Is There Truth and How Could I Know? An Essay

Occasionally I run into Relativists who insist that nothing is constant, the world is in a continual state of flux, and therefore there is no Truth; certainly not absolute truth – nothing is absolute. What was thought to be true 50 years ago now seems quaint and erroneous. Not only is this the case for the progress of science and technology, it is also the case for our culture and its view of values and morality. In fact, nothing in the physical universe is the same, moment to moment, as particles move, are created and destroyed, masses move, and energy is deployed.

This idea of change over truth is so ingrained that it is used as an axiom, a basis for an entire panoply of beliefs. This axiom is a statement of complete variability, randomness and instability. “Whatever we think now will seem quaint and obsolete in the future; we cannot predict what will be 'truth' in the future”. This, then, justifies the idea that there can be no absolutes and that those who claim otherwise are irrational, or at least misguided, at best. At worst they are dangerously deluded, needing to be isolated for the good of all.

The previous two posts deal with rational thought and logic, and the need for a solid, permanent foundation on which to build ones ideas, a foundation known as the First Principles. I have made the case for the absolute need for consistency in order to produce coherence and stability in thought. Because without consistency and coherence there is absolutely no stable logic in our statements: it would all be untethered and irrational.

While there is much of our thought process that is merely functional daily activity oriented thinking, our worldviews are definitely in need of a rational, logical foundation. What could be worse, we might think, than an irrational worldview? Empirical science requires consistency in its axioms, or researchers would be wasting their time taking data in an inconsistent universe. Empirical science also requires that its axioms be valid, at least in the boundaries of the field that is being investigated. So some of the axioms of science incorporate the known variability of the universe, such as entropy, for example. But mostly empirical science depends on the invariability of physical laws across time and space, within our universe.

But not our worldviews; they have become relative and variable, without absolutes and morphing to fit the culture at the moment. If our worldviews are fluctuating, truth-free and value-free, accommodating the momentary convenience and not the eternal decencies, then why bother to have one? This is precisely the issue with Relativism: it engenders intellectual anarchy, which is the definition of irrationality. And intellectual anarchy engenders moral anarchy.

Enlightenment values seem to favor such an anarchy, certainly over the hated absolutism which the Enlightenment pretends to have overthrown. It allows the imagination of a discomfited proletariat where in reality there is no proletariat, much less a discomfited one. It allows the imagination of personal and class and racial superiorities based only on subjective proclivities. It allows the rationalized manufacture of axioms that are convenient, but not true, and the use of those axioms in a worldview. Relativism and its accompanying intellectual anarchy are dangerous.

The idea that there can be logic requires that there be a consistent base of truth available to those who would use that logic in deriving their worldviews. This body of consistent truth is a problem for Relativists, for whom it cannot exist, absolutely: there can be no absolutes in a fluctuating universe. So are there, really, universal, consistent truths?

If there were to be consistent, absolute truths in the universe, how would we know them? For a start, and to make it easy on ourselves, we will question the philosophers, for whom such questions make their careers. I like to go straight to Nietzsche, who denied their truth, thereby revealing their existence, at least intellectually. These principles and others are contained in the previous posting today, here.

We can examine these principles and see immediately that there is nothing there that can be measured, empirically. These principles are not physical, material things; they are metaphysical. So they cannot be validated or invalidated, empirically, using weights and measures or any physical techniques.

Next we can see that they are true, obviously and incorrigibly. They cannot be otherwise, even though they can be denied, obstreperously and without any accompanying validation. But viewed objectively and without prior agenda, they are so intuitively valid that they cannot be reasonably denied. Their truth is incorrigible.

And we can also see that without these intellectual foundations in play as axioms, logic cannot exist as a principled endeavor and rational thought becomes impossible.

So we can know, without material validation, that they are true, inexorably and incorrigibly. And because of this, we can also know that truth exists, that it is non-material (metaphysical) in nature, and that it must be either intuited as are the First Principles, or developed rationally from an intuited base.

Relativists, Materialists and Atheists deny – or at least decry – intuition. Either it doesn’t exist for the Relativist, or it is inherently faulty and subjective. This is in part the Nietzschean argument, which led him to develop Anti-Rationalism. But Anti-Rationalism is once again an absolute-free intellectual anarchy. And if nothing is true, then why bother thinking about anything at all? This produces a self-oriented, declining narcissism, a decay of purpose for being, a devaluation of life and self. (In fact, Nietzsche came to produce a power-based totalitarian philosophy that was needed to overcome the enervation of such intellectual and moral anarchy.)

But Relativists and other Enlightenment fans claim to be rational, not irrational. And they seem to succumb to irrational proofs of their rationality, such as placing the conclusion (agenda) into the premises in order to 'prove' the conclusion/agenda; or rationalizing false or fantasy premises to support a presupposed conclusion. The analysis of Materialist arguments always seems to turn up such fallacious reasoning.

In order to be truly rational and logical, the order must be reversed: it is the process which must be held dear, not the conclusion. The conclusion must roll naturally out of the process, and regardless of one’s opinion of the conclusion, if the process is valid, the premises are valid, and the testing against the First Principles succeeds, then the conclusion – whatever it is – will be valid. If such a conclusion contradicts ones agenda, it is the agenda that must be rejected, not the conclusion.[1]

Further, if there is Truth, if Truth is metaphysical, and if there is support from the process of rationality and the First Principles, then “incorrigibility” follows: it makes no difference what anyone thinks about it, says about it, does about it, it is totally independent in both existence and validity. Non-belief and denial have no effect on incorrigible truth.

Are there other metaphysical truths, incorrigible and independent? If one asks the questions, “Is there a source for this incorrigible truth? And if so what is it?”, a new level of answers becomes apparent. But that is not the subject of this essay.

[1] It is this process that drove me out of my Atheist, Materialist worldview.