Reason which understands things through categories, concepts, distinctions and relations is a principle of falsehood, as its distorts and thereby hides the real. There can be no conceptualisation of the Absolute. Reason is incapable to reveal the Real.
The S’ûnyavâda dialectic is preeminently a critique of rational thinking and the rejection of all dogmatic systems (drishti). Its method is to disburden the mind of all its notions; it is a catharsis, a path of purification of the intellect. To know the truth about reality the opacity of categories and ideas must be removed. However the negation of the so-called truths of reason is the opening up of a new avenue: the path of intellectual intuition or prajnâ. Intuition is made possible by universal negation. The S’ûnyavâda dialectic is the removal of the constrictions which our concepts have put on reality. It is the freeing of reality of artificial restrictions. But it is not the denial of reality. It is not an ontological nihilism, only an epistemological nihilism, not a rejection of Reality but a rejection of the claim of all doctrines to express the truth about reality.
It is often advanced that the S’ûnyavâda standpoint, critical of all theories and drishtis, is itself a theory, one more position about truth and reality. Is not criticism itself a position, another theory of truth about reality? If all systems are false and there is no exception to the rule, should one not say that S’ûnyavâda philosophy itself is false? To refute this objection, the S’ûnyavâdins point out that criticism of theories is not another theory. Negation of positions is not one more position. Mere criticism does not add to the stock of existing knowledge. Criticism in this case achieves gain in depth, not in extension. The denial of all views by the S’ûnyavâdins is itself the means for reaching the truth about the absolute Truth, that stands beyond all categorisations. It is a Truth that is silence.
2. Mahäyänists face the problem to accord their views with the doctrines of primitive Buddhism (Theravâda) about the four noble truths, salvation and Nirvâna. To solve it they introduce the essential distinction of two truths: one, of an inferior order, and the other, of a superior order. The four noble truths, the original dogma on salvation and Nirvâna, remain valuable and efficacious in the world of illusions: the inferior truth. As this world undergoes sufferings, it is man’s duty to work for the cessation of suffering. This a useful illusion for those who cannot have access to the superior truth. But the wisest follower of Buddha aims at the superior truth of universal vacuity and the falsehood of all drishtis.
Those who do not make the distinction between the two truths cannot understand the teaching of the Buddha. The inferior truth or samvriti is a sort of covering, which hides the real truth and is the cause of a multiplicity of drishtis or views about reality. The highest truth or paramârtha, is beyond the finite intellect. At that superior level, the intellect, finding no categories for its support, merges into the Absolute. There is no more distinction of subject and object, knowledge and reality, no more “truth”. The many (contradictory) truths of empirical knowledge are transcended in the Absolute which is no longer Truth but silence. The Truth beyond the truths is not more “truth”, because truth is a relation of thought and reality and on the absolute level the distinction of subject and object disappears.
* T.R.V. Murti, The Central Philosophy Of Buddhism, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1955, p. 122-165; Sharma C., A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, Rider & C°, London, 1960, p.84-108
Truth is that which works for the cessation of suffering
1. Buddha identifies several grounds which he considers insufficient for accepting a teaching as true. These bases of knowledge are not rejected but considered by Buddha to be insufficient grounds to establish the truth of any teaching. These insufficient grounds are authority, faith and reason.
Buddha is sceptical of all truth claims from authority. He rejects the ‘sacred Vedic tradition’. Vedic brahmins have no direct knowledge of the truths found in the Vedas. Their truth claims are based on faith alone. Moreover this Vedic tradition is blind because it accepts the truth of its scriptures without any experiential verification. The reliance on scriptural authority and the claim that the content of sacred scriptures is unquestionably true is unjustified.
Buddha dissociates himself from the rationalists or ‘pure reasoners’ who aim to construct comprehensive metaphysical theories on the basis of reason alone. Without reference to experience, the pure reasoner misunderstands the aim of spiritual enquiry. He hopes to build a universally valid system of metaphysics in order to describe the way the world is. Buddha wants his disciples to be ‘practical’ reasoners who confront the central spiritual problem: the reality of dukkha (suffering). The practical reasoner wants to overcome dukkha to attain enlightenment. He wants to generate an outlook that will be useful in bringing about the spiritual goal: the cessation of suffering. In short, Buddha’s evaluation of reason is pragmatic. He denounces the obsessive urge to conceptualise and speculate: a craving that hampers spiritual progress. Spiritual realisation is unattainable by reasoning.
As for faith or belief, Buddha considers it as a provisional basis for making decisions. But faith is a kind of second-hand knowledge that cannot be relied upon for the awakening of truth.
Buddha is not concerned with truth in the abstract but with the practical consequences of any proposed beliefs or courses of action. He is not interested in establishing any metaphysical synthesis. From a strict philosophical point of view, Buddha does not offer any reliable ground on which to differentiate truth from falsehood. Buddha’s message in not for speculators concerned with abstract notions of truth. He deals with ordinary people preoccupied with the business of everyday social living. Buddha identifies himself with the ‘experientialist’ type of spiritual teachers, as opposed to those who rest their claims on authority, reason or faith. His approach is pragmatic and empirical. He did not propose any philosophical system. He simply wanted to alleviate suffering and he evaluated all teachings and practices in light of this practical aim.
2. The knowledge that Buddha approves is not speculative but rather the realisation of the impermanence of existence. Buddha is interested only in truths vital to ethical considerations. These are the four noble truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and the path that leads to the cessation of suffering. These truths are based on his experiences of the world. He is silent on metaphysical questions and theories of knowledge. He is unconcerned with such problems.
There are two kinds of propositions: some are trivial and some are important. The trivial propositions are those that are descriptive of ordinary sense experiences. Whether they are true or false is of no interest. The important propositions are those that deal with ethical considerations and judgments of value. A belief or a theory must be rejected if it is found to lead to suffering. The teaching of the Buddha is guided solely to that goal: the removal of suffering and therefore the concept of truth is a matter of what works in achieving that spiritual goal. Today one would regard Buddha’s concept of truth as a form of utilitarian pragmatism. Truth is that which works for the cessation of suffering.
3. The source of the highest knowledge for Buddha is intuition (abhijnâ and prajnâ), self-illumination. The Buddha regards his own knowledge to be obtained through intuition, inner consciousness, self-enlightening intellect. He believes in his own – and his disciples’ - ability to discover the truth on the basis of inner conviction without the aid of outside agency, whether scripture, divine illumination or even sensible objects. Abhijnâ refers to a special kind of seeing and knowing possessed by spiritually realised beings. It is this direct knowing alone that provides the basis for true knowledge claims. Abhijnä is a profound sensitivity to experience that leads to personal transformation and reorganisation of values, desires and views. The culmination of the process of spiritual development is called parijnä or ‘full understanding’.
4. Some Buddhist schools have inferred from the teaching of Buddha what is called “the theory of intrinsic invalidity and extrinsic validity of knowledge”. This is the view that all knowledge is invalid by its very nature. The validity and truth of knowledge consists in its capacity to produce successful action, i.e. the end of all miseries. Hence prior to any successful activity every knowledge is to be treated as invalid. Invalidity belongs to knowledge at its inception and its validity is due to the negation of invalidity by external conditions. Beliefs are neither true nor false or even better said: they are all false unless shown by action to be valid and true. We believe in things without knowing whether they are true or false, whether they are conducive to suffering or to the cessation of suffering In any case we must start with the invalidity of all cognitions or beliefs. Unless verified, all beliefs are groundless and should be taken for invalid.
* See Chandradhar Sharma, A Critical Survey of Indian Philosophy, Rider & Company, London, 1960, Chap.5: Early Buddhism
(French philosopher, 1661-1737)
The truths of common sense
In his Traité des vérités premières (1717), Buffier’s project is to discover the ultimate principle of knowledge. This he finds in the sense we have of our own existence and of what we feel within ourselves, he thus takes substantially the same starting point as Descartes, but he rejects the Cartesian a priori method. He states that, in order to know what exists distinct from the self, common sense is necessary. Common sense he defined as that disposition which nature has placed in all or most human beings, in order to enable them, when they have arrived at the age and use of reason, to form a common and uniform judgment with respect to objects different from the internal sentiment of their own perception, in which judgment is not the consequence of any anterior judgment.
The truths which this disposition of nature (common sense) obliges us to accept can be neither proved nor disproved; they are practically followed even by those who reject them speculatively. But Buffier does not claim for these truths of common sense the absolute certainty which characterizes the knowledge we have of our own existence or the logical deductions we make from our thoughts; they possess merely the highest probability, and the man who rejects them is to be considered a fool, though he is not guilty of a contradiction.
Buffier’s philosophy of common sense is was a natural reaction to the fact, or to the threat, of philosophical paradox or skepticism. He perceived the dangerous threat, since Descartes, of skepticism about all matters of fact beyond the range of our consciousness. What we need, he felt, is unimpeachable authority for the fundamental convictions shared by all normal men. Common sense is what supplies it. It puts us into assured possession of such 'first truths' as that there is a material world, that our minds are incorporeal and that we are capable of free agency.
Buffier is one of the earliest to recognize the psychological as distinguished from the metaphysical side of Descartes' principles, and to use it as the basis of an analysis of the human mind. In this he has anticipated the spirit and method as well as many of the results of Reid and the Scottish school. (see Thomas Reid) Buffier views "common sense" not as collective wisdom but as an inborn capacity, a separate sense analogous to that of sight or hearing, that is similar to, for example, a "moral sense”.
* Buffier Claude, Traité des vérités premières, 1717, see Internet
(German theologian, 1884-1976)
To want to ground faith and religious truth is history is wrong-headed. History cannot give the kind of evidence for which religious faith asks. Nature and history are profane and it is only in the light of faith that both can become for the believer the ground of religious truth. The world of nature and history is a closed world in which what believers take for truth cannot be known. It is the realm of the natural scientist or the realm of scientific historian: neither can say one word on the realm of religion.
Bultman, following Heidegger, is interested in the existential approach of human life and, like him, he makes the distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence. But while for Heidegger the acceptance of authentic existence ends in the despair of the human condition of being-for-death, for Bultman authentic existence in the world is possible through the Christian faith. Human existence is inauthentic apart from God and authentic only if determined by God. In responding positively to the Christian proclamation, man finds authentic existence.
But no historical knowledge can serve as a basis for faith. What is important is not history but “Geschichte”. The existentialist, unlike the historian, is not interested in history, he is interested in “Geschichte”, that is, what a situation or a person in past history means to him today. The concrete man has to make decisions to live in the truth and to achieve it what is purely “historical” is of no help; it has to become “historic” (Geschichte). His faith belongs to a realm dissociated from the vicissitudes of history.
Biblical salvation ‘history’ is to be regarded as myth rather than history. To penetrate to the eternal truth behind the mythological husk is, according to Bultmann, not to eliminate the mythology but to interpret it. The real purpose of the myth is not to give an account of what really happened in the past but to convey a particular understanding of human life. What we have to do is not to eliminate myths but to discover the existential meaning behind the myths. The truth embodied in myth is not scientific or historical, but anthropological or, better, existential. The only event of revelation that Bultmann can allow is one that brings to birth an understanding of human life such as man could never have produced for himself. Thus the event in the process of revelation is not an objective reality, but a change in the subjective consciousness of man. The historical narratives of the New Testament are not events in their own right, but only prelude to an event, namely, the change which takes place in human consciousness. These narratives are myths, but they need not be literally true in order to express theological and existential truth. “Art is a lie that tells the truth”(Picasso). The same can be said of myths. They flow from the human psyche as an expression of meaning.
* Bultmann, Rudolph, Existence and Faith, shorter writings of Rudolph Bultmann, S.M. Ogden, London, 1961
(Anglican religious philosopher, 1692-1752)
Revealed truth are supplemental to the truth of natural religion
Butler accepted the distinction between natural religion (religious truth which can be understood by examining the natural world) and revealed religion (religious truth which can only be understood through special, revealed knowledge). He appealed to a doctrine of human ignorance, saying that revelation lay beyond the sphere of reason and could not be grasped by human intelligence. He pointed out that numerous phenomena in nature were equally mysterious and inexplicable, because man had not yet acquired the knowledge to understand them. Reason was the faculty by which man acquired knowledge and made judgments, but it could not supply a complete and perfect comprehension of the whole system of nature. We cannot have a thorough knowledge of any part without knowing the whole: to us probability is the very guide of life.
Butler pointed out that the inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible and religious doctrine were no greater than the inconsistencies and contradictions found in nature, whose author was admitted to be God. Therefore they should not be considered a valid objection to the truth of religious doctrine. He attributed these contradictions and difficulties to an incomplete understanding, and endeavored to show that an examination of nature would make religious principles seem increasingly probable rather than contradicting them.
The doctrines of natural religion are drawn from experience and reason, and positive proof of them is to be found in revealed religion, which discloses to man further truth that could not be discovered in nature. The general analogy between the principles set forth by biblical revelation, and the principles which could be observed in nature, indicates that there is one Author of both. Butler regards revealed truth as supplemental to the religious knowledge that can be gained from the examination of nature. Revelation should not overrule reason, for both ways of knowing contribute to the discovery of truth.
* Butler, Joseph, Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Nature. London: Knapton, 1736.