(Indian poet, mystic and philosopher, 1440-1518)
1. Kabir always stressed that if religion was to be true, it had to become alive in people's everyday lives. "I do not quote from the scriptures," he wrote. "I simply see what I see." Only if our faith transformed every waking moment of our daily lives - and if we developed the sense of being in the presence of the Divine, day in day out, in all that we do - will our lives truly be transformed, and can we achieve true bliss and happiness.
Kabir had little patience with the grand and ostentatious public rituals of the holy men around him. To Kabir, they seemed to care more for the world's acclaim, more for profiting materially from their religion. Kabir called such false prophets "the thugs of Benares". Better, he said, to follow the example of the simple folk who knew and experienced the healing of God firsthand. God is not to be found in the temple, Kabir said, but inside our own beings: "I have met him in my heart. When a stream enters the Ganges, it becomes the Ganges itself. Kabir is lost in the Ganges." Many people and religions believe in ritualistic practices to please or reach God. Kabir says that these are all tricks and useless ones. There is no shortcut to spirituality, there is no benefit of any ritual if one is devoid of love for other beings. God is the creation and to love God, one must love all the creation, all the beings in it. This is the only way to spirituality for God understands and speaks only one language the language of love for everyone.
True knowledge, for Kabir, is taught by real life and the "direct experience of transcending mystery and wonder". He wrote: " There is nothing but water in the 'holy' pools. I know, I have been swimming in them. All the gods sculpted of wood or ivory can't say a word. I know, I have been crying out to them. The sacred books of the East are nothing but words. I looked through their covers one day sideways. What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something it is not true".
2. Religion, for Kabir, should also be about bringing people together in the presence of God, and not dividing them up (as was-and is-too often the case). As a Hindu child raised in a Muslim household, Kabir developed both a strong fondness (but also a healthy skepticism) about the ways and teachings of both of the dominant faiths in India. He liked to describe himself as "the son both of Ram and of Allah", and he used both names in describing his vision of God. But it pained Kabir to see his two faiths so often locked in conflict with one another. He believed that there was One Great Truth undergirding all religions, at the heart of all human striving for God. "I am not a Hindu, nor Muslim am I. I am this body, a play of five elements, a drama of the spirit dancing with joy and sorrow". Adherents of a religion which practices exclusivity and domination are like men who stumble into a hole along a dark road, Kabir said, because they hold a lantern in only one hand, and not the other. "Be not the slaves of tradition; fear not to walk upon new paths, if these bring you nearer to God who is the Truth", Kabir said.
* Westcott C.H. Kabir and the Kabir Panth, MRML, New Delhi, 1986
(Contemporary French philosopher)
1. Truth is not the same as knowledge. There are unknown truths. One can conceive knowledge as a progressive and historical approximation of truth. But one cannot apply to the notion of truth the thesis, perfectly legitimate, of the relativity of knowledge to its historical and cultural conditionings. What is true today will be true tomorrow; what is true for me, is true for you, for all. Otherwise it is not the truth. It is a fact that opinions change with the growth of knowledge but that does not entail that an objective and universal truth is impossible. The necessarily historical and evolving character of human knowledge does not imply that truth is relative, that there are as many truths as times, places and individuals. Therefore truth must not be confused with neither opinon nor knowledge.
2. Truth is a property of language, not of reality. ‘True’ and ‘false’ are predicates that apply not to things but to propositions, beliefs, judgments. However some philosophers have introduced the notion of ‘ontological’ truth (see Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Hegel) and spoken of ‘true’ being, ‘true’ gold, ‘true friend’. But then one should bear in mind that it is not the gold that is true but the proposition ‘this is gold’ that is true. The object itself, gold,is neither true nor false. Therefore one should not confuse truth with reality.
3. The truth of propositions is something else than the validity of the reasoning that links them. It is common to make the distinction between factual or material truths and logical or formal truths. But it is preferable to reserve the concept of truth for propositions that have reference to reality (material truth) and use the concept of ‘validity’ to qualify logical and mathematical reasonings (formal truth).
* Kahn, Pierre, La Vérité, Paris, Hatier, 1993, p 3-7
(German philosopher, 1724-18O4)
1. Truth is about knowledge. But Kant brings out a new notion of what knowledge is and therefore according to how he understands knowledge, he proposes a corresponding understanding of truth. His Copernican revolution on knowledge (from realism to idealism) is also a revolution about truth. He rejects the Humean thesis that all knowledge comes from what our experience derives from an external reality. For Kant the mind is not a tabula rasa, it is neither empty nor passive, but the opposite. It is equipped with the frame of our mental categories through which it actively interprets the universe. These categories are prior to and independent of the mind. More importantly they constitute the structure of every mind: they are universal. Finally, as no knowledge is possible without them, they are necessary. For instance, according to Kant, unlike Hume, the cause-effect relationship is necessary on account of its being imposed on reality by the categories of the mind.
However Kant’s categories are not equivalent to Descartes’ innate ideas. The Cartesian ideas were made to correspond to the structure of external reality by an act of the divine will so that the human mind be able to know reality (See Descartes). But Kant’s categories do not correspond to the outside reality which is in any case unknowable. The categories are only the ways in which we know reality. They do not tell us what things are.
2. It is therefore understandable that for Kant truth cannot be the correspondence of mind and mind-independent reality as traditionally understood but something else. He states that “truth consists in the agreement of knowledge with its objects”. However “objects”, for Kant, are not the “things-in-themselves” but the experience in which alone given things can be known. Therefore objective knowledge for him does not consist in knowledge conforming to how things are. Objective knowledge has two sides: our being receptive to the phenomena that appear to us (the empirical side of truth) and the contribution made by our understanding in actively structuring what is known through the categories of the mind (the ‘transcendental’ side of truth). Knowledge – and therefore truth as well - has nothing to do with things in themselves but with the appearances which have been structured by the understanding. It follows that the framework of necessary ‘transcendental’ truth precedes all empirical truth and makes it possible.
Kant’s understanding of knowledge jettisons the classical notion of objective truth. Truth, for him, is brought about by the application of mental categories to the external reality. The outcome is called ‘true’ because what it brings out is universal, necessary and valid for all minds. Kant speaks of truth in the sense of universal validity.
3. The price to pay in this new understanding of knowledge is this: what is true for Kant is not our knowledge of reality (noumenon), but our knowledge of appearances (phenomenon). Kant has made the laws of nature issue from the universal and necessary concepts of the mind. The world-order is now mind-dependent. Truth has nothing to do with reality but with the mind. We live in a world of truths made by us. We do not recognize the truth, we impose it, altough not in an arbitrary way because we all impose it in the same universal way.
4. Before Kant, Leibniz had already made the distinction between analytical judgements – necessarily true – and synthetic judgements – contingently true. The synthetic judgements owe their truth or falsity to an assessment made on the basis of empirical experience. The analytic judgements owe their truth to reason and the principle of identity. So if analytical and synthetic judgements are true, it is for different reasons: the difference between a priori and a posteriori truth, the rational and empirical truth, the necessary and contingent truth. But Kant’s Copernican revolution does away with these distinctions. He widens the concept of rationality in claiming that the knowing mind is not only the foundation of analytical judgement but also of synthetic judgements, both being a priori and rational, both constituting the world of possible intelligibility. Synthetic a priori judgements – a priori thanks the categories of the mind – are as rational as analytical judgements. All truths are a priori truths whether in their analytic or synthetic form.
* See Verneaux,R. Histoire de la Philosophie Moderne, Paris, Beauchesne, 158, p.134 sq; Lavine, From Socrares to Sartre, Bantam books 1984, 193 sq.
(Austrian American jurist, 1881-1973)
Absolute truth is anti-democratic
In his Pure Theory of Law, Hans Kelsen aims to make of the craft of law a "legal science," "objectivist and universalistic." "The law is an order," he writes, "and therefore all legal problems must be set and solved as order problems". The key element of his legal formalism is a judicial system committed to results whose objectivity is conclusively determined by a process uncontaminated by external forces. This is what the 'rule of law' means. It is an ideal which makes sense the moment one understands law as a logical system whose operations are designed to produce not true judgments but valid ones. From axiom to conclusion, formalism shows no particular interest in the truth of any legal system's basic principles. It follows that for Kelsen, the concept of law has no moral connotations whatsoever.
Kelsen’s concept of legal science derives from his philosophy of ‘relativistic democracy’. Democracy, he claims, implies ignorance of or doubt about any absolute truth, either religious or metaphysical. Kelsen has recourse to Pilate who, in washing his hands while saying "What is truth?", called upon the people, and asked them to decide. Thus in a democratic society it is up to the people to decide, and mutual tolerance reigns, because nobody knows what truth is. The truth of which Kelsen is speaking is religious and metaphysical truth, - the "absolute truth". Kelsen's argument is: "Whoever knows or claims to know absolute truth or absolute justice cannot be a democrat, because he cannot and is not expected to admit the possibility of a view different from his own, the true view.” The metaphysicist and the believer are bound to impose their eternal truth on other people, on the ignorant, and on the people without vision. Kelsen compares absolutism in philosophy and absolutism in politics. He takes absolutism in politics to mean the rule of a totalitarian tyrant over his subjects. Absolutism in philosophy means that truth and being are understood as independent of the human mind that discovers them, it means that the human mind is measured by truth and being and is not the measure of them. Then Kelsen connects the two absolutisms like this: if we understand the human mind as measured by truth and being, then we subject man to truth and being in the same slavish way in which people are subjected to the totalitarian state that dominates and manipulates them. In fact, argues Kelsen, human persons are free in relation to truth and being—free with a freedom analogous to that of the citizens in a democratic state—only if each of them is himself the source of truth and being.
* Kelsen Hans, Pure Theory of Law,
Hardcover, Smith Publisher, Incorporated, Peter,
(English philosopher, 1931- )
The “eternal” truths of mathematics and logic: transcendent, invented or discovered ?
1. According to Plato, mathematical ideas are objects that exist as eternal forms. This is the view called “Platonism” revived by some philosophers of modern logic such as Frege for whom mathematical and logical truths subsist outside the human mind.
According to Augustine, the (Platonist) eternal forms of mathematics and logic exist in the divine mind. Hence mathematical truths are outside the human mind but inside the divine mind as one of its parts.
According to Aquinas, mathematical truths or essences are entirely dependent on God’s essence. God knows them in his own essence. However – and this is the important point in Aquinas’ view – they are independent of God’s will. That means that God does not cause them to be what they are by an act of the will.
According to Descartes mathematical essences are what they are because God has caused them to be so through his divine will. He has created all things and therefore he has also created the mathematical truths. If they are immutable and eternal, it is because God willed that it is be so. Contrary to Aquinas, Descartes holds that the mathematical essences are distinct from the divine essence even though they are under God’s control.
2. In modern times the question about the nature of the a priori truths of mathematics and logic has shifted. It is no longer the question of how these truths relate to God but whether they are invented or discovered by the human mind. There are three distinct views on the matter: contemporary Platonism (Frege), conventionalism-constructivism (Dummet) and intuitionism.
According to contemporary Platonism mathematical and logical truths are independent of the human mind. For Frege the truth and the false are objective realities.
According to conventionalism-constructivism, the human mind imposes necessities on reality by its use of language. A priori truth statements are so by virtue of our having chosen them to be above all falsification. “It is all a question of our knowledge of our own intentions” (Dummet). Wittgenstein shares this view.
According to intuitionism, the truths of mathematics are truths about the human mind. These truths are not invented (against constructivism) but discovered within the human mind, not in virtue of anything outside the mind. They belong to the structure of the human mind which discovers them gradually.
Judged in the light of the three modern understandings of a priori truths, we can characterize Descartes’s view as a form of “divine constructivism-conventionalism” and Aquinas’s view as a form of “divine intuitionism” in which mathematical truths exist in the divine essence and are not what they are in virtue of anything outside the divine essence.
* Kenny, Anthony, The God of Philosophers, Clarendom Press, London,1979, p.17-26
(Danish philosopher, 1813- 1855)
1. Kierkegaard is not interested in the objective truth that results from objective reflection. When some one wants to know the truth, he usually aims at knowing the object as it is. Only the ‘objective truth’ will satisfy him. The more he is indifferent to his subjective way of reflection, the better. Subjectivity must be excluded as much as possible to know the object accurately. This way of objective reflection leads to abstract thought, mathematics, etc. Kierkegaard does not deny this kind of knowledge but he scorns such promiscuous notion of truth. For him ‘objective truths’ are indifferent truths; they are truths without a thinker. The objective thinker, who reflects only on abstractions is constantly distracted from reflection on his existence. Kierkegaard is interested in existential truth, that is, in the reflection of the individual on his own existence, a domain in which the knower cannot be eliminated from the process of knowing.
2. What counts for Kierkegaard is not to know the truth but to be in the truth. The recurrent theme of his sermons is that Christianity is not a doctrine to know or a creed to recite but a message to live. It is a profound error to want to demonstrate the truth of Christianity, for the Christian faith is commitment and not speculation. Whether in religion or philosophy, being comes before knowing and that means that the sujective thinker precedes the objective thinker. To be in the truth is to be sincere and truthful, whether it be at the service of a good or an evil cause. For what is important is not the object to which the subject is related or the content of his affirmation, but the manner in which the subject affirms something or the nature of his relationship with the object. It is the mode of his relationship – the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ - that determines the truth. Truth is entirely in the subject: “truth is subjectivity”. Kierkeggard defines the truth with these words: “truth is an objective uncertainty, held fast by a passionate inwardness”. The following verses of a poet (R.E. Neighbour) render well Kierkegaard’s mind: “Your doctrine may be error free / Your creed be all so true / Yet God looks past all these to see / if you, yourself, are true.”
3. How can one learn to be in the truth, if truth is not a matter of knowing but being? Kierkegaard converses with Socrates and praises him to have made truth immanent to the subject. Truth cannot come from an outsider if that outsider is a human teacher whose function cannot be more than that of a midwife. But Kierkegaard’s agreement with Socrates ends there. For he considers man sinful, blind and unable to be in the truth if left to himself. Being in the truth must come from an outsider, but certainly not the Socratic teacher who is another sinful and blind human being. The outsider must be God himself for he alone is the Teacher. When the learner accepts the divine message by faith, he lives in the truth. He becomes another human being, he is transformed, converted into a new creature. He not only receives the truth but also the condition to understand it, which is faith, a kind of new organ of being and knowing.
4. Thus the source of truth, for Kierkegaard, is God himself, who transforms man into a believer in giving him the possibility to adhere to the truth through faith. The subjective attitude of faith – which itself is a divine gift - gives access to the truth. Therefore when Kierkegaard writes that “truth is subjectivity”, he does not eliminate the objective side of the truth. He only states that the source of truth is neither man himself nor a human teacher nor the world around. If an individual has access to the objective truth of the divine message it is in and through the subjective attitude of faith. The truth without (or divine) can only be grasped within through faith. The truth of God exists only inwardly for man’s subjectivity. It is only subjectivity – the way the individual relates to God by faith - that leads to the truth.
It follows that Kierkegaard’s subjective thinker is a loner. He lives in the isolation of his own truth which is incommunicable. A universal concept of truth is a mere abstraction. “The crowd is untruth” is one of Kierkegaard’s favourite sayings. The race or species for him cannot be higher than the individual. The “crowd” renders the individual completely irresponsible in the search for truth. He complains that individuals too often flee for refuge in the crowd treated as the supreme authority in the matter of truth. God, not the universal consensus of the crowd, is the only source of truth
5. It is clear that the existentialist approach of Kierkegaard makes sense only within the context of his theological intentions, that is, in the framework of a certain Christian understanding of revealed truth. The Christian revelation, being sheer paradox, cannot be made plausible on philosophic or scientific grounds; it demands the existential commitment of faith. The propositions about Christianity, i.e., doctrine, beliefs, historical facts, etc, if held at all, are meaningful and valid only for the person who is in a relationship of passionate inwardness, or subjectivity. For instance, the Christian doctrine of the incarnation is such a truth that can only be true subjectively. There is nothing to point to or observe that would give us a verifying principle to prove the God-Man, Jesus Christ, was really who He said He was. This truth must be arrived at by faith. And faith cannot come about except through passionate, inward awareness of the absurd paradox one is asked to believe. Therefore, Kierkegaard’s subjective truth is one held personally, with no recourse to scientific or empirically verifiable data.
* Kierkegaard, Søren, Anthology on Kierkegaard, Princeton University, 1951, p.153-163, 190, 214-215, Pholosophical Fragments, Princeton University, p;616-620
(Contemporary American expert in comparative religion)
Claims of absolute truth : the sign that religion has turned evil
The claim of absolute truth is, for Kimball, the first sign that a religion is becoming evil – he identifies four other signs. We must remember that God is much too large to be captured in our minds. We can never comprehend the full truth of God. As Paul says in I Corinthians, we are always squinting in a fog. We need to remember when we make our absolute truth claims that only God is absolute—not us.
Kimball does not deny that there is such a thing as absolute truth, but he affirms that it rests with God. He acknowledges that truth claims are foundational in every religion but suggests that we must be more humble in the way that we appropriate these claims, especially when they become linked with violence.
Kimball said that religious groups who make absolute truth claims might pose a danger to society. Absolute truth claims
are the essential ingredients of religion, and they permeate religious traditions. In order to be a believer in any religion, one must accept them. However, with the multitude of religions and religious denominations, divergent interpretations inevitably arise. The absolute truth claims that are dangerous are the ones that claim that non-believers should be slain, enslaved, subjugated, or marginalized in any way.
Most religions have a founding teaching, either that of a charismatic leader, or of sacred literature, or both. Every religion is based on a truth, or series of truths, upon which the teachings and practice of the religion rests. "However," Kimball says, "when particular interpretations of these claims become propositions requiring uniform assent and are treated as rigid doctrines, the likelihood of corruption in that tradition rises exponentially. When the religions espousing these truth claims are missionary religions, the likelihood of eventual conflict rises even more. Both Christianity and Islam have charismatic founders and a sacred literature that is deemed to hold the truth for all humankind for eternity. When some members of these faiths claim that the only and absolute truth lies in their teachings, they are on the path of holy war. Kimball understands that the exclusivist position "has been dominant among Christians over the centuries." It rests on the conviction that Christianity provides the only valid way to salvation. But here Kimball calls for Christians to hold some model of exclusivism that is no longer exclusive. "Today, however, considerable variation exists among those who would locate themselves within this theological framework," Kimball suggests. He presents a spectrum of exclusivist views with "literalist" views on the one hand and less "narrow" interpretations on the other. He commends Christian exclusivists who "take a more flexible and open position."
*Kimball, Charles, When Religion Becomes Evil, HarperSanFrancisco, 2002
(American philosopher, b.1955)
The fear of scepticism lies behind non-realist theories of truth
For the realist theories of truth, truth depends on the facts of the matter, and facts are extra-mental realities. A belief is true if the state of affairs asserted in the belief exists independently of any mind. The truth of the truth-bearer is ontological : what kind of things really exist ? , what kind of things are only myths and illusions ? The non-realist theories of truth (coherentism, pragmatism and instrumentalism) have in common the view that extra-mental reality or facts have nothing to do with truth or falsity. For Pierce, a proposition is true if and only if there is a consensus of all those investigating the matter concerned. For James usefulness is the essence of truth. For Blanshard, coherence is truth. Kirkham’s criticism of all non-realist theories of truth is that they re-define truth so as to make it more attainable. The psychology that lies behind all non-realisms is the fear of scepticism. According to them it is impossible to find a justification to the belief that there are mind-independent facts. It is the realist theory of truth, they say, that leads to scepticism. Therefore the non-realists re-define truth and make it easy to re-invent “truth” in terms of pure phenomenal facts. Then truth is attainable and scepticism is avoided. However they should realise that this shift of meaning is done at the price of speaking of an another truth. In fact the non-realist or phenomenalist is the real skeptic. He reduces reality to much less than what we believe in. The burden of the proof is not with the realist, as if he was doing something unusual: postulating the existence of an extra-mental world. The contrary is true: the non-realist postulates the non-existence of an extra-mental world.
* Kirkham, Theories of Truth, MIT Press, 1995, Chap.3
(British American philosopher of science,b.1947)
In science there is a strong positive correlation between success and truth.
Kitcher has constructed an argument that scientific success establishes not only the truth of crucial scientific beliefs but also their *correspondence* truth. Against the relativists, he argues that successful science provides true and reliable knowledge about a world independent of human cognition. He rejects also the constructivist claim that because scientific explanations of natural phenomena have changed over time, current explanations cannot be true. Such changes merely show that scientific knowledge is always fallible, not that it lacks truth.
He argues against the radical-constructivist notion that scientists can never access a reality beyond their conceptual categories. Scientists have often been surprised, for example, by novel observations that have violated expectations supported by their categories. And although different scientific theories describe and dissect nature in different ways, the truths they reach are in principle compatible with each other, if not always in obvious ways, because they all represent the same world.
Finally against the ‘scientific faithful’, Kitcher argues that science is never merely the pursuit of truth pure and simple, but rather the pursuit of those truths that scientists deem significant. Scientific significance can be either theoretical or practical, ‘pure’ or ‘applied’, and motivated by instrumental goals or what Kitcher calls ‘natural curiosity’.
Kitcher argues in favour of the realist inference from the success of a theory to the truth of that theory. A querist may entertain theories about matters which are temporarily unobservable ; some theories will prove successful, others will not. Later, this can checked in order to learn which theories were true and which false. Kitcher suggests that it will establish a strong positive correlation between success and truth. Just as Galileo’s interlocutors could view distant buildings through the telescope and later check the results, the querist notes which theories are successful and later checks to see that those are true.
* Kitcher Philip, Science, Truth, and Democracy, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
(Contemporary American philosophers)
Each of the three classical theories of truth makes an important contribution to our understanding of the fundamental concept of truth. At the same time each leaves something to be desired. The task of philosophy is to find what all the statements about truth have in common for all of them to be called true. What are the minimal conditions for statements to be true ?
- The first condition is that the statement should be independent of belief, that is, not merely subjective but possessing a certain degree of ‘objectivity’. A true statement may not be a wishful thinking fallacy.
- The second condition is that the true statement must be immutable. Things change, no doubt, but the truth of a statement does not change since on different occasions, a different statement is made.
- The third condition is that the true statement must be public or universal. Truth is the same for all, and there is no need to add “for me”. If in the past people asserted some truths which we know now to be false, we should say that people in the past believed or took for truth something that was not.
1. According to the correspondence theory of truth, something is true if it corresponds to the facts. There is correspondence between the statement and the facts. The three minimal conditions listed above seem to be fulfilled: independence of belief, immutability and universality. We need only ascertain the facts and the truth is evident for all.
The difficulty of this theory is first about the concept of fact. Some claim that what we call facts are the statements we make and consider as ‘true statements’. So when we discuss facts, we make true statements, they say, and that means that a statement is true when it corresponds to a true statement! The correspondence theory is tautological and therefore useless.
However the identification of facts with ‘true statements’ is wrong for there can be facts without corresponding true statements. The correspondence theory of truth uses the the common sense notion of fact with no intention of explaining it. There are millions of cases and situations in daily life when the facts are clear and apparent.
Still there are many situations when it is not clear how the facts can be ascertained. Suppose there are conflicting reports about a certain event. The conflicting or even contradictory statements of different reports cannot correspond to the facts. The best one can hope for is to piece together, from the conflicting reports, to arrive at a coherent story. This means that, in such a case, coherence could provide a test for ascertaining the facts. But then what is the need , in such cases, to speak of facts? This is where the coherence theory of truth comes in.
2. According to the coherence theory, truth is in coherence, situated within the context of accepted beliefs. The discovery of truth is not completely independent of beliefs. If the set of beliefs are coherent, they are considered to be true. Is this not falling into the wishful thinking fallacy ? No, because the truth is not what we want, the truth is what is coherent.
The difficulty of this theory is that there are many different sets of beliefs, all of which seem to be coherent within and inside their own settings. There are conflicting reports about a murder. How to decide between them ? What is true for A, does not seem to be true for B. We are in the presence of two contradictory coherences and therefore two different truths. But we know that the truth must be universal and the same for all.
Coherence is useful to provide criteria of truth in some cases but this approach cannot offer a full theory of truth. Many who have seen the weakness of this theory and still do not want to go back to correspondence have proposed a practical solution : if we have to chose between two coherent sets of beliefs, let us pick the one most useful and predictive one and thus let us opt for the pragmatic theory of truth.
3. According to the the pragmatic theory of truth, the best hypotheses that explain the facts is regarded as the true one. Pragmatic considerations make this hypothesis to best and therefore the true one. Still if additional evidence is uncovered another hypothesis may have to be substituted to the first. This means that truth, understood in the pragmatic way, is not immutable as it should be.
To conclude. In the coherence theory truth is not the same for all. In the pragmatic theory, truth is not immutable. Only the correspondence theory accounts for the three characteristics of independence of belief, universality and immutable. However the correspondence theory in many cases is not helpful to find the truth. It only defines the truth. Hence the recourse to the two other theories is often helpful as methods for discovering the truth. One point is certain: if truth is not correspondence, there is nothing to discover and no meaning to speak of truth at all.
* Kleiman L. and Lewis S. Philosophy, an Introduction through Literature , Paragon House, New York, 1992, p.88-96
(American philosopher of mathematics, 1908-1992)
Mathematics is no longer a body of unshakeable truths
Mathematics, claims Kline, is not a body of unshakable truths about the physical world and mathematical reasoning is not exact and infallible. He wants to refute what he calls the myths about mathematics. He shows that today there are many conflicting concepts of mathematics, directly and indirectly affecting all employment of reason. The previously accepted feature of mathematics, unquestionable proof from explicit axioms, now seems passé. Logic has all the fallibility and uncertainty that limit human minds.
During the XIXth century mathematics was hailed as the perfect science, the science which establishes its conclusions by infallible, unquestionable reasoning, the science whose conclusions are not only infallible but truths about our universe and, as some would maintain, truths in any possible universe. But Kline informs us that the current state of the science is that in which in true postmodern fashion several schools somewhat peacefully coexist in apparent abandonment of the nineteenth-century goal of achieving the perfection of truth in formal mathematical structures. In this coliseum of competing paradigms, the tipping point that engenders the status quo of peaceful coexistence is, of course, Kurt Goedel, who in 1931 with his Incompleteness Theorem of almost cultic fame showed that any mathematical system will necessarily be incomplete because there will always exist a true statement within the system that cannot be proven within the system.
Despite this Babel, Kline believes that “mathematics has been our most effective link with the world of sense perceptions and though it is discomfiting to have to grant that its foundations are not secure, it is still the most precious jewel of the human mind and must be treasured and husbanded."
Kline’s ideas have met with severe criticisms from many sides. While the consistency of even arithmetic cannot be proved, most mathematicians seem to believe (with Goedel) that mathematical truth exists and that present mathematics is true. No mathematician expects an inconsistency to be found in set theory, and our confidence in this is greater than our confidence in any part of physics. The only thing that Kline’s philosophy refutes is the completeness of mathematics, but neither mathematical realism, nor mathemathical certainty.
* Kline Morris, The loss of certainty, New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
(Contemporary American theologian)
In today’s world there must be a new understanding of truth. Truth should no longer be identified by its ability to exclude or absorb others. Rather, it has to include them, and instead of being either/or becomes a both/and kind of truth. The classical culture of the past, a culture in which Christianity lived out its life, is irretrievably gone. Now we have a historical culture. Truth is no longer Aristotle’s idea of science as certain knowledge through causes. We need to follow the model of the modern sciences, for it is better to say not that something is true, but that it is on the way toward truth. True understanding is subject to revision and change.
In the classicist culture which people took for granted, for something to be true, it had to be certain and unchanging. But for our modern historical culture this no longer holds. Aristotle believed in first principles of the mind, chief of which was the principle of contradiction. In its logical form it states that of two propositions, one of which affirms something and the other denies the same thing, one must be true and the other false. In other words, a thing cannot be and not be at the same time, in the same way. Truth, therefore, is essentially a matter of either-or. It is either this or not this; it cannot be both.
But the ongoing pluralistic nature of truth assumes that one gropes towards the truth in a multitude of ways which are conditioned by the limits of our particular language and culture. More and more believers have come to realize that the traditional insistence on ‘truth-through-exclusion’ easily atrophies personal faith and reduces faith to doctrine, morality to legalism, ritual to superstition. Christians have also seen how such concern for absolute truth denigrates the value of other religious traditions
According to Knitter when Christians see Jesus as the way, the life and the truth, they actually say no more than that this is the way they personally experience Jesus. Knitter ranks it with the exclamation of a husband to his wife: "You are the most beautiful woman in the world!" This has to do with "love" language, which means that the confession that Jesus is “the truth” should not be taken in an absolute sense, but as a confession that hold true within the Christian community only.
Important in Knitter’s argument is that pluralists are not relativists. They accept universal truth, but not absolute truth. A doctrine can be true for all, but it cannot be the only truth. Critics fear that pluralism leads to relativism and skepticism about objective truth, but Paul Knitter responds: "pluralists accept universal but not absolute truth”.
Given this model of truth, Knitter tells us that theology can no longer be done within any one religious tradition. Theologians need to pursue the truths that include, and not exclude, others.
* Knitter, Paul, No Other Name? Orbis Book, Maryknoll, N.Y., 1991
(Contemporary British philosopher)
Some truths do not require objectivity: “soft truths”
Koelbel denies that truth always requires objectivity. In some areas truth is relative to perspective. There is non-objectivity when it is a matter of it being possible that what is true in one person’s perspective is not true in another’s. But in other areas of discourse, there is objectivity where that is a matter of any proposition that is true in anyone’s perspective necessarily being true in everybody’s perspective. The contents expressible by declarative sentences are generally truth-evaluable. This assumption of global truth-evaluability, however, appears to conflict with the view that the contents of some sentences do not admit of truth or falsehood for lack of objectivity of their subject matter. Koelbel argues that there can be a notion of truth on which the truth-evaluability of a content does not rule out the non-objectivity of its subject matter.
According to him, relativism is the best solution to the “problem of excess objectivity.” Standard truth-conditional semantics presupposes the truth-evaluability of all declarative sentences. Yet there are certain kinds of assertoric discourse – morals, aesthetics, for example – in which disagreement is compatible with the absence of error in both parties.
Under Koelbel’s ‘soft truth’ approach, non-objective sentences are counted as truth-evaluable. The main task is to explain in what sense their truth is “soft,” and how soft truth explains non-objectivity. The solution is to relativize truth itself . “Licorice is tasty” may be true relative to my perspective, but false relative to yours. So if I assert it and you deny it, neither of us need be making an error. Our content is the same; I affirm it and you deny it. We disagree, but we’re both right, I relative to my perspective, you relative to yours.
*Koelbel Max, Truth without Objectivity, London, Routledge 2002
(Polish philosopher, 1927- 2008)
Both religion and science represent world-views rather than truth.
The philosopher's role is to "build the spirit of truth".
Rather than opting for either the religious paradigm or the scientific paradigm, Kolakowski favours the philosophical paradigm which he interprets as allowing for an affirmation of both perspectives. He is particularly critical of the ‘scientism’ which would claim to have a monopoly on truth and meaning. For Kolakowski, so-called scientific evidence remains based on an act of faith, neither more nor less than the religious act of faith; simply to define something as true because it is predictable and has practical application is 'arbitrary’.
Kolakowski’s point is similar to Wittgensteiní‘s argument concerning 'forms of life’: in order to understand religious faith we must see it in the context of a life and practice of worship, and scientific evidence is also culture-bound in this respect. To this extent, religion and science represent world-views rather than truth: ultimately, it is a matter of weltanschauung. In fact, Kolakowski’s readings will be palatable to neither religious nor scientific fundamentalists.
His work is an attempt to make philosophers of us all, philosophy here being defined as the shared feeling that the world we know within the limited horizon of our experience is not self-explanatory or even that it is irreal, that its very presence begets the questions 'what is it?’ and 'why is it?’. . . a strong feeling which defies all the ordinary, daily norms of understanding.
"The cultural role of philosophy, he writes, is not to deliver the truth but to build the spirit of truth, and this means never to let the inquisitive energy of mind go to sleep, never to stop questioning what appears to be obvious and definitive, always to defy the seemingly intact resources of common sense, always to suspect that there might be ‘another side' in what we take for granted, and never to allow us to forget that there are questions that lie beyond the legitimate horizon of science and are nonetheless crucially important to the survival of humanity as we know it."
Nonetheless it is not the philosopher's role to deliver the truth, but to "build the spirit of truth" by questioning what appears to be obvious, always suspecting that there might be "another side" to any question. The true philosopher should approach any issue with scepticism and humility.
Religion gives us the belief that the world is not self-explanatory, that there is a meaning that cannot be directly perceived and established as a scientific fact. Religion is of another dimension that enables us to cope with an existence of frustration, failure, suffering and death. It is a paramount aspect of human culture. Religious need cannot be excommunicated from culture by rationalist incantation. Man does not live by reason alone. To be totally free from religious heritage or historical tradition is to situate oneself in a void and thus to disintegrate.
Reason and religion have fought each other to a stand still; and while there are no rational, universally accepted grounds for admitting any religious truth, we are not bound to accept any definition of rationality that, like scientific positivism, excludes religious possibilities altogether. Belief is choice, and secular rationalists are believers, too.
Belief is a “logically arbitrary” option, but then so is unbelief. Believers and nonbelievers should not expect to convert each other, indeed should not even expect t understand each other. We shouldn’t talk of “an ‘escape into irrationality,’ but rather of the irreductibly different ways in which religious beliefs are validated in contrast to scientific propositions, of the incommensurable meanings of ‘validity’ in those respective areas.” The Sacred and the Profane are equally coherent and equally compelling, each on its own terms.
*Kolakowski Leszek, My Correct Views on Everything, edited by Zbigniew Janowski. St. Augustine's, 284 pp.
(Hungarian born English moral philosopher, 1905-1973)
1.Thought is always some one’s thought, therefore subjective. Nevertheless by its very nature it aims at the universal and objective truth. The human mind experiences the dialectical tension brought about by its constitutive finiteness and its eagerness to understand the encompassing reality.
The risk of subjectivism is minimal in the field of mathematics, science, and fact-knowledge. But the case is different in the sphere of philosophical and ethical knowledge in which subjective views creep in to give rise to a variety of perspectives, often in contradiction with each another, a situation that fosters endless arguments and ends with an attitude of profound scepticism on what is true and false. To the outdated concept of objective truth is substituted the subjectivist claim that “to every one his(her) truth”. True knowledge is no longer defined in relation to the object but made dependent on the subject and its manifold conditionings.
2. Kolnai’s view is that modern subjectivism is the suicide of thought because thought that no longer aims at objective truth is no longer thought. Intentional object-reference is the primary constituent and the backbone of human knowledge, even if the subject who knows is situated in and conditioned by a variety of factors detrimental to an objective approach. There is no question to deny that truth may often be mingled with error in the domain of the vital and worth-while matters that pertain to philosophical and ethical wisdom. It is normal that this be the situation. It is easy to obtain objectivity in certain areas such as logic and mathematics and much more difficult in philosophy and ethics. But where truth and error are mixed up, there is need of correction and these corrections can be made. It is possible to surmount one’s subjectivity in recognizing the need for futher investigations requiring new methods, helps, tests, dialogue with competent people, etc. One should never give up the task of truth-searching and finding better approximations of the objective truth.
In the effort to surmount subjectivity, one must recognize the object as the ultimate test, the measure of correct thinking. The absolute surrender to objective truth is primordial. The object can never by measured by a system. We must be seekers of the truth rather than be aspirants to “faithful discipleship” of a tradition. There is no “sacred” philosophy.
* Kolnai, Aurel, Truth and the Soveignty of the Object, in The Human Person and the World of Values, Ed. by Schwarz, Westpoint, Conn, Greenwood Press, 1972
Dutch theologian, 1888-1965
The Dutch theologian Hendrik Kraemer can be regarded as one of the strongest exponents of exclusivism. The message of his major work, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, is: "God has revealed the Way and the Life and the Truth in Jesus Christ and wills this to be known through all the world". Kraemer refused to defend Christianity on the basis of philosophical truths because every religion has its own truth claims. He prefers to speak of Biblical realism. This means acceptance of the real saving and revealing acts of God in the death and resurrection of Christ and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Referring to John 14:6 and Acts 4:12 Kraemer believes that the truth about God and humankind is revealed perfectly in Christ. Exactly for this reason Christians are obliged to proclaim this message to all people. Mission, therefore, cannot only be social service or inter-church aid. Christ must be preached and accepted by all nations. Conversion and change of mind must remain the main aim of mission.
Kraemer argues there is a radical discontinuity between Christianity and other religions. Christianity is neither a fulfillment nor an extension of any religion, besides Judaism. He states that all other religions are merely human attempts to build their own religious system. They are, therefore, either idolatry or an attempt to justify themselves by good works. They are all bound to fail, according to Kraemer.
Kraemer is in agreement with Karl Barth in as far as he believes that non- Christian religions are "all human constructions of self-justification". He differs from Barth in so far as he accepts a general revelation in non-Christian religions. "God shines through in a broken, troubled way: in reason, in nature and in history". This general revelation can only be effectively discerned in the light of the special revelation of Jesus Christ. A further difference with Barth is that Kraemer accepts a "religious consciousness". This universal religious consciousness in man is the result of the fact that God created men and women in his own image, and this presents a definite point of contact for Christian missions.
* Kraemer, Hendrik The Christian Message in the Non-Christian World (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1938)
(American mathematician and philosopher, b. 1940)
To understand Kripke’s claim on the subject of truth one should keep in mind that it is common among philosophers to categorise truths in three ways:
- A. Necessary versus contingent truth. A statement is necessarily true if its opposite is impossible. It is contingently true if its opposite is possible.
- B. A priori versus a posteriori truth. Necessary truths are knowable independently of experience, that is, they are a priori. Contingent truths can be found only in experience by observation, that is, they are a posteriori.
- C. Analytic versus synthetic truth. Statements that are analytically true are true in virtue of the meaning of words they use. Synthetic statements are those in which the predicate says something new about the subject: they are true or false in virtue of the way the world actually is.
The necessary-contingent distinction (A) is metaphysical. The a priori-a posteriori distinction (B) is epistemological, because it is a matter of being knowable either by reflection or by experience-observation. The analytic-synthetic distinction (C) is logical-semantical because the truth-value of statements is determined by the meaning of the statements.
Moreover – and this is the important point discussed by Kripke - the distinctions (I): necessary- a priori - analytic (which are relations of ideas) appear to be coextensive: they are true for the same thing, for instance 2+2=4. On the contrary the distinctions (II): contingent, a posteriori , synthetic (which are matters of fact) seem to be co-extensive as they are true of the same thing, for instance: Peter is sitting.
But Kripke has reasons to think otherwise: the distinctions A B C of distinctions I and II may not be co-extensive. There are cases when they are not, so he claims. He does not admit that all necessary truths are expressible by analytic statements which are known to be true a priori. The distinctions A B C are after all about different kinds of facts: facts (metaphysical) about the necessary structure of the world, facts (linguistic) about meaning and facts (epistemological) about how we acquire knowledge. Kant had already claimed that there was a class of truths that were synthetic even though knowable a priori. Now Kripke argues that some necessary truths are only discoverable a posteriori.
Kripke shows that the metaphysical question whether the truth of a statement is necessary or contingent must be distinguished from the separate epistemological issue of whether truth can be determined by a priori reflection or requires empirical observation. The mere fact that we have learned something from experience does not manifest that what we have learned is not necessarily true. A claim can be both empirical and necessary, albeit not logically necessary but metaphysically necessary. Certain truths are necessary a posteriori: the necessary truths discovered empirically. Certain truths are contingent a priori, that is, propositions which might have been false, but whose truth is knowable a priori. As an instance of a necessary a posteriori truth Kripke has recourse to the identity statement that “the morning star is the evening star, ( that is Venus)”. The statement was discovered a posteriori when both the names of the stars were found to refer to one and same thing (Venus). But an identity statement (A is A) can never be said contingently true: it is always necessarily true. We have therefore a statement that is a necessary truth discovered a posteriori. Likewise Kripke gives instances of contingent a priori truths.
* Kripke, Saul, Naming and Necessity, Blackwell Publishers, London, 1981
(Indian philosopher and spiritual master, 1895-1986)
1. Philosophy is the love of truth, that is, the art of living life directly and not through theories, ideas and speculations. Indeed truth is not what thought or intellect conceives it to be. Genuine philosophy is the realization that thought can never know the truth.
Knowledge, for sure, is part of life, useful in certain areas of life such as day to day living, science, etc. but it is of no use to understand what truth is. Truth cannot be known. If it is known, it is not the truth. Therefore it is meaningless to “search for the truth” for the search for truth is the denying of truth. No intellectual effort can bring us to the truth.
2. Truth is not something to be known but something to live and be in. To be true is to look at Reality with honesty and innocence. That means there must be no intermediary between self and reality. All guidance, ‘gurus’, authorities, doctrinal systems and traditions must come to an end. According to Krishnamurti, from the moment you follow some one, you cease to follow the truth.
More importantly, in order to be in the truth, one must discard the inward aspect of authority, and that includes one’s own opinions, ideas, accumulated knowledge and cultural habits. Even personal experiences are an obstacle to look at reality in truth. Most of the time we are related to the ideas and images of Reality, we are constantly prejudiced, never in contact with the naked reality but with a distorted reality that we have construed. Our thoughts and experiences never deal with the actual, with what is, but always with the past that is dead. We are constantly looking at life now with the eyes of the past.
Not only the intellect but also the will is an obstacle for the individual to be in the truth. Through the will the individual wants to achieve results and high ideals. There arises in him a conflict between the real and the ideal, reality and myth, a gap between what he is and what he wants to be. Ideals always clash with reality, they are illusions. Saints, heroes and staunch believers in high ideals miss the actual, they live in untruth. There is no greater obstacle to the truth than religious beliefs in which people are ready to go all the way to grasp the mysterious utopia of religions and kneel down at the feet of Saviours and Gurus. Truth cannot be attained if one persists in the escapist attitude of living for ‘another shore’, for a future that does not exist, and thus runs away from reality.
3. Truth is established by the right relationship with reality. Truth is the understanding of “what is”, the Real from moment to moment, the timeless, the immeasurable. Contact with the truth has nothing to do with accumulation of knowledge or expansion of experience, but only with acute sensitivity, freedom and spontaneity. Truth reveals itself in passive, alert watchfulness, awareness of the actual, a state of mere observing without ideas, memories and goals. The mind that grasps the truth is empty and unoccupied, totally free and sensitive to reality. Right relationship with reality is obtained by the bracketing of all thoughts and desires. Then only in this passive awareness can we see the truth, the totality from moment to moment. Either we see the truth now or not at all. Either we live in the truth of every moment, in the awareness of ‘what is’, or not.
This “choiceless observation” or awareness is the crux of Krishnamurti's philosophy of life. To him, choiceless observation is the only way, the direct and intelligent way of understanding the truth of 'what is'. It is the awareness without the division as the observer and the observed. It is a holistic observation in which the observer 'is' the observed. In it there in no reaction, resistance, justification and condemnation. It is a pure observation without remembrance, recollection, recognition and naming. It is free from ideas, ideals and opinions. It is observation without prejudice, likes and dislikes. It is without a motive and an end in view. It is a passive awareness without effort, a silent observation without the activity of thought. Choiceless awareness is 'perceiving' the fact without translating it to knowledge. Truth is when there is the realisation that the observer is the observed.
* Krishnamurti, The Penguin Krishnamurti Reader, Ed. by Mary Luytens, London, Penguin Books, 1970; The Second Penguin Krishnamurti Reader, Ed. by Mary Luytens, London, Penguin Books, 1973; Mercier J.L., A Key to Krishnamurti’s Thought, in IPQ, Vol XXVIII, n_2, p170-182
(American philosopher of science, 1922-1996)
Kuhn gives the outline of a new understanding of scientific development. According to him the history of physics should not be viewed as a accumulation or amassing of knowledge achieved by means of more precise data and wider and enlarged theories. His thesis is that scientific development must not be seen as a continuous evolution but rather as a processus that passes through phases that are radically incommensurable and incompatible with each other.
In a first phase called pre-paradigmatic, there is no consensus among the researchers, no agreement about fundamental principles and thus there is no finality of their endeavour of scientific work. In a second phase, the mature or ‘normal’ phase, one school succeeds in working out a decisive breakthrough. A paradigm imposes itself as a model and succeeds in unifying all other views. Kuhn defines paradigms as conceptual and methodological systems proper to a community of scientific searchers which determines what is recognised as problems and what solutions is to be given to these problems.
However in the course of this second phase, there occurs the emergence of anomalies that cannot be resolved by the means of the adopted paradigm. The accumulation of these anomalies produce a crisis. The need is felt that a new paradigm must replace the previous one. This is the cause of a scientific revolution.
The ancient paradigm and the new one are characterised in that they are incommensurable, that is, incomparable. This means there is no continuity from the old paradigm to the new. There is a rupture between the old and the new. In the new paradigm the understanding of what is perceived as a problem is modified, new concepts appear and the scientists live "in another world" as their perspective is radically changed. There has been no evolution of theories and explanations but a revolution in the interpretation of the scientific reality.
The paradigm change is a revolution, achieved more by persuasion and conversion than by logical argument. The choice of a paradigm is not a matter of rules to be followed but of judgement by the scientific community allowing the eventual emergence of a general consensus. The final justification for the choice of a certain paradigm lies with the decision of the ongoing scientific community.
Kuhn has always been critical of the realist idea that the advance of science involves a build-up of truth about a common domain of entities. He finds meaningless the claim that science is getting closer and closer to the truth. Truth may be internal to a paradigm in the sense that its use has to be restricted to assessing claims made within the context of the paradigm. Truth claims made in one paradigm are irrelevant to the truth claims made in another paradigm. The notion of truth has a role within a paradigm, but there is no sense in which a paradigm may itself be true. Kuhn's internalist conception of truth has profound antirealist consequences. It entails that scientific theories cannot be true reflections of reality and that scientific advance necessarily fails to yield an increase in truths about reality
It is clear that for Kuhn the scientific enterprise is left at the mercy of sociological and personal factors and that a scientist, like every one else, is stranded to his beliefs. But then the evolution of scientific knowledge has nothing to do with “truth”; it is a mere artifact of sociology.
Kuhn’s new understanding of the development of science through incommensurable paradigms has raised the wider question of the understanding of all forms of human thought in its search for truth. The mode of emergence of new philosophical paradigms and even of new theological paradigms – such as the protestant Reformation in Christianity and the Mahayana branch of Buddhism – is open to Kuhn’s fundamental question: should one conceive these changes as evolutionary or revolutionary? Are the new paradigms “truer” than the preceding ones? Kuhn answers in the negative.
* Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific revolutions, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970; Barbour, Ian, Religion in an Age of Science, SCM Press, London, 1990, p. 51-65
(Swiss R.C. theologian, 1928- )
There is no truth without sincerity.The criteria of ‘true’ religion.
1. Truth is linked to sincerity. Sincerity is more fundamental than truth because truth is inaccessible to one who lacks sincerity. Sincerity is a matter of man’s relationship with himself: the personal ethos. Moreover it is the basis of all common achievements and openness to dialogue: the social ethos. The opposite of sincerity is imposture, which creeps in in two ways. The impostor may be either an opportunist or an authoritarian manipulator of the truth. As an opportunist, he submits himself to the environment without criticism and responsibility. He lets himself be carried away by the current of opinions. As one who exercises or cooperates with the supreme power, he utilizes the truth for political and ideological purposes. In this case authority defines the truth, identified with the official system that must be imposed and propagated by all means. What does not correspond to the ‘truth’ of the system must be silenced. ‘Truth’ is at the service of power. Words are no longer used to communicate but to dominate. There is no sense in searching for truth; the political party or the religious sect possesses the truth and dispenses it to its members. Dialogue is a priori suspect, dissidents are morally disqualified, ‘heretics’ are condemned and ostracised. Genuine problems are avoided, urgent solutions to these problems are indefinitely differed. The atmosphere created by this compelling situation makes people speak in another way in private and in public. The prestige and power of the system and those who hold it is what count most. Genuine truth is used and manipulated. Truth has even more to capitulate when the opportunism of the majority makes possible the authoritarianism of a few. The two ways of betraying truth can cohabit not only in the same social group but also in the same person, authoritarian with inferiors and opportunist with superiors.
Kung stresses the importance of Luther in the history of Christianity. Luther has rendered more acute the awareness of the duty of truth. Religion for him was a religion of the human conscience. That means that he taught people to give priority to the truth in everything that concerns faith, conviction, action , entire life. Such should be the task of Christian churches and of all religions: to confess the truth and struggle for it, even at the cost of disappearing for the sake of truth.
2. Kung deals with the criteria of truth in religions. Which religion is true?
a) The question of truth in religion cannot be reduced to a matter of pure theory, consisting in a series of propositional truths about God, world and humanity. Truth in religion is always a praxis, a way of experience, enlightenment and salvation. The orthodoxies of world religions are less important than their orthopraxies. The question of their truth and meaning (the theory) cannot be separated from the question of their goodness and valuableness (the praxis). Kung’s central thesis is that a religion is true if it “truly helps one to be a human being” and a religion is false to the extent that it “manifestly oppresses, injures, and destroys human beings”.
b)There are several basic positions on the question of the truth of religions. Kung rejects several of them before proposing his own:
- He rejects the pragmatic criterion: is true the religion that ‘works’ and is beneficient. (Kung’s exclusion of the pragmatic criterion is all the more surprising that elsewhere he seems to identify the truth with the good in religions and evaluate them more by their orthopraxies than their orthodoxies)
- He rejects the view that all religions are equally untrue, being all projections and illusions.
- He rejects the exclusivist view according to which one’s own religion is true and therefore all others are false. This is the arrogant absolutism of “Outside one’s own religion, no salvation”.
- He rejects relativism according to which all religions are equally and relatively true so that one is justified to claim that in matter of religion ‘everything goes’.
- He rejects the inclusivist view according to which only one religion is true, even though the other religions are not entirely false because they have a share in the truth of the one true religion. For instance if Christianity is taken for the true religion, people of other religions are generously and tolerantly labelled “anonymous” Christians. Likewise if Advaitic neo-Vedanta is the highest religious knowledge, all the empirical religions are considered as partial aspects of this universal truth. According to Kung inclusivism is untenable for being unfair and dishonest to the followers of other religions who have the right of being respected for what they are and for what they do not want to be.
c) Kung adopts some kind of pluralistic solution to the problem.
To assess properly the truth and the good in religion he considers two basic general criteria : one ethical and the other religious. First, the general ethical criterion is that a religion is true and good to the extent that it is humane, not oppressing and destroying humanity, but protecting and advancing it. Second, the general religious criterion is that a religion is true and good insofar as it remains faithful to its authentic original essence. Besides these general criteria, there is a criterion of truth specific to each religion. Kung examines in greater detail the specifically Christian criterion. According to him it is crucial for the assessment of the truth in religion to make the distinction between an inner and an outer perspective. One can look at religion from the outside as a neutral observer and record the existence of a variety of religions proposing different ways of salvation. Pluralistic relativism seems to be the compelling solution to the problem. However considered from the standpoint of an inside believer, the true religion is the one the believer confesses. For him it is the true way of salvation but it does not follow that the truth of other religions is thereby excluded. For instance, for a Christian believer, Christianity is surely the true religion. But no religion has the whole truth. God alone is the whole truth. Christianity like other religions is “in via”, on the way of salvation but it is not the only way. Only at the end will the truth be seen face to face, when all the “ways of salvation”, all religions, all mediations between human beings and God will have disappeared.
Kung’s view is pluralistic in the sense that there are many true ways of salvation. But it is not a relativist kind of pluralism according to which it is indifferent to adhere to one religion rather than to another. For the believer of a particular religion, his religion is the true religion. But he has to admit that his true religion in no way excludes the truth contained in other religions.
* Kung, Hans, Etre Vrai, Desclé de Brouwer, Paris, 1968, p. 168-183; Theology for the Third Millenium, Anchor Books, Double Day, New York, 1985, p. 223-253
(Chinese philosopher, 252?- 312)
The truth that things are all natural and not caused by something else
Kuo Hsiang is known for his important commentary on Chuang Tzu but he expresses his disagreement with the master on the concept of Tao. The Tao, for him, is essentially non-existence and, accordingly, his pivotal philosophical concept is "nothing" . Since the Tao is nothing at all, then it cannot be the originator or creator of things. Instead, things freely arise out of "nature" itself. One should see the emergence and disintegration of things in the world around us as merely the unfolding of natural processes. Things spontaneously produce themselves, that is all, for Kuo Hsiang.
Thus the major concept for Kuo Hsiang was not the Tao of Chuang Tzu, but rather Nature. Things exist and transform themselves naturally and spontaneously. There is no external agent that causes this process.
Everything is self- sufficient and there is no need for an embracing original reality to govern them.
Kuo Hsiang had some advice:
"The feet can walk, let them walk. The hands can hold, let them hold. Hear what is heard by your ears; see what is seen by your eyes. Let your knowledge stop at what you do not know; let your ability stop at what you cannot do. Use what is naturally useful; do what you spontaneously can do. Act according to your will within the limit of your nature, but have nothing to do with what is beyond it. Happiness is the perfection of life, and needs no external thing to be added to life."
* Feng, Yu-lan trans. Chuang Tzu: Translation with an Exposition of the Philosophy of Kuo Hsiang, Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1933.