Truth and knowledge : Not relative and not plural

[domokunrox]

I was inspired by Canuckster to help out here in Philosophy.
Specifically I want to focus here on relative and plural truths and show why it is an logically impossible position.
I do however want to request that we don't steer the discussion far from what I present. I want this discussion to be smaller and easier to digest for anyone who may not have any philosophical background if we could help it. It'll be a sort of mini article once in a while, discuss the content, move on. I'll try cite all that I can. If I don't have a citation, I will try my best to let you know where it came from.

Why is this important? I firmly believe our thinking has to be bottom up consistent no matter what the object is. Even within Christianity. I want to make a solid point here that I hold and I hope we strive for.

Life when it is lived by our preference and perspective rather than truth is a life that is out of touch with reality.

There is no exception to this for me personally even as a Christian.
Jesus had challenged his disciples "Who do you say I am?" But today I think people read it as "Who do you want me to be?" So this is actually beneficial for all, imo.
4 things here.
1. Truth is important for everyone
2. Truth is important about everything
3. Pre evangelism is heavy on truth
4. This idea of "create your own" philosophy/religion separates knowledge/faith from reality

So, is relativism and pluralism a logically impossible position to hold?
I conclude yes, and here's why.

Let's first define truth.
What is truth?
Truth corresponds to reality.
It is a DESCRIPTION that matches the way things truly are.

What is Relativism?
Relativism corresponds to PERSPECTIVE.

Now, regardless if you believe in absolute or relative truth. Right here and right now, the cold hard fact is that we have a belief in truth.
So are we really in the position in not knowing truth?
Sure, there is bias and limitations but we can be objective regardless of perspective.
Something can be true, even if no one knows it.
Something can be true, even if no one admits it.
Something can be true, even if no one agrees what it is.

So what about relativism? 2 types I want to point out.
Alethic skepticism is the belief that universal objective truth does not exist
Epistemological skepticism is the belief that objective truth cannot be known

So the underlying problem here is knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge does fit criteria.
Knowledge is (1) a belief that is (2) true and (3) has warrant for being believed

So immediately we hit a problem.
If you say you know something, you certainly aren't a relativist.

If the knowledge cannot be known or does not exist.

How would you KNOW the previous statement?
Apply this skepticism to religion, morality, and aesthetics. How does it fair?

[jlay]

I'm excited. Let's do it.

[Byblos]

I'm excited. Let's do it.

Me too.

What we do need, however, is someone to play the devil's advocate and attempt to poke holes in what you will be presenting Dom. Not so much to debate the points but to at least show how consistent (or not) your positions are. I am certainly not qualified to be that advocate (considering my biases to one side) so any volunteers? Proinsias, are you up to it?

[jlay]

This is an important topic. Expecially in the field of apologetics. Often we assume that truth matters to everyone, when in fact it doesn't. Well, it does, but not in the sense that we often think of it. Ravi Zacharias' book, Jesus Among Other Gods touches on dealing with Eastern thought, which is very different, and thus has a much different take on this whole truth thing. Ravi, being of Eastern descent has some great insight on how he has addresses this with Eastern religious teachers.

So, Dom says, "our thinking has to be bottom up consistent no matter what the object is." And, I'm sure most if not all believers here, support that. But what about the Buddhist, Hindu, new ager, etc.

[Proinsias]

Interesting stuff, just heading out, due for a busy night tonight, and I foresee a rather long lie tomorrow but I'll drop in soon.

[Byblos]

Just a word of caution to both sides, please keep it simple and stick to the facts. Steer clear of personal insults and attacks as this thread will be heavily moderated (not that others aren't, just sayin' ).

[domokunrox]

Jlay, Ravi's book is an excellent book. Eastern philosophy vastly changes the dynamic of truth, reality, and life discussion. It is something we'll have to explore when we arrive there.

I am glad for the receptiveness here. We just need a breathe of fresh air from all the Molinist/Calvinist/Armenian talk that has dominated this board lately. Well, I do at least!

So to kick off the new year, here's the first issue of God and science philosophy.

[domokunrox]

Is it possible to say "Don't believe a word I say" and someone believe it? Would it be true? What warrants that it should be believed?

Can you believe the statement, then follow that the statement cannot be believed?
A self referential statement
"Everyone's beliefs are true or false only relative to himself"
If the claim is only true for the speaker, why should he claim matter to the rest of us? To be consistent, you say something else
"Nothing is objectively true-including my own position. So you're free to accept my view or reject it"
What is expected here? That we should believe the statement and his view of reality? That his statement pertain to all statements except his own?

The self excepting fallacy
This statement is only true for everyone else.
We would have to ask, why is the relativist unwilling to relativize his own relativism?
It simply isn't internally consistent. Why is everything relative except his own statements? Why just this one exception? Why can't there be other sweeping truths?
The typical response
"There are just too many mistakes humans make. Risk in being wrong. There are just too many differences to know what the absolute is. So, it's just safer to hold this position"
3 problems here
-How would this person KNOW that people make mistakes? (Excluding himself, apparently)
-In order to detect human error, he presumably MUST KNOW truth in order to detect it. Quite an achievement for a relativist!
-Apparenty, the laws of logic work. How does a relativist explain himself in trying to avoid contradiction?

It just doesn't make sense. One thing is evident here. How would a relativist confirm their mind is working properly? Its just assumed. To make a sweeping statement, you'd want it from a mind that functions fully, right? In order to detect errors in reason, your mind has be to internally consistent. Importantly, it has to be proven. No assumptions.

Concluding this, relativists are not really concerned in being internally consistent.
Well, not until it matters, anyway. One has to wonder how a relativist has rights, but we'll cross that bridge at another time.

The above was drawn out of my notebook. You can find additional information if you look up epistemological skepticism pretty much everywhere. I am sure some of it is straight out of Paul Copan's books.

[Canuckster1127]

I'll help where I can too. A course that I helped facilitate a while back for Civilian Intelligence Personnel included a segment on these types of issues and I can chip in or play devil's advocate as needed.

[Reactionary]

What we do need, however, is someone to play the devil's advocate and attempt to poke holes in what you will be presenting Dom. Not so much to debate the points but to at least show how consistent (or not) your positions are. I am certainly not qualified to be that advocate (considering my biases to one side) so any volunteers?

OK, if I search my memory for objections that I've often seen brought up by naturalists/relativists, I think he would probably respond to the first post by saying something like:

"We believe in science because it's true, it gives us information about the world around us, which we know to be true because we verify them experimentally."

How does he account for his relativism, I don't know. At this point I would probably ask him why he trusts his senses if they're mere chemical reactions, and the responses I've been given so far are either:

1. We do scientific experiments which correspond with the nature, or
2. Our senses have evolved over millions of years, adapting to the nature, so we finally achieved all our current abilities, or
3. both.

So, response #2 attempts to account for the uniformity of human thought, but in a world of random mutations, how did sentient beings like humans come to be? The usual response is the multiverse, where everything that could happen, will happen. Unless it's God.

So finally, I think naturalists/relativists look to reduce us to biological organisms, purely physical - and as such, entirely prone to laws of physics and chemistry, but millions of years of (random) mutations produced an immensely complex species that realize how they came to be, as well as a series of other (objective) truths about our universe. It is interesting, at least to me, if we can grasp objective truths, why a majority of humans adhere to religion (as it's allegedly a delusion). IMO, this is where a naturalist is inconsistent, as he says that terms like God or morality are constructs of the brain, while "facts" that seem to point towards atheism being true, somehow aren't.

I think there is an evolutionary argument against naturalism that addresses this by the way, but I don't know exactly how it goes.

[domokunrox]

That's an interesting viewpoint, Reactionary.

Turning the relativism on the relativist is a pretty good idea, but I prefer addressing it from a position of consistacy. Asking them to remain consistent.

The first thing I would have challenged is to ask them to define what science is. A relativist who reasons by science is still inconsistent. It still fails to relativize itself.

I actually have the least problems with those who reason with science actually. The statistics don't go in their favor on things that matter.
Relativism and Pluralist are a front line issue for counter cult apologists. My specific field is against unitarian universalism church and new age. More specifically, I target my apologetic studies against eastern philosophies introduced here in the west. This ranges me having to know to have answers against Mormonism, New age, unitarian universalists, a few other faiths and their sects. They are at times pretty hostile. They got a good thing going for them according to them. Everyone is right in that group. They don't like exclusivist Christianity, they are for gay marriage, God is "uncontainable", Jesus was a universalist, and a whole slew of other things.

[Reactionary]

That's an interesting viewpoint, Reactionary.

Turning the relativism on the relativist is a pretty good idea, but I prefer addressing it from a position of consistacy. Asking them to remain consistent.

The first thing I would have challenged is to ask them to define what science is. A relativist who reasons by science is still inconsistent. It still fails to relativize itself.

Yes, I've noticed that inconsistency. I don't know how they respond to it though - probably by resorting to our senses being evolved enough to grasp the world around us. Not that it's a satisfactory response, but for those in denial, pretty much anything that sounds "scientific", does enough.

I actually have the least problems with those who reason with science actually. The statistics don't go in their favor on things that matter.

I believe you, but the fact is that they are the loudest, at least in the mainstream media. And that sometimes makes me confused - when I look at arguments made by naturalists, the thought that comes to my mind is "The emperor is naked", but then I ask myself, as I'm merely a college student, is there something that I lack regarding knowledge, that stops me from understanding this supposedly true naturalistic evolution, and everything that comes along with it? I find naturalism absurd, and I still can't bring myself to believing that in the 21st century, with all the progress made by humanity, such a theory can still be active. There must be only two possibilities, either "scientism" is full of loopholes, or I'm missing something. And I sometimes wonder whether I'm arrogant if I assume the former... Do you understand my position?

Relativism and Pluralist are a front line issue for counter cult apologists. My specific field is against unitarian universalism church and new age. More specifically, I target my apologetic studies against eastern philosophies introduced here in the west. This ranges me having to know to have answers against Mormonism, New age, unitarian universalists, a few other faiths and their sects. They are at times pretty hostile. They got a good thing going for them according to them. Everyone is right in that group. They don't like exclusivist Christianity, they are for gay marriage, God is "uncontainable", Jesus was a universalist, and a whole slew of other things.

Good luck.

[Proinsias]

I'm out of my depth, but that's never stopped me before so here goes:

I suppose my first objection would be that showing a particular point of view to be inconsistent with classical logic, or logically impossible, may not necessarily be analogous with that something being impossible. There's a leap involved for me between logic being useful and the rules of logic being extended to govern reality or truth itself. That's possibly part of why I find most ontological arguments, especially the modal logic of Platinga, rather lacking in substance.

Is it possible to say "Don't believe a word I say" and someone believe it? Would it be true? What warrants that it should be believed?

This sort of idea is prevalent in Taoism, Zen Buddhism and some strands of Hindu thought. The tao te ching includes the line:
"Those who know do not speak.
Those who speak do not know"
Which is rather similar, what's the point in reading a text in which the author discredits himself? Rather different from Jesus' "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me".

It just doesn't make sense. One thing is evident here. How would a relativist confirm their mind is working properly? Its just assumed. To make a sweeping statement, you'd want it from a mind that functions fully, right? In order to detect errors in reason, your mind has be to internally consistent. Importantly, it has to be proven. No assumptions.

This seems like a rather loaded statement. You've made the assumptions that a proper and fully functioning mind is one which is internally consistent and detects errors in reason. Your specific area of study, eastern philosophies introduced to the west, often view analytical and conceptual thought such as reason and logic as simply getting in the way, and practices such as sitting, koans and chanting were developed to try and snap the mind out of trying to make sense of things by, attempting, to stand back and intellectualising experience. I'm thinking here of people like D.T Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki, Alan Watts, Trungpa etc who introduced me to a lot of these ideas. Krishnamurti's idea that "All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man." encapsulates much of this thinking, he's another example of someone who seemed to attract a lot of students by telling them repeatedly he had nothing to teach.

There does seem to be a rather odd method of using the meter stick of reason and logic to prove that reasonable and logical thought is logical and reasonable. And that other forms of thought which do not hold reason and logic in particularly high regard fail the litmus test of logic and reason.

On another note Dogen's creed of sleeping when tired and eating when hungry seems far more logical and reasonable to me than the Christian idea of believing that Jesus Christ is the one true God and belief that he died for my sins will secure me a favourable place in eternity.

*edit*
Just a little addition to the commentary you've provided on the notion of believing someone who claims that you should not believe a word they say - it's my opinion that such phrases are often spoken to convey that truth cannot be contained within language which is rather contrary to much western thought that truth can be pinned down rather satisfyingly in even the simplest of language. It's often been my experience that people are under the impression they can easily capture truth in expressions like "1+1=2", "the earth is round" or in a series of logical deductions and that sort of thing. The preference for this sort of 'don't believe me' claim that crops up in the east is to try and often literally slap people out of their belief that they've got their hands on an easily communicable nugget of truth.

[wrain62]

I'm out of my depth, but that's never stopped me before so here goes:I suppose my first objection would be that showing a particular point of view to be inconsistent with classical logic, or logically impossible, may not necessarily be analogous with that something being impossible. There's a leap involved for me between logic being useful and the rules of logic being extended to govern reality or truth itself. That's possibly part of why I find most ontological arguments, especially the modal logic of Platinga, rather lacking in substance.

Illogical to extend practical logic to the grand reality of truth. I can see that.


Is it possible to say "Don't believe a word I say" and someone believe it? Would it be true? What warrants that it should be believed?

This sort of idea is prevalent in Taoism, Zen Buddhism and some strands of Hindu thought. The tao te ching includes the line:"Those who know do not speak.Those who speak do not know"Which is rather similar, what's the point in reading a text in which the author discredits himself? Rather different from Jesus' "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me".

I think this is appealing because humilty is alway the more logical way in terms of expressing truth and dealing with others. In real life I have a quiet nature so no one feels threatened by me and people blow my intelligence out of proportion because of it; so in a sense there is a fundamental thruth to this. But I think and feel something bad about this way of thinking, like saying nobody cares or thinks there is any intrinsic good in your opinion.

On another note Dogen's creed of sleeping when tired and eating when hungry seems far more logical and reasonable to me than the Christian idea of believing that Jesus Christ is the one true God and belief that he died for my sins will secure me a favourable place in eternity.

I think you are annoyed or repulsed about the idea of exclusive claims because they are arbitrary and intolerant. this is why I am reading Ravi Zacharias's book Jesus among other gods to know why the intolerance and arbitrary ideas are not so bad as words moake them out to be. I think the Christian view of redemption, the human condition, and valuable submssion just undercuts this idea that the Jesus view is repulsive for the reasons mentioned above; this is so for the reason that it speaks clearest on purpose, one of the deepest yearnings of our mind.

[Proinsias]

Thanks wrain, I recently read Ravi's Jesus amongst other Gods on jlay's recommendation. It's an interesting book on Ravi's journey to, and continued faith in, Christianity. Something like Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind might be better to get an understanding not so much of the opposition but another way of looking at things. For the record I don't find Jesus or his views repulsive, I feel he expressed his relationship with the divine within the framework he was accustomed to, which was Judaism.

I'm not of the opinion we are required to to pick a religion and go with it hook, line and sinker anymore than I think people should be required to pick a particular genre of music or type of art and appreciate it at the exclusion of all else.

Apologies if this is going a little off-topic.