Is truth subjective or objective?

Going back to Kant's points, the phenomena reveals certain portions of the noumena, but probably not the whole. The term truth used in this thread is questionable. What is meant by the useage of truth?

Postulate:

I say that we know certain truths but not all the "truths" in this world (if truth means valid knowledge). When I see a car passing by, I hold that that certain car passed at that moment, and if anyone were to ask me if a car had passed by I would answer in the positive, that being the truth. I might not know what the object is in "itself" (I don't even know for sure what that means), but I know that I saw it (in the circumstance that I am not psychotic, drunk, or on drugs :wink: ). What I am getting at here, is we can argue what a thing is like without us experiencing it, but that is impossible since there must be an observer to be aware of the object...
unless you are a supernatural being or a God. To our understanding, an empirical truth is what cognitive beings observes, and a rational truth is a truth backed up by reason.

Ray, would that imply that if you had not witnessed it, then it would not be true that it passed by?

eorl

But how could we know that the car passed by that place? If I don't see it, my unique source of knowledge would be anybody's else statement. You say: I saw the car. But how can I be sure that you are saying the truth?

I think that in this case it is a question of general consensus. If there is a certain number of people attesting that the car passed by there, I can accept it as an event with a great degree of probability.

It depends on the kind of truth to which you are referring, no?

Clearly there is an absolute truth : the car passed by.

Then there is the consensus of opinion we call truth...I saw it and you believe me.

Eorl

Sorry, but why do you think that there is an absolute truth? The car passed by? But how could we know that? You can be lying to me when you say you saw the car passing. You can be mistaked.
In fact you start on the fact of the car passing by, as if there was something that made it an absolute truth, and then you go look for the proofs of that event.
You started in the point you should have finished.

I think there is an absolute truth. I think all of history of the universe from the beginning of time happened, in just one way, right up until this very second.

Whether sentient beings witnessed it or not. Things happen far away in time and space that nobody ever witnesses or ever finds out about.

It still happens.

The approximate true statement "a car passed by" is either part of the greater absolute truth or it isn't, whether or not you believe me, and even if there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I think of this often when a jury finds someone guilty of a crime, I wonder about how each version of the crime sits in the minds of each member of the jury and how it relates to what actually happened (including all the background "irrevelant" information)

eorl



I also believe that, as you say, events happened in one way. But that is not the truth. Truth has to do with our knowledge. That is why we can speak about something as true or false. The fact that a car passed by is nothing but a fact. Not true or untrue. If no one noticed the passing of the car, how can we speak about it? We are not outside the universe to see the linear sequence of events. We are inside and truth has to do only with experienced events - except in the case of analytic propositions.

And when you say that events happened in one way, don't forget you are speaking about known events. If not, you couldn't say they happened in one way: that way is the way you look back at their sequence. We could say: what we know that happened, happened. About what we don't know it makes no sense to say it happened, since we don't even know what kind of event we are talking about.

So, if no one saw the car, we cannot talk about it. Only in an exercise of imagination.
But if someone saw the car, then it is a matter of credibility. The truth is in the statement of the person, or persons, who claimed to have seen the car. Truth being the adequacy between statement and experienced fact.

The principal problem, when we talk about a juridical event - a crime, an accident - is in the witnesses. People make their statements based on their memory. It is frequent to see two witnesses report opposite facts of an accident. It has to do with their position in space, their memory. But the reconstitution of facts is not only remembering what happen. Our memory always organizes events in an conceptual unity. Witnesses frequently "remember" facts they could never have seen, because those facts are necessary links to the mental reconstitution of the event that, with time, people make of their memory.
Let me give you an example: you enter in a grocery shop and see the owner hands in the air, frightened. In front of him, a man with a very menacing attitude. You ran out of the store and in this moment you hear a gunshot. Later, in court, you witness that the robber had a gun although you never saw that gun. Only the hands in the air of the owner, and later the sound of a shot. But your mind needed the "perception" of the gun in order to make the relation between the facts you perceived. In order to make them have sense in a causal perspective.

hmm ok. Thanks val. I can accept that. It seems mostly a matter of word definitions. I guess I am lacking a word for the sum of everything in history within which each fact exists and is dependant on.That which I have previously called the "absolute truth". Any thoughts?

In that case, the term truth would possess an inter-subjective meaning?

As to an absolute truth, I believe that this is a hypothetical view of what would an observer who sees everything, sees at that moment in time? I think all gathering of witnesses' testimony is to build up this absolute truth, that is, to get the fact of what actually happened at that event.

edit: I think that when a person says "there is only one version of the truth", he is implying an absolute truth which has facts as a basis.

I too agree, Ray. An absolute truth would imply an absolute or (God-like) omnicompetent perspective. The reality seems to be that we all see things only from our limited points of view.
And it does seem that the inter-subjectivity of "truths" give us the illusion that they are objective. They are only shared constructions, and--as most anthropologists would acknowledge regarding culture--it is problematical HOW MUCH they are shared.

Are you guys implying that the "absolute truth" does not exist without some outside of it to be able to witness it? I don't see how that can be. It implies that events that occur that are not witnessed do not occur.
(I realise there is no way we can know they occured but that doesn't mean they don't happen)

Eorl, I would even reject both absolutism and nihilism. There are no things in the world, only relationships. Nothing stands independently by itself. Truths are conventions of thought, as is the notion of no truth (nihilism). I would not even say that what I've just said is absolutely so. There is only the experience of flux and interdepenence, what buddhists call sunya.,

ahh I see...I'm beginning to suspect I may be an absolutist.

I agree, from your statements you appear to be an absolutist. I wish you a speedy recovery. I am a recovering relativist.

LOL Thankyou JL.

I almost asked if there was a cure before you even posted that...so I guess there is hope if I already recognise the pathology ?

I think that it is needed though for us to use this hypothetical view to see whether what we think is true, is true or not. Anyways, we really don't know if there is actually an absolute view, but I think it is of the best interest to try and look at it from that perspective, the objective view.

Ray, that is an acceptable perspective. We may not be able to demonstrate against the relativists the metaphysical case for objectivism, but you may argue for its pragmatic value. I've taken that position regarding the "value" of relativism.
But ULTIMATELY I attach to neither. I DO find myself endorsing a quasi-objectivist view of the COSMOS (hindu: Brahma) as existing in-itself. But that is only a manner of speaking. Ultimate Reality, if the term has any reference external to my thoughts, is an object of faith, not knowledge.