Patch 1.1: On Truth - Does Truth Exist?

Guys, when I initially formulated the concepts of truth there are certain elements that may still be slightly inaccurate or inadequately addressed. This patch is basically a re-written version of my earlier posts, except that the information is now much more accurate and objective. The Patch would mostly be centered on the topic of Truth and parts of The Moderation Doctrine. The topic of Identity is generally accurate as of today, but I would still edit it if I find it to be unsatisfactory in the future.

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And what is truth? Pilate asked

Truth, or at least the concept of absolute truth, is paradoxically never absolute and host to a variety of meanings. Truth ranges from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular. Up to this very day, there is no single definition of truth that a majority of professional philosophers and scholars agree, and the differing claims on related questions as what constitutes truth, how to identify truth, and whether truth is subjective, relative, objective or absolute has led many people today to have very differing conceptualizations on this concept.

Of the concept of truth, a key aspect that we would be paying very close attention to today would be the nature of truth itself. While the question of what constitutes truth can be debated to a myriad of issues ranging from the relativity of the human will to the objectivity of God, or the theories of truth range from the correspondence theory of absolute truth to the pragmatic theory of being truth; the nature of truth is generally split down into two factions. Most of the theories postulated by philosophers and theologians have their groundings somewhere within these two factions; and it is from the identification of these two factions that any form of philosophical debate or knowledge and proceed. These two factions are the objective (absolute), and subjective (relative) nature of truth.

The first faction of objectivity recognizes that there is indeed an absolute truth universally that is independent of the mind, or that is not the result of any judgments made by a conscious entity. Objectivity renders that truths are discovered rather than created, and proposes that when a conscious entity ‘discovers’ this truth with either epistemologically (theory of knowledge) or ontologically (experiencing and sensing), it is actually the correspondence theory of truth at work to correspond the entity’s subjective knowledge to the objective knowledge of truth.

Correspondence theory holds that true beliefs and true statements (made by the entity) correspond to the actual (objective) state of affairs. It operates on the assumption that truth is a matter of accurately copying the ‘objective reality’ and then representing it in thoughts, words and other symbols. Take for example a student makes a statement that two plus two equals four. The student would be rendered correct no matter where he makes this statement, and his proposition would hence be considered true. Correspondence theory states that this is because the statement of the student (subjective entity) corresponds to an objective truth that two plus two equals four. The objective truth that two plus two equals four is independent the perception of the student’s mind, lest any human being or conscious entity before the student.

Do take note that objectivism should not be confused with absolutism, although both concepts are similar in nature. Objectivism states that an absolute truth exists, and that this truth is independent of the human cognition; absolutism on the other hand, adds on and proposes that this truth is timeless and unchanging in quality. Do note that some objective truths may change over time due to the change in system of the universe (i.e. the universe is expanding or contracting), and that absolutism- being generally advocated by ancient Greek philosophers, who believed in a static universe, is a fallible theory today.

Subjectivity, on the other hand- holds that any philosophical or moral question has an answer that is not falsifiable, and henceforth is subjective to the individual cognition. When used in the context of truth, a subjective fact is one that is only true under certain conditions, at certain times, in certain places or for certain people; and this in turn is subjected to a certain perspective or opinion.

Do take note that just as how Objectivism has to be distinguished from absolutism despite their similar nature, Subjectivity too has to be distinguished from relativism. While relativism denies the existence of an objective truth, and the relativist argues that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or culture, subjectivism refers to the specific discerning interpretations of any aspect of objective experiences. Known more formally as qualia subjectivity, it states that experience, since being unique to the person experiencing, the qualia that are only available to that person’s consciousness. Though the causes of experience are objective and available to all, experience themselves are only available to the subject, and henceforth make truth subjective in nature.

Summarizing, metaphysical subjectivism holds that the truth or falsity of all propositions depends, at least partly, on what we believe. In contrast, metaphysical objectivism holds that truths are independent of our beliefs. Except for propositions that are actually about our beliefs or sensations, what is true or false is independent of what we think is true or false.

From the above, we can see that truth is generally distinct into the objectivity of absolute truths, and subjective to the individual human experience and cognition, with the correspondence theory of truth acting as a primary bridge between these two faculties of truth. Either way, we see that truth exists, and its reality transcend our primitive view of an idealistic concept way beyond our grasp. Every idealistic belief, physical experience, logical thought, and intuitive feeling (I will dwell in greater detail on these four concepts in my second part on the Moderation Doctrine) is also part of truth- and just because it is subjective it does not mean it is untrue.

Now, where are we leading ourselves to? An acknowledgement of truth in general (since we are realists), automatically entails objectivity and subjectivity- and all the other daughter concepts that go along the same lines we cannot afford to dwell too deeply into today. And it is essential to note that we cannot side one over another should we want to be realists and maintain our individuality (to be dealt in the topic of Identity). Much as all of reality (including us) is subjected to truth, we cannot be slaves to truth by siding unconditionally with the objective truth, neither can we be strict relativists and warp reality itself to our personal viewpoints, as demonstrated by the relativist constructivist theory of truth. Therefore the least we can do is to acknowledge the existence of an objective truth, and ‘live’ this objectivity with our own subjective experiences. We would also have to correspond subjectivity with objectivity, lest we do not live in falsity.

But why do we correspond subjectivity to objectivity? Why not the other way around? The relativist believes that there is objective truth, and what he believes he deems as truth (right). Morality is highly subjective, and so are ethics and the meaning of life. What if this extrapolates and we find that nothing is in fact objective? What if the world and the universe is actually a matter of perception, our perception, and henceforth relative to our personal interpretation?

Now, we have to understand that while objectivism proposes that truth is independent of the human cognition, it is truth that truth does not revolve around the individual. Our universe was created not out of the subjective human will, but objectively- with a whole set of objective physical and mathematical laws that have existed way beyond the appearance of human beings. And it is precisely in this way that truth cannot be created by human perception simply because it existed before the existence of the human perception. As Pascal has addressed us to be no more than the imbecile worms of the universe, we cannot possibly expect the universe to rotate around the world, lest on our individual selves. Henceforth it is objectively incorrect to subject objectivity to objectivity, and henceforth the other way around.

Moreover the relativist, strictly speaking, does not have the entitlement to maintain his viewpoint of objectivity to subjectivity, even if he were to adopt such a stand. For on what grounds can he stand by his truthful ideals (or so he believes) to convince others if he truly believes that truth is no more than a relative personal viewpoint? Otherwise known as the relativist fallacy, this fallacy applies when the proponent is unable to make a definite stand that nothing is definite (his beliefs) simply because he believes that nothing is definite, and for the fundamental reason because he cannot contradict himself.

The relativistic world would hence be a world devoid of objectivity, of objective ideals, and where individual ideas would be kept to oneself. Such a world would not see truth, beauty, and goodness, and progress- for progress for one may be regress to another, and beauty to one be ugliness to another. Such a world would be inconceivable, and definitely very far off from our current system.


Therefore in general, we have identified the validity of truth- and the existence of objectivity and subjectivity. We see that truth is objective and subjective simultaneously- and it is in our objective knowledge and subjective experiences that we get to live and understand this truth that we speak. We also get to understand that objectivity transcends subjectivity, for the fundamental fact that truth has existed before us. In the next post I will discuss in detail the fundamental concepts of truth, and its application to our lives namely in the concepts of the epistemological human knowledge and the ontological human experience.