Paradox about Truth/Knowledge

 

There is a paradox about truth and knowledge that is difficult to articulate. Knowledge is true belief - so the platitude - but as the history of epistemology has shown that we can arrive at definitive truths only in narrow areas (analytic and synthetic, for example). This seems to cut us off from wisdom. And even these narrow areas depend on metaphysical assumptions that must be assumed to know or say anything. And the fact that knowledge – what people believe justified as true – is often revised, tentative. It seems only an epistemic God has the truth in the end.

In other words: on the one hand, we define knowledge (traditionally) as justified true belief. On the other hand, our access to reality is limited, fallible, and perspectival in all but the narrowest areas (formal logic, mathematics, some carefully controlled empirical observations). Even those "narrow" domains rely on metaphysical assumptions (about being, causality, identity, etc.) that themselves are not demonstrably certain within those systems. Thus, if knowledge must be true belief (certainty), then human beings seem almost never to have full knowledge, only partial, tentative, revisable graspings. In the extreme, only a mind like God's – omniscient, seeing reality directly and completely – would truly "possess" knowledge in the full, pure sense.

  In short, knowledge demands truth but we live mostly in the shadowlands of partial, fallible insight. If knowledge requires perfect truth, then only God knows; humans can only seek, believe, and hope. Therefore, the paradox is: 1) We aspire to know, but we are constitutionally incapable of possessing more than a fragile, partial, historically contingent approximation of the truth. 2) Knowledge, as an ideal, points beyond human powers, even though it structures the mind. Still, there are important things I am confident I know and understand – this paradox included.

. . .

It is impossible to escape a kind of relativism here. I see x as y, I understand x as y –  I meaning that is as far as I can see or understand. Others may have a more comprehensive understanding or see it from a very different perspective. So in a sense our understanding is relative to who we are (which implies contingency, historicity, etc.). But still our understanding is measured by die Sache selbst, reality, which cannot logically be reduced to our partial and fallible understandings. Does that make sense? Again, the danger is to leap to a democratic skepticism.

    Another attempt to say the same thing. Our understanding is inevitably partial, historical, contingent, shaped by who we are, when we live, and what capacities and limitations we have. In that sense, understanding is "relative" to the knower. But I want to say, not in a nihilistic or purely subjective way. The reality we are trying to understand – die Sache selbst, the thing itself, the things conceived, described, etc. – exists independently of our understanding, sets the standard for better or worse understanding, and judges our attempts, even if we can never capture it fully. Therefore, understanding is relative in practice (to us), but measured in principle (by reality).

     I wish I could build guardrails up again two errors:

·        Arrogant absolutism ("I see it, therefore it is so")

·        Democratic skepticism ("No one sees everything, therefore there is no truth")

The right stance is humble realism: we understand partially, we strive faithfully, and reality itself corrects and deepens our understanding over time. So, outside a narrow domain, there is a kind of unavoidable relativity in our understanding but this does not mean reality itself is relative, nor does it mean all opinions are equally valid.

     What justifies me in saying this? We know that some understandings are better than others because reality itself pushes back against our mistakes. When our understanding is wrong, reality shows it: our predictions fail, our actions have bad consequences, and our explanations break down when tested. In this way, reality itself teaches us that not all understandings are equal. We also see that better understandings make more sense of more things. A better understanding brings facts together into a clearer, more connected whole. It explains more, holds up under questioning, and accounts for more parts of reality. A worse understanding, by contrast, falls apart, becomes inconsistent, or cannot explain important facts. In practice, better understanding leads to better outcomes.

      In everyday life, science, and ethics, better understanding makes it possible for people to act wisely, predict more accurately, and live better lives. If all understandings were equally good, medicine would fail, engineering would collapse, and friendship and justice would not be possible. Looking at history, we also see that over time, our kind has kept and built upon ideas that work, ideas that continue to make sense of reality. Other ideas, even if popular for a time, have been abandoned because they did not stand the test of experience. We can also see the point simply in conversation and learning. When we reason honestly with others, we experience that some explanations are clearer, more persuasive, and bring deeper understanding while others confuse us, contradict themselves, or fall apart when questioned (e.g., Socrates' questioning of Thrasymachus in the Republic). Thus reality, coherence, practical fruitfulness, and long human experience all show that some understandings are better than others. Not because we humans have perfect access to truth but because even with our limits, reality is more faithful and stable than our opinions or errors.