The immutability of truth... Is it true?

Can we speak of a single truth, when understanding comes from intangibility?...

What is the truth and how do we deal with it? Is there a truth that overlaps the questions or is this the result of our perceptions of the world, which may vary subjectively? Can time modify or bring new truths?

The theme is not exhausted in the writing of a few lines, as it has been a subject that has been discussed for centuries and that still persists, hovering over our times. Thus, the objective of this text is to raise questions and provide subsidies for the understanding, debates and objections to the various theories and concepts about truth.

When we return to ancient Greece, the mythical narrations were the means – through cosmogony – of search to explain the events that encompassed reality, as well as the materialization of the unknown. With the emergence of Philosophy, the mythical did not cease to exist, however, the diligence for knowledge and truth gained a cosmological rational outline.

Some events sheltered by our history took paths contrary to those previously considered as true. Geocentrism was a truth for a long time — supported by the Catholic Church — until Nicolaus Copernicus presented Heliocentrism, a theory that was previously considered as well; example that science never establishes an absolute truth.

Scientific discoveries are the beginning and not the end of the search for truth. In this way, conclusions proclaimed by science can and should be verified, forming a solid basis for robust arguments and practical decision-making.

When referring to the Middle Ages, we see Augustine believe in genetic evil as originating from Adam's transgression, while Pelagius proposed that evil came from society, which is structural and socially transmitted by the bad example of our human predecessors. Although both agreed with the supposed transmissibility of the disease, this truth opened up areas for disagreement about the way in which the illness was perpetuated over the years.

Still in the Middle Ages, when speaking of universals, Duns Scotus discussed the existence of the general over the individual, thus defending realism. Ockham, on the other hand, was a supporter of nominalism, while proclaiming the empirical basis of intuitive and abstract knowledge, focusing on the issue of singularity. We can infer that the continuous and necessary pursuit of knowledge can lead to truths contained in different perceptions, even when addressing the same topic.

Monotheistic belief illustrates the quarrel very well. The interpretation of the word of God by the many religions seem to differ in several aspects, each one with its arguments, before the Same and His word. Who would have the alleged truth? Can we speak of a single truth, when understanding comes from intangibility? And what about atheists? Can the non-existence of God be considered a belief, since it cannot be proved rationally either? The existence of distinct beliefs intends to bring light to an absolute truth – non-existent, in this case – because it is dependent on those same convictions.

Skeptics said that absolute truth (if it exists) cannot be accessed. The fact is that, even if there is no complete truth, it does not mean that there are not other types of truth, such as contextual ones.

According to Nietzsche, we can access the metaphors of things, but never their essences, because “the word is the reproduction of the nervous stimulus through sounds”.

In this way, if there is a path between the real thing that we see or touch, passing through our mind before being uttered or said, it is because, inevitably, there will be a mediation carried out by our intellect; an implicit subjectivity between what we see and what we declare, making assertions never an exact expression of reality, denoting an infinity of possibilities between aletheia (truth) and doxa (opinion).

Confused? I admit that yes, but questioning is part of the search for and improvement of knowledge. The point is that the truth does not address things, as these exist or not. Truth is a predicate that applies to statements.

Returning to the picture of the pipe, we can understand that the name is a convention. The image brings us a reference, but not the pipe itself. It is not the object, but a representation of it. So it can happen with what we call truth. Even if there is an absolute truth, our limitation prevents us from having access to it, because, as mentioned above by Nietzsche, we need a mental construction of what we observe to later emit the sounds that externalize our perceptions. It is the metaphorization of real things in human intellection.

In this way, our words do not truly describe things, but our relationships with these things, making knowledge something anthropocentric.

However, such conventions are important from a perspective of coexistence and the cultural factor inserted in them. Believing in something that the majority determines as a principle, according to Nietzsche, brings the essence of truth through what is considered moral. For this reason, a certain belief can gain the status of truth according to the intellectual notoriety of the one who professes an affirmation, as well as the number of people that the speaker manages to gather around him. Therefore, many relate the truth to ethics and morality. ''I know something is true because I believe it to be true''.

Regardless of what makes the most sense to us, both absolute and relative truth can bring benefits during our earthly stay.

Believing in absolute truth as something on the horizon, even if unattainable, brings the necessary humility for the constant search for a rational explanation of our reality. In this way, we will be attentive to the biased forks of the paths that lead us, as imperfect as we are, to the temptations of misconduct.

However, when we believe it is possible to justify all our procedures through relativism, we endorse the speech of Protagoras, who said that man is the measure of all things. In this way, if the truth is always relative, there will not be, therefore, the error, but the superimposition of one rhetoric to another. This fact – already in antiquity – was the target of criticism made to the sophists by Socrates.

Obviously, as already said, the strands and philosophical discussions on the subject do not end here. It is necessary to sharpen the reasoning and curiosity, inserting the reader in the debate, as several conceptions frame the theme, such as account holder, pragmatist, correspondent theories, among others. By the way, as a provocation, the question goes: if we have several theories about a certain topic, it is because we also have objections to these theories.

If there is a refutation of something, can we consider it to be true and, more than that, absolutely true?

Especially in this century of post-truths, it is not about relativizing all concepts, but, through metaphors constructed by the intellect (through contact with the world), creating, discovering and improving existing and well-founded concepts, transforming our lives and benefiting humanity. .

In this eternal learning, seeing the relativism of truth as a way of exercising our tolerance – due to the disparity in behavior – can be useful, as well as absolutizing the truth underpins the eternal pursuit of human beings for irrefutable knowledge, referring meaning to their lives, to in order that the endless search in the midst of finite existence will be worthwhile.

Marcelo Kassab.

Writer and Dental Surgeon.