What is Truth?

1 • Truth: a word on the brink of extinction?

Many individuals use the word “truth” with a certain annoyance.

Often, they seek (perhaps unconsciously) to replace it with softer synonyms.

For instance, in conversations with my friends, I frequently observe that – regardless of the topic at hand – they feel the need to emphasize multiple times that what they are expressing is merely their opinion.

Something like…

Now, let’s be clear…

Usually, these interjections are used for matters of personal preference. And in that case, there’s nothing wrong with it, of course!

If you prefer strawberry cake over clam flavored, good for you: we’re talking about opinions, things that fall within the realm of subjectivity, different sensitivities, and so on.

What perplexes me, however, is when this way of expressing oneself/talking/reasoning is applied indiscriminately to every context.

2 • Truth with a Capital ‘T’?

I fear that the notion of Truth with a capital ‘T’ is vanishing from our vocabulary – a universally valid ‘Truth’.

Bringing up that word can be problematic.

The reason, in my opinion, is simple: as I mentioned a few years ago, we come from the 20th century, which – God forbid in the future – witnessed a fair share of horrors in the name of “Absolute Principles”.

However, I fear that we’ve “thrown out the baby with the bathwater”: in uprooting the idea of an “Absolute Principle”, that underpinned 20th century ideologies, we’ve also discarded the concept of Truth itself.

The one (as I mentioned) with a capital ‘T’, greater than each individual’s intellect, the one that (throughout the ages, from Socrates to Plato, Aristotle, and beyond) humankind has been trying to pursue, humbly and with bowed heads.

3 • The ‘Spirit of the Times’

In place of the idea of Truth, we have substituted counterfeits: shoddy imitations, plastic figurines, idols…

…that are the offspring of our time, crafted by our own hands.

And that we have accepted without the slightest hint of critical thinking.

As if they were dogmas sent down from heaven.

Carl Gustav Jung once said:

Let’s give some examples.

The “spirit of the times” Jung talks about is the one that leads us to utter phrases like:

• “It’s true for you, not for me!”
• “There’s no point in getting worked up: one opinion is as good as another!”
• “Everything is relative!”

Despite sounding reasonable, I fear these expressions might be a bit shaky.

In what sense?

Allow me to explain.

4 • Post-Truth

A few nights ago, I was browsing through the internet channels.

Clicking around here and there, I came across (on the usual Wikipedia) a very interesting term: post-truth.

Post-truth – more or less – consists of the following:

This perspective shifts the criterion of judgment from reason to impressions.

From the head to the gut.

From the pursuit of Truth to “truth for me“.

Edmund Husserl, Austrian philosopher and mathematician, wrote:

5 • Relativism

As I mentioned earlier, many things fall within the realm of opinions.

But not everything.

To categorize everything as a matter of subjectivity – that is, to say that everything is relative – is something profoundly illogical: in other words, those who hold this opinion contradict themselves.

If everything is relative, it will also be relative that (everything is relative).

But it will also be relative [that it is relative that (everything is relative)].

And so on, until we reach the logical absurdity known as an infinite regression.

In short, this statement is entirely unreflective (in the sense that it does not withstand self-reflection).

Let’s make it clear: SOME things are relative…

…but not everything!

6 • One opinion is as good as another?

There are some people who argue that The Lord of the Rings is just a doorstop filled with complicated names, endless battles, and descriptions of the fauna of Middle earth…

…and that Tolkien is not such a great writer…

Anywaaaaaaaaaay… excluding the example of Tolkien, which is an objective matter, there are many other issues that fall within the realm of opinions.

And there’s nothing wrong with that!

However, I fear that, on more than one occasion, the discourse on the “plurality of opinions” has taken somewhat paradoxical turns.

In fact, on a cultural level, we are gradually sliding from “everyone has the right to express their opinion” to “every opinion has the same value“.

About the first statement (“Everyone has the right to express their opinion”), I won’t comment… as Umberto Eco had already tried a few years ago, and he faced a shitstorm that was more than enough:

As for the second statement (“Every opinion has the same value”), the logical contradiction seems quite evident to me.

Unfortunately, in our times, there is a widespread tendency (especially on social media) where anyone (preferably famous or managing a page with a few thousand likes) feels the need to weigh in on various issues, even if their ignorance on the matter is apparent.

And since everyone ends up “singing their own tune” (resulting in the emergence of the most heterogeneous and contradictory ideas), the belief that truth is inaccessible is reinforced.

Now, I’ll say something against the current: I think we should regain that bit of common sense that led – for example – my grandmother to say that the value of opinions is different and depends on how qualified the speaker is.

7 • Truth: Attempts at Approach

There is a saying dear to Scholastic philosophy (the philosophy of the Christian ‘Dark Ages’) that goes:

In simpler terms: just as when water is poured into a glass, it takes its shape, similarly, things are known by the intellect according to the capacities of the knower.

Namely: “reality is larger than my head” and my capacity to understand.

Faced with this observation, we can draw two possible ways of looking at the world:

• The first: to think that reality is so vast, and the human brain so limited, that ultimately we cannot say anything certain about what is “outside of us”: “How can I be sure that my senses do not deceive me?”, “How do I know that blue is blue?”, etc.

• The second: to acknowledge that words do not always succeed in expressing the richness of what exists, that knowledge is an approximation of what is “outside of us”… but also to have the common sense and realism to affirm that the little we do understand is not merely “our impression”, but reflects something of what reality truly is.

In other words, as Franco Nembrini writes:

8 • Truth and ‘Evidence’

In our times, many people strongly believe (not without a hint of pride) in these two secular dogmas:

• If something is true, it must necessarily convince me;
• If something doesn’t convince me, it is definitely false.

Actually, if we think about it, there are various reasons why something – even if it is evidently true – may not be considered as such by people

:

• The simplest reason is that a truth is beyond the intellectual quotient of a particular person. It’s a bit harsh to say, but it’s true.
• It is also possible that a person – even if sufficiently intelligent – fails to grasp the evidence of a truth due to a lack of study.

• Last but not least, a truth is not recognized because someone does not want to accept it. This last point may seem a bit ridiculous, but I assure you: a person entrenched in their stubbornness will not even accept the most obvious evidence…

9 • Truth and Totalitarianism

George Orwell (the one from 1984) wrote as follows:

If we lose sight of this foundation, confusion quickly arises… just to say: what would a concept like justice be based on if we remove Truth from the equation?

On someone’s opinion? On the consent of the people?

Who would decree the justice or injustice of an action? The majority?

As history has taught us (especially that of the last century), the majority can be wrong.

(For those who don’t have the energy to revisit what the majority did when leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Fidel Castro, Mussolini, Kim Jong-un & Co. were in power, I suggest reading Andersen’s fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”…)

(I’ll leave the link to the story here, in case someone has never read it)

10 • What is Truth?

So, what is this blessed Truth?

In the backward Middle Ages, truth was defined as:

…meaning: the correspondence between reality and its linguistic and conceptual representation.

In other words, what I have in my mind is true if it conforms to an external reality beyond my head (and false if it does not).

Even when I engage with other people, only the common reference to something beyond both me and you (a “tertium quid”, as the medieval scholars would say) can guarantee (if the reasoning we engage in follows a rigorous logic) that we can arrive at a common truth.

Hence, Aristotle wrote:

In short: it is reality that determines thought.

And not thought that determines reality.

Or, as Joseph Ratzinger wrote:

…or John Paul II:

Antonio Machado wrote in one of his poems:

Conclusion

An Arabic proverb states:

Despite the suspicion with which the word “truth” is often viewed today, as if it were incompatible with freedom or tolerance, I believe (in light of what I have tried to express so far) that the exact opposite is true.

It is precisely when this horizon is lost sight of that we fall into the risks I mentioned earlier: majority-driven consensus, subjectivism, gut reactions, populism… which (not always, but often) end up turning into violence.

(Just for the record, I don’t hold this “nonsense” viewpoint alone, but have an illustrious predecessor:)

In short, I allow myself to be questioned by the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus: “Quid est Veritas? (What is Truth?)

(Final frivolity: someone has noticed that the answer to the question (which Jesus does not give to Pilate) could be implicitly contained in the question itself: by anagramming “Quid est Veritas?” it comes out as “Est vir qui adest”: “It is the man who is before you!”… coincidences?)

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(Fall 2019)