A few thoughts about truth

by Roger Kimball
Posted: Jan 25, 2005 06:55 AM
In a famous passage of The Confessions, St. Augustine asks "What, then, is time?
I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked
what it is and try to explain, I am baffled." It is hard to read that passage wi
thout experiencing a shock of recognition. There is a basic sense in which, like
St. Augustine, we all know what time is. As Einstein once observed, time is "wh
at the clock measures." Any yet it is impossible not to feel that that answer, t
hough correct, is somehow insufficient to the awesome reality of time--assuming,
that is, that time is or has a reality and is not, as some philosophers have in
sisted, an illusion we contribute to make experience comprehensible.
When Plato described time as "the moving image of eternity," his formulation was
more poetic than Einsteins, but not necessarily more satisfactory. The fact is t
hat time, like many basic concepts, names an idea we are perfectly familiar with
but that we may not be able to explain. Consider the concept of truth. There is
an important sense in which we all know what truth is. We just couldnt get along
in the world if we didnt. But being able to apply a concept in daily life does n
ot necessarily mean we can define it. Or that we really understand it.
Medieval philosophers defined truth as "adaequatio intellectus et rei": a "corre
spondence between thought and thing." That sounds impressive, especially in Lati
n, and it has a certain intuitive appeal. When we utter a true proposition--"2 +
2 = 4," say, or "Snow is white"--we can see that there is a correspondence betw
een our judgment and the state of affairs it names. But what, exactly, is the na
ture of that "correspondence"?
It takes only a moments thought to realize that defining truth as a "corresponden
ce between thought and thing" is like Einsteins sly definition of time as that wh
ich the clock measures. It may be correct, but it somehow just doesnt go far enou
gh. How much farther is it possible to go?
Anyone who takes a look at the history of philosophy will find that a disturbing
question. A lot of papyrus has been darkened trying to answer that question. Ho
w much illumination has all that carefully placed ink produced?
Well, it has produced a number of useful distinctions. One of the things that ma
kes formulating a satisfactory definition of truth so hard is that we use the wo
rd in so many different senses.
The 17th-century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz distinguished usefully between "t
ruths of reason" and "truths of fact." This distinction underscores the differen
ce between contingent matters of fact--things that simply happen to be one way o
r another, e.g., "The sun is shining"--and things that are necessarily true, e.g
., "all bachelors are unmarried" or "X cannot be both true and not true at the s
ame time and in the same respect."
It is easy to see the difference between straightforward empirical truths and lo
gical truths summed up in things like the principal of non-contradiction. But ho
w much closer does that bring us to an understanding of truth? Part of the probl
em is that the question of truth always carries with it an implicit challenge: h
ow do you know?
The question of truth is like the license plates in the state of Missouri, which
brag about being the "Show me state." How can you justify your judgment if some
one asks you? There have been plenty of answers to this question. But the multip
licity of answers shows that we are dealing with a multiplicity of questions. Pi
cking the correct strategy depends on the kind of truth claim being advanced.
The more general answers to the question "What is truth?" tend to be elegant--an
d pretty empty. "Truth," the philosopher Schopenhauer said in one typical formul
ation, "is the reference of a judgment to something outside that stands as its g
round." Well, thanks.
It seems ungrateful to complain. After all, Schopenhauer was quite accurate. And
in his defense, he goes on to say a lot of interesting things about different w
ays that proposition might be "populated." And yet, and yet . . .
In the Gospel of St. John, we read that "You shall know the truth, and the truth
shall set you free." However we decide to understand that, it is clearly a very
different sort of thing from the kind of truth involved in the statement "Snow
is white" or "2 + 2 = 4." Presumably, the strategies involved in deciding whethe
r it is true are very different as well.
Or consider the 19th-century Danish philosopher Kierkegaard. Rebelling against t
he pretensions of German idealism and its claim to have achieved "Absolute Knowl
edge," Kierkegaard declared that "truth is subjectivity." Inured to believing th
at, whatever truth is, it has something to do with getting beyond our subjective
point of view, most of us will agree that Kierkegaards polemic at least has the
virtue of novelty.
But even if subjectivity is truth, the problem of justification, of knowing what
to answer when some asks you to explain, remains as pressing as it ever was. Th
e history of speculation about truth has prominently included what we might call
a school of impatience that, instead of trying to solve the problem, has endeav
ored to dismiss it.
All the varieties of scepticism belong to the school of impatience, as do pragma
tists like the American psychologist/philosopher William James who defined truth
as "what works." (The 20th-century Australian philosopher David Stove spoke in
this context of "the American philosophical tradition of self-indulgence, or to
give it its usual name, pragmatism.") The school of impatience tends to flourish
in cynical ages, and so it is not surprising that it is immensely popular in ou
r own age.
Today, many educated people are deeply impressed by thinkers like Friedrich Niet
zsche, who defined truth as "a moveable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthr
opomorphisms," and concluded that to tell the truth was merely "to lie according
to a well-established convention."
It is pretty easy to show that Nietzsches brash formulation is incoherent. One ca
nnot, after all, make sense of a "lie" without presupposing a standard of truthf
ulness in the light of which a lie can be recognized as a lie. But Nietzsches fun
damental appeal, I believe, is emotional, not intellectual. People are impressed
less by Nietzsches arguments than by his daring adversarial stance.
There is something discomfiting about confronting basic questions to which one h
as no, or only inadequate, answers. Faced with the question "What is truth?" it
is much easier to behave as Pontius Pilate did and just wash ones hands.
Easier, but not finally more satisfying. The school of impatience has the advant
age of distracting us from questions we may not be able to answer. But it has th
e great disadvantage of distracting us from questions that continue to matter, w
hether or not we can answer them.