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In a Grove - Seeking Objective Truth


Guardian

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"How can we make group decisions if we are all working with different information, backgrounds and biases?... When it comes to determining the truth, what's more reliable, ambiguity or unanimity? Strangely enough, sometimes the closer your get to total agreement, the less trustworthy a result becomes."

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8132998-in-a-grove

 

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28 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

What's your definition of "objective truth"?

Your definition. Not a quote from someone else.

@Vern Edwards I am not sure I can define objective truth adequately.  As @WifWaf expressed in his recent post discussing the concept of via negativa, I am more inclined to identify what an objective truth is not than what it might be.

If I had to make an imperfect attempt at defining the term, I would start by identifying two of its core characteristics, i.e., that which is external to us and unchanging.

I can still recall my senior year at a parochial high school three decades ago.  Our philosphy instructor required us to submit an end of the semester paper describing the Buddha as we understood him.  I remember struggling with my classmates to elucidate something worthy of a preponderantly weighted written assignment, based upon our reading and in class discussions.  On the due date of the assignment, one student laid his paper on the instructor's desk, a single page with two written words, "Buddha is."  This same classmate was accepted to and graduated from Yale University.  He became a teacher and has travelled the world as an instructor in several countries.  

When I consider objective truth relative to subjective truth, I think of Plato's allegory of the cave:

 

Imagine a number of people living in an underground cave, which has an entrance that opens towards the daylight. The people have been in this dwelling since childhood, shackled by the legs and neck, such that they cannot move nor turn their heads to look around. There is a fire behind them, and between these prisoners and the fire, there is a low wall.

Rather like a shadow puppet play, objects are carried before the fire, from behind the low wall, casting shadows on the wall of the cave for the prisoners to see. Those carrying the objects may be talking, or making noises, or they may be silent. What might the prisoners make of these shadows, of the noises, when they can never turn their heads to see the objects or what is behind them? [from Plato's Republic]

 

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To posit that there is no such thing as objective truth is in itself an objective truth - a truth that applies to everyone whether we accept it or not. Postmodernism has reminded us of the reality and importance of subjective interpretation, but it fails to account for the world we actually live in, for the objective truth we are surrounded by all the time. 

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2 hours ago, Vern Edwards said:

Maybe you can't define "objective truth" because there is no such thing.

Maybe there is no such thing as objectivity.

"It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth.  For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative and in the present).  Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that that causes derivative truths to be true is most true.  Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth." [Metaphysics by Aristotle, Book II, Part 1; as translated by W. D. Ross; http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/metaphysics.html]

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1 hour ago, amazedbygrace86 said:

To posit that there is no such thing as objective truth is in itself an objective truth - a truth that applies to everyone whether we accept it or not.

@amazedbygrace86 With all due respect, I would regard such a postulation an opinion.

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2 hours ago, amazedbygrace86 said:

To posit that there is no such thing as objective truth is in itself an objective truth - a truth that applies to everyone whether we accept it or not. Postmodernism has reminded us of the reality and importance of subjective interpretation, but it fails to account for the world we actually live in, for the objective truth we are surrounded by all the time. 

Just to be clear, I did not mean to posit that there is no such thing as objective truth. I meant to speculate that perhaps Guardian could not define objective truth because there might not be any such thing.

There are several theories of truth with respect to what makes statements true or false.

 

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19 minutes ago, Vern Edwards said:

I meant to speculate that perhaps Guardian could not define objective truth because there might not be any such thing.

 

@Vern Edwards I likely could not, nor would I seek to.  I had an opportunity earlier this year to visit Montpelier, home to James Madison, who is sometimes referred to as the "Father of the Constitution."  While there, our tour guide offered up some interesting points.  At an early age, Madison left Virginia to attend Princeton University.  There he became the prized pupil of John Witherspoon, a native born Scot, who was strongly influenced by the principles of the Scottish Enlightenment.  Madison was affected by his professor's teachings, so much so that historical scholars attribute many of our Constitution's ideals to those compelling that European event.  At the foundation was the disruptive belief that rights were not bestowed by kings or governments.  Rather, they were preordianed by a natural order or Divine Providence.  Yes, there are countless kinks in our historical fabric, as we are all aware.  Regardless, there has never been anything like the American experiment.  These principles of inalienable rights are what led us from a national capital paved with mud as the Capitol dome was being framed, to developments in science that landed men on the moon about one hundred years later.  Can I define "objective truth"?  Probably not.  Did I offer a sublunary example?  Yes, I believe so.

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