What is the nature of truth, and why am I afraid of it? Philosophically the truth can be defined in many diverse ways. This is because truth is crucial to philosophy, all philosophy searches for some truth. This is because truth can be thought of as the goal of all academics and all intellectual thought, as well or at least the majority of thought goes into seeking truth, or trying to grapple with some sort of truth. Maybe this is just my perception, as I am rather intimately intertwined with truth and philosophy, although it seems that this is the truth for others as well. So, if truth is such a central topic of existence, why is it that I am so afraid of it? Well, I started studying philosophy long ago, right in the middle of my teen years, when I was forming many ideas and behaviors the might set the tone for the rest of my life I learned many good things, but also came to terms with many things that were hard to deal with as a teenager, and even as a person in general.
Oftentimes the truth can tell us things we don’t want to know; so the truth can be very scary and it is because of this background with truth, and this understanding of truth as something that can be rather dark to know at times that I fear it. As for what the nature of truth is? James Levine gives us three philosophical understandings of the nature of truth so that even for a moment we can come to a conclusion on what the truth is from.
They are as follows: “Correspondence theory- On this view, a belief is true if it corresponds to the way reality is; and it is false if it does not.” (Slide 10 James Levine) This understanding of truth I mostly agree with, because I think that reality is a good benchmark for determining what is true, and what is not. Although understanding what reality is truly can be hard at times so that is the hole in the idea.
Another understanding of the nature of truth is “Pragmatist theory- failing to have reality ‘in itself’ for our beliefs to correspond to, pragmatists tie truth more closely to our practices of determining truth than do correspondence theorists: what is is for a belief to be true is for it to be valuable, for is to be justified under ‘ideal’ circumstances” (Levine 10)
This aligns less well with my understanding of truth, as it treats truth as something that is more subjective, which I disagree with because I think that to know truth, one has to examine things that are true regardless of circumstance, because I think of those things as more truly true than something that is only true under ideal circumstances. The last example of truth we are given is “Deflationary theory of truth-(a) way to view the theory is that it avoids the excess of each of the other theories: it avoids the assumption regarding the nature of reality that is central to the correspondence theory; and it avoids the conflation between truth and our practices of justification that seems central to pragmatist theory. Insofar as we would like to say that “such and such may be true” even though we will never be in a position to know it is true, the deflationary theory enables us to say that without having to make “dogmatic” assumption regarding the nature of reality central to the correspondence theory.” (Levine 11)
So, while the first understanding of truth may be the one I agree with for the most part, I do think that this is the definition of truth I agree with the most, because I don’t always necessarily know what the truth is. Although at times there are things that are just simply true and untrue. This can be seen in the question of say: god.
I don’t necessarily know if there is a god or not. Although undermining someone’s truth by making dogmatic claims like: “god is fake” or “god is the only real truth" isn't the best solution for this problem. But I do know that trans people are the gender they identify with and anyone who says anything otherwise is simply not at one with the nature of truth, yet... That's why it’s always important to keep an open mind, and respect others beliefs when discussing philosophy with another. Not doing so could result in the discourse that should be a space for growth for both speakers becoming an unintellectual fight of I know this, and you don’t know better than me. A battle of wit and opinion, rather than a philosophical debate.
So that is what the truth is, and why I’m at times scared of it. But in the end truth is often good, and can even be thought of as the greatest good, because for something to be authentic and true is the best that something can be.
Works cited:
Levine, James. What is truth?, 16 February 2021,
https://www.tcd.ie/Philosophy/events/public-lecture-series/HT2021Slides/WhatisTruth.pdf
