Absolute Truth Exists

Before I begin my arguments, I would like to clarify definitions and goals. As confirmed in the comments section, Pro is using absolute truth synonymously with objective statements as described in his third argument, and throughout his R1 he uses the ‘statement’ construction in his description of truth. Pro needs to show there is such a thing as an “objective truth” which is always true regardless of subjective considerations. I need to show either that it does not exist, or that Pro has not shown it to exist. There is no such thing as “objective truth” using this definition, and I will demonstrate this with two independent arguments. First I will argue for inherent and unavoidable subjectivity, and second for the limitations of perceptions as described by the philosophy of fallibilism. As I will not be making the statement “there is no truth” argument one does not apply. Arguments two and three will be addressed. Subjectivity: Pro says, “An objective statement is one that is true regardless of who believes it. … Water is H2O regardless of who believes it. This is an objective truth. ” However, this can easily be shown to be false. Leaving aside the formatting of “2”, consider a community of people using a different periodic table of elements where H corresponds to Helium rather than Hydrogen. For this community, water is not H2O. Pro’s example is proven false and “Water is H2O” is not an objective truth, as it would not be accurate if this community believed it. This same argument applies to his argument two, and is more compelling because the subjectivity is not hypothetical. Pro argues that “Everyone dies, it's just a natural process of living beings. ” However, in many cultures, such as Teutonic Tribes (1) or ancient Egypt (2), there was no word for death. It would not be truthful to say that “everyone dies” there, because “dies” would have no meaning. It would be meaningless rather than truthful. Taking that example a step further, imagine a culture that shares Dr. McCoy’s view in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, “He's not really dead. As long as we remember him. ” Saying that “everyone dies” is a false statement in that context. The sample principle applies to all examples. All truth statements are by necessity composed of some form of language. All language, even mathematics, is a socially constructed set of subjective symbolic meanings. A statement cannot be true regardless of who believes it. Such statements are always placed within the subjective semantic structure of the person or group making the statement and thus it is trivial to create a hypothetical or find a culture where a different viewpoint would consider the statement false or meaningless. Fallibilism: Even if it were possible to create a statement that somehow escaped its inherent subjective status, it’s possible to definitive know if that statement is true or false. This is the thesis of Fallibilism (4), that no matter how convincing our evidence or solid our logic seems, there is always the possibility that we are wrong. This means that Pro cannot know that an absolute truth exists because no one has ever known a fact that is 100% certain to be true. As Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of Aix-Marseille put it, “certainty is not only something of no use, but is in fact damaging. (5)” The only possible exceptions are tautological statements which rely exclusively on the subjective language in which they exist. For examples, if we were to use the convention that the second number in an equation is always one greater than depicted, 2 +2 = 4 is no longer a correct statement. Even in these cases, while it is certainly unlikely that usual convention would be used, it is not absolutely unlikely and Pro can never be sure it isn’t the case. Conclusion: Pro has tied absolute truth to objective statements, and in doing so, ensured that he will never find it. Statements are always subjective. Even if he found a way around that, he cannot show that absolute truth exists because there is always the possibility of error and thus he is left with an unsupportable hypothesis. (1) . http://tinyurl.com... (2) . http://tinyurl.com...; Page 93 (3) . http://tinyurl.com... (4) . http://tinyurl.com... (5) . http://tinyurl.com...