Essay/Term paper: The only truth existing

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy

The Only Truth Existing


"We are, then, faced with a quite simple alternative: Either we deny that there
is here anything that can be called truth - a choice that would make us deny
what we experience most profoundly as our own being; or we must look beyond the
realm of our "natural" experience for a validation of our certainty."

A famous philosopher, Rene Descartes, once stated, "I am, [therefore] I exist."
This statement holds the only truth found for certain in our "natural"
experience that, as conscious beings, we exist. Whether we are our own
creators, a creation, or the object of evolution, just as long as we believe
that we think, we are proved to exist. Thinking about our thoughts is an
automatic validation of our self-consciousness. Descartes claims, "But
certainly I should exist, if I were to persuade my self of something." And so,
I should conclude that our existence is a truth, and may be the only truth, that
we should find its certainty.

From the "natural" experiences of our being, we hold beliefs that we find are
our personal truths. From these experiences, we have learned to understand life
with reason and logic; we have established our idea of reality; and we believe
that true perceptions are what we sense and see. But it is our sense of reason
and logic, our idea of reality, and our perceptions, that may likely to be very
wrong. Subjectiveness, or personal belief, is almost always, liable for self-
contradiction. Besides the established truth that we exist, there are no other
truths that are certain, for the fact that subjective truth may be easily
refuted.

Every person possesses his or her own truth that may be contradicting to another
person's belief. A truth, or one that is true for all, cannot by achieved
because of the constant motion of circumstances of who said it, to whom, when,
where, why, and how it was said. What one person may believe a dog is a man's
best friend, another may believe that a dogs is a man's worse enemy. What one
may believe is a pencil, to another is not a pencil, but a hair pin. Where one
may believe that a bottle is an instrument, one may believe is a toy, where
another may believe is a beverage container. Where one will understand the
moving vehicle "car," one might understand "car" as a tree. Our perception of
what is true depends on our own experiences, and how something becomes true for
us. Many circumstances are necessary to derive at one's truth, whether it is an
idea, object, or language. All perception, besides the perception of existence,
is uncertain of being true for all individuals.

Every thought, besides the idea that we think, has the possibility that it may
be proven wrong. The author of the article, Knowledge Regained, Norman Malcolm,
states that, "any empirical proposition whatever could be refuted by future
experience - that is, it could turn out to be false." An example could be the
early idea of the earth being flat and not the current perception of the earth
being round. History tells us that at one time, the perception of the earth was
thought to be flat. This notion was an established truth to many because of the
sight and sense that people perceived about the earth's crust. At one point, to
accept the newer truth that the earth is round, meant that, what one believed
was true, really wasn't. And, what if, at some point in the future, we were
told by a better educated group of observers that the earth is not round, but a
new shape we've never even perceived before? Would we agree to the scientists'
observation that they have, themselves, agreed to this more accurate shape of
the earth?. We would probably agree to change our knowledge of truth to the
observations of experts. This is an example that, what we may have once
believed to be the absolute truth, may be proven wrong at any time. And what we
actually know, may not be the truth after all.

Truth may also be refuted through the identified appearance or sense of an
object. A great modern philosopher, Bertrand Russell's, idea of appearance and
reality explains that perception of a table and its distribution of colors,
shape, and sense, vary with each point of view. Commenting on the distribution
of color, Russell states that, "It follows that if several people are looking at
the table at the same moment, no two of them will see exactly the same
distribution of colours, because no two can see it from exactly the same point
of view, and any change in the point of view makes some change in the way the
light is reflected." What one person sees the table as green, one might see as
red at another viewpoint. And what might seem to have color is actually
colorless in the dark. What one might perceive as being rectangle, may look
oval in another view. What may sense the table to be hard by a touch of the
fingertips, may be soft by the touch of the cheek. Determining hardness of the
table depends on pressure applied and judge of the sensation. No assumptions
can be absolutely true because there is no determining factor in choosing the
right angle to look at or sense the table. There are no determining factors in
which angle or measurement is better to judge than the other in sense of color,
shape, and feel of an object. Every object is determined self-contradicting
which can be refuted by questioning its perception and even the existence for
its use.

Our experiences from our "natural" existence gives us a bias of all that is true,
which is self-contradicting. The ideas and objects that we encounter are
determined true by personal evaluation in the relationships of those ideas and
objects in connection with our being. The relationship of the ideas and objects
in connection with another person's life may be contradicting to my own beliefs.
"I am, [therefore] I exist," may be the only statement with any validity of our
certainty. We cannot test the validity of our reality, reason, logic, and
perception in relation to all individuals, but we can test to the validity of
our existence by thinking, therefore, being.