What’s The Truth
by S.P. Kachru
The term ’truth’ in common parlance relates to the world as it
appears to us. It applies
specifically to certain objects or
circumstances. It always relates to the form
and not the content of a statement.
We may well sample the view that the
purely logical criterion of truth, namely, the
agreement of knowledge with the general
and formal laws of the understanding and
reason, is a sine qua non, and is therefore,
the negative condition of all truth. But
further than this, logic cannot go. It has no
touchstone for the discovery of such error
as concerns not the form but the content.
Thus, although we may read all manner
of statement in Upanishads, their variety is
an open question and, in the last analysis, a
question of belief. To put it more
philosophically, no truth is more certain or
independent of others and less in need of
proof than this, namely that everything that
exists for knowledge and hence the whole
of this world, is only object in relation to
the subject. Everything that in any way
belongs and can belong to the world is
inevitably associated with the being conditioned
by the subject and exists only
for the subject.
No matter how sincerely witnesses
swear in court that they will tell the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
their evidence is at best what they believe
to be true, an imperfect substitute for ‘the truth’. Today, post modern pragmatism offers
another truth substitute called contingent
truth i.e., the substitution of solidarity for
truth. What is normally accepted as truth
depends on the society in
which one lives and on
the influences which it
exerts. The members of
a society should
therefore, for the sake of
orderly co-existence,
reach agreement on what is to be
considered true. The attitude to truth has
been fiercely criticised, particularly by
religious philosophers, some fearing that
it may destroy the basis for any absolute
truth or morality.
Are we therefore forced to make do
with substitute truths or must we put our
faith in believed truths ? Neither !
Completely unmoved by the above
arguments, many of us are obviously
pressing on with the search for absolute
truth. And we are perfectly justified in these
attempts as the statement "there is no
truth" is actually paradoxical. For if there is
no truth, the statement cannot be true.
Source: Milchar
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