Comments on: Four Types of ‘Truth’

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 21:03:46 +0000

Actually…this entire theory of “4 truths” could simply be placed under “personal” truth for Andrew Bernardin and may only apply to him and him alone. The 4 truths speculation does not cite any evidences or support that the 4 truths should/must be accepted as “universal”, which, they are not. Dr. Kenneth Hochstetter has written an article that will help gain an understanding of what “truth” is in its simplist form. Hochstetter is a philosopher, but he attempts to break it down into the smallest representation possible.
I’ve posted this on my website but I’m not sure if links are permissable in these posts or not, here it is:

http://truthforsaints.com/what_is_truth/what_is_truth.html

It might be worth a read to gain a little “wider perspective” as Andrew put it in this article.

cheers
Andrew

By: Suzana

Suzana — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:00:14 +0000

Personal truth seems very much like an opinion.

By: William

William — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:10:45 +0000

What is relative truth and objective truth in great detail?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:43:48 +0000

Keyrlis -
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. Now my neuronal gears are spinning. I think I’ll print your response and put it on my bedside table. I seem to do my best thinking just prior to sleep. Perhaps because my daytime obligations are done, the light is low, and my brain is on the verge of wandering . . . .

By: Keyrlis

Keyrlis — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:10:23 +0000

Love this website. Great exercises in thought. I look at your hierarchy of truths, and have a couple of points, though in honesty, I can’t argue the validity of any of them because of #1. It allows you to hold onto your argument as a fact in spite of all evidence to the contrary. The idea of “personal truths” is more of a philosophical concept than a scientific one, and allows for opinions to have the same value as facts, which (from a purely scientific point of view) is absolute folly. “Chocolate is the best flavor” may be a truth to a certain person, or even a group of people. But the definition of a scientific fact is something that can be observed and confirmed by repetition, and so is held to be true, while no truth is final.
All this points to these “truths”:
1. Every truth is relative to the context of the situation in which it is stated.
2. Every truth can be made false by altering the situation.
3. Any statement can be made true in the proper situation.

This is somewhat like the uncertainty principal in that there is no way to completely define and measure every possible situation in which a truth may find itself. Even on as grand a scale as the universe, if we could know every possible permutation of a cause/effect event, we can not know if there is a possibility that the same cause would not have a different effect in a Universe unlike our own, or in a different state of existence.

But just to clarify my “personal truth”, I believe 1-3 are opinions based on normal human thought processes and interactions, while #4 is the only one that addresses truth on a scientific basis, but requires an addendum that “there are other worlds than these.”
Thanks for the brain workout this morning. I’ll be back.

By: asdf

asdf — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 22:36:10 +0000

I think “universal truth” needs to be fine grained some more.

You need to distinguish between mathematics, the laws of physics for our universe, and the laws of physics for other universes.

And axioms in mathematics/logic aren’t universal to other possible axiomatizations of mathematics/logic either. Take the Banach-Tarski paradox for example. Some people philosophically consider non-constructive mathematics to be nonsense and others don’t see what the big deal is.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:01:06 +0000

Brad,
Interesting thoughts.
Couldn’t a human truth be “objective” in that any person or intelligent life-form measuring/observing some human phenomenon could come to the same conclusion (i.e., cultural universals no doubt reflect “human nature” or innate psychological properties/dispositions)?
Analytic and synthetic truths . . . . I’ve got to look into that. You’ve got me thinking. (Thanks for that.)
Of course the term “truth” itself can be problematic. At least for me it can.

By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 11:46:12 +0000

I would classify (1), (2), and (3) under the heading of “subjective.” Your (4) would fall under “objective.”

But under objective truths I would further differentiate between analytic and synthetic truths. (Truths of pure reason versus truth of objective reality.)

By: david bowman

david bowman — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 05:34:07 +0000

Wow, that’s great thinking. Very insightful. You can think of it as a diagram with four concentric circles, with personal truth at the center and universal truth on the outside. Interesting…