There is absolute truth

My assumption about burden of proof was backed only by the fact that the affirmative typically has the burden of proof in debating. If you read over the thread you'll see that my main purpose was to show that the sceptic's paradox isn't particularly strong (which it isn't). In this kind of philosophical motion it isn't really so important anyway, so I'd like to begin by making a few refutations, and then explaining my own case. Sceptic's paradoxThe problem with this is that it attempts to assign a classical binary truth value to the statement "all truth is subjective. " The philosopher Saul Kripke has been thinking about this for ages, and has written several very influential papers dealing with a related paradox called the liar paradox, which also asserts a supposedly self-refuting sentence. He argues that there is a distinction between grounded and ungrounded statements. A grounded statement is ultimately based on a fact about the world. In our case, the statement "all truth is subjective" is not premised on any worldly facts and is thus considered ungrounded. Kripke reasons that ungrounded statements do not have a truth value - they are not true, nor are they false. The basis for this observation is some fairly complex philosophy, but it's also quite intuitive - an idea does not become true or untrue until it finds some basis in the real world (and if my opponent disagrees, then this is only further proof that the whole concept of "truth" is subjective). But of course you can't test whether all truth is subjective or absolute, because if all truth WAS subjective then our tests would be subjective too, and thus generally meaningless. (See . http://www.iep.utm.edu... for more detail about Kripke's theory). ExistenceIf everything about an object is dog-like, we say it is a dog. Similarly, if everything about the universe is subjective, we say it is subjective. The fact that it "is" does not make it absolute. It is possible for something to be 100% subjective (a favorite color, for instance, depends entirely on the context of the observer) and thus it is possible for something to "be", and yet not "be absolute". The universe, therefore, can exist subjectively without the universe being absolute. Since our very notion of existence is derived from our subjective universe, it follows that the existence of the universe is subjective also. This is very important - while it is tempting to think of grounded statements as being absolutely true, that would imply that the basis for our grounding is absolute, when in fact it might not be because existence itself could be subjective. Since we do not know this and cannot test it, that idea is neither true nor false. Law of non-contradictionThe law of non-contradiction is an ungrounded statement. It does not have a truth value. It is neither true nor false. So if we assume that there is such a magical thing as "the truth" floating out there somewhere, yes, the law of non-contradiction would be an absolute. However, the law of non-contradiction does not imply the existence of truth. My opponent is presupposing absolute truth, and using it to "prove" absolutes exist. That's circular logic. A similar approach needs to be taken with regard to Kripke's theory. I call it a theory because it is itself an ungrounded series of statements, and thus not true or false. I do not presume that the theory is true - I presume that it might be true. To summarise this concept: It might be true that my opponent's arguments might not be true or false, and since we cannot prove or disprove this hypothesis (that is, they are "ungrounded"), my opponent's arguments are neither true nor false. My argumentLet us begin by imagining how one might know something to be absolutely true. The obvious answer is by knowing that every other hypothesis is absolutely not true. That a ball is green, for instance, might be absolutely tested by checking whether the ball is any other color. Of course, to know that the test is absolutely true, you'll have to test the test. So in this example, if we presume you are testing the color of the ball by looking at it carefully, you might test your eyes to see that they are working properly. Then you test the eye-test. You'll find that after many iterations of this, you'll come to something you just assume to be true. Usually this will be a "logical truth", such as the law of non-contradiction pro mentioned earlier, or perhaps a mathematical truth, such as 2+2=4, or more often than not, a moral or aesthetical truth. Of course, moral truths etc cannot be shown to be true, because you cannot check that the alternative hypothesis is absolutely not true (Rene Descartes proved this, somewhere around the fifth meditation if I remember correctly). Take the moral truth "It is undesirable to spit at your friends" as an example. To prove this is absolutely true, you'd first need to disprove the notion that it is not undesirable to spit at your friends. Since you do not know the future, you cannot know with a certainty whether this is desirable or not. Therefore you cannot accept it as an absolute truth. Maths and logic, which is really the foundation of maths, is still more interesting. One might be tempted, as pro did with his law of non-contradiction analysis, to attempt to logically prove that a logical law is true. The problem with arguing for logic logically is that it is arguing in a circle - you assume the very thing you are trying to prove in the process you use to reach your conclusion. That isn't logically valid, and thus cannot be accepted as a justification for absolute truth. The same applies to mathematics. You cannot prove maths mathematically, and if you try to prove it with logic, you must first prove that logic is absolutely true. So why can't you prove logic is absolutely true, aside from the consideration that any such proof is illogical by necessity. Well, because any illogical attempt does not refute the alternative, which is the logical thing to do. And since it does not refute the alternative, it does not show that logic is absolutely true. It follows from this that one cannot know whether something is absolutely true. Therefore, it is impossible for my opponent to meet their burden of proof. One final note about this argument. It can also be run in reverse - just replace absolute with subjective to prove that nothing can be known to be subjectively true. The whole point of that is to show that the counter-argument to the skeptic's paradox can literally be applied to anything. Granted, some stuff is grounded - like the color of the beach ball is grounded in the perception of our eyes. However ultimately, since these ideas are based on assumptions we cannot prove or disprove, we have to admit there is ALWAYS a possibility that we might be wrong, and therefore there is no absolute truth. I look forward to my opponent's responses next round!