Truth is a lie

“Truth is truth, to the end of reckoning.”  Measure for Measure -- Act V, Scene I

Whenever a philosopher hears the word “truth” used in a conversation, their ears prick up like a meerkat. It is, after all, such a loaded term. It is the ultimate authority, and it is usually wielded in debate so that the arguers point cannot be denied:  it is as if the truth wielder is a Nazgûl ; never come between a Nazgûl and its prey. However, truth can be used in different contexts, and not all truths are equally valuable. Yet, my friends, I should define the word! Truth can be defined as:

1)    The true or actual state of a matter: he tried to find out the truth.

2)    Conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.

3) A verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.

4)    The state or character of being true.

5)    Actuality or actual existence.

What is disappointing with these definitions is that it doesn’t differentiate between objective and subjective truths.  Nevertheless, the definitions do suggest a context: context, as we all know, is vital. The mathematical definition inspires my synapses to fire! Stirred into reflection whilst sitting in my middle class pyjamas, drinking my middle class tea, even a squire of pride such as myself has to concede that the mathematical truth 2+2 = 4 is more important than the truth that I have greeny-blue eyes.

            
However beautiful my eyes may be, those windows to my soul will never be as important as that simple mathematical truth. Children all the world over will know the truth of that mathematical statement; in comparison, very few humans will know of my existence – even fewer, quite sadly, will observe the quaint beauty of my eyes.

             
I started the article with the title truth is a lie. Why? Well, it wasn’t just to be provocative.  I always think of religious fundamentalists when confronted with the question of truth, as I am inclined to think their truth is very subjective.  An ardent Christian will believe the Bible is true. They are, for the most part, sincere. They live their lives according to what they deem to be the truth.

             
Yet, to an atheist, their truth is a lie. And, of course, this applies when we invert the accusation.  To a Christian, an atheist’s truth is a lie, too.  When we mull over the most potent truths there are, such as the trite ‘Is there a God?’ debate, it seems that truth is hard to come by.

           

Please let me get to the daddy of the truths: absolute truths.  The term is a philosophical nightmare, as it creates a liar paradox if it doesn’t exist. An absolute truth can be defined as an universal truth which is true in all possible contexts without creating a contradiction. Here is an example of a potential absolute truth: God exists, has always existed, and will always exist. However, let’s invert this argument: God doesn’t exist, has never existed, and will always never exist. If you’re intelligent, you will notice that even though the first outcome is directly opposed to the second, it’s just as absolute. Now, look what happens when we deny the accuracy of absolute truths: There are no absolute truths. If this statement is true, then it is true absolutely, in all contexts.  Yet it creates a liar paradox, as the words carry a classic binary truth, creating a contradiction. Thus my friends, you can see the truth is true, or the truth is a lie – or both, simultaneously.

            
I don’t know if I can come to a conclusion, as King David stated in Psalm 116:11, “All men are liars.” But was he lying?

Samuel Mack-Poole

The Philosophy Takeaway 'Democracy' Issue 41

A simple look at Kant on Time - By Selim 'Selim' Talat

A simple look at Kant on Time

For Kant, experience cannot tell us with absolute certainty that time exists in the world of things as they appear to us. We can observe objects changing, but we cannot say that we fully understand time through these sensory experiences - this is because those sensory experience cannot provide us with the succession of time in an absolute way. This is because Kant does not posit that sensory experience on its own is sufficient to provide us with any absolute truth; we can watch a thousand apples decay on a thousand different occasions, but this can never tell us that an apple will always decay. Nor does it tell us of the (metaphorical!) foundations required for us to experience an apple decaying at all. Yes! Let us plunge deeper into reality.

We must, therefore, consider time prior to our experiences. Time is an inner sense; a pure intuition of ourselves; part of our pure sense of self. Time does not belong to shape, or location - it determines the relation of things we see inside our inner state. Time is not an object that exists in and of itself. Time is not contained in things themselves, as a property of those things. Events do not take place inside of time. Effectively, time is only absolute in our subjective, human reality. If we removed our experiencing the succession of events in the world, time would become nothing. Time needs experience of it in action to prove it exists, and so it cannot be an absolute reality. However, just because time needs our senses to understand it, it does not mean that the senses alone would be sufficient; we need our inner sense. Nor can time be discovered purely by thinking about it (for Kant, pure analysis is worthless without physical evidence). Time is not an idea imposed upon reality by the mind, but is the result of our inner sense experiencing the succession of things outside of us; our minds give form to the chaotic mass of sense data beyond us and allow us to make sense of it all.

Human experience can only discover things occurring within time, thus it has what Kant would call 'empirical reality' (or 'evidence discovered through the use of our senses').

Every sensory experience we have of anything, must represent time; we cannot remove time from appearances. We need time to make sense of the ever shifting flux of matter, i.e. things in motion. This means that time is a condition that must be fulfilled for us to be able to see things changing; time must come before appearances. And so time requires more than just this 'empirical reality', it needs also our inner sense, in order to make our understanding of time complete.

By Selim 'Selim' Talat