Saturday, May 02, 2015

Some initial thoughts on truth in being.

I left off by beginning to describe a system of reality construction, or an ecology of the real. Truth was a part, perhaps the most important part, of that construction, but was not considered as an end-point, or an end alone. In other words, truths, through their interplay with being and action, are part of what stands as a continual process or cycle. Certain parts of that cycle have what I was calling sympathy with each other.

I suggested this in the context of setting up a particular problem with truth as end: the justified true belief (this context is not, of course, my own idea, but has already been discussed at length by philosophers). The problem was, to summarize it in a way, that truths as end-points are sufficiently elusive that we cannot establish a sufficiently complete way to describe them. So, a Gettier problem shows us that what we thought was an end-point (a particular truth/knowledge) could not always serve as an end-point, because though the criteria of justified true belief were met, the concluding understanding was false in some important way.

To say that truth is not an end point might seem like a purely semantic way out of the problem. In other words, it changes the terms or the meaning of the terms, but offers no greater solution. After all, even if the nature of reality is exactly as I described, how does that really help us? We still will not know at any time what part of the cycle we are in.

What seems apparent to me, however, is that this becomes less of a problem if we continue to factor in all the cycles of reality--in other words, rather than looking for truths as ends, we look about us for the ecology of the real. This will involve a more holistic approach to knowing.

Critical to my view is that there is one truth, of which all truths are a part. There is one being, of which all being is a part, and there is one will or one activity, of which all activity or will is a part.

Furthermore, these unities are perceptible, I believe. To say they are perceptible is in fact highly unusual, however, and in fact is a large part of the problem that selves have within the overall ecology. Because perception necessitates some sort of separation from a unity. However, if the unities are in some sense complete in themselves, then the difficulty is diminished. Because action or will is not the same as truth, but is itself a unity, then by acting we can discover things about truths, and in turn discover things about truth as a unity. True enough, while we act we do not simultaneously perceive, but since acting has an effect on our being and the being of those outside ourselves, the temporary separation of these elements of the ecology allows for perception.

This is obvious from the very processes that we engage in scientifically to, as we think, arrive at truth end-points. By carrying out activities and noting their effect on being, we uncover truths which were previously only inherent in being. However, unless the action is perfectly understood, we cannot arrive at truth as an end. So, no experiment is designed to arrive at all truth. At the same time, and decent experiment is aware of at least some other truth which has been made apparent at a previous time. Well, made somewhat apparent. So, an individual experiment, great or small, begins with some understanding of the ecology of the real, and ends with, hopefully, some greater perception of all truth through the uncovering of some truth.

But this is not limited to scientific exploration. Indeed, virtue within a society has a similar dynamic, except that in this case different elements hold different positions. Truth in being is what is sought, while activity is like the prior experimental results (if this were described in an analogous way to a science). So we say, people have acted in certain ways, and we will use this as a model to explore truth in being. Thus, in a search for virtue, people will look to models of activity, and experiment on being through this process. The extreme, and therefore in this case useful, example of this would be mystics, ascetics, monks, holy people, and the like. By adopting certain activities as a given, they use being as an experimental element. Of course, the end point remains truth--being is experimented with according to models of will or action, and by attaining greater understanding of being, one may attain different understanding of truth--that is, one may experience truth that is borne in one's being.

To experience truth in being is not the same as to uncover truth in principle. At least, this is my thinking, if you like it. And if this is in fact the case, then we have a different case of truth than truth as end-point, which I will assert is a truth, as we might think, in principle. This different case of truth is not subject to the Gettier problem, though it may have other inherent problems of its own. Yet, if this truth in being is still a case of truth uncovered, then the difference is more than semantics.

One might say that this is a lesser case of truth understood, because it is subjective. It isn't yet possible for me to really deal with subjectivity, because I haven't fully explored where such a distinction comes from in the ecology of the real. At the same time, I would suggest that there are sufficiently rigorous ways of examining truth experienced in being that it should stand as a case of truth understood. The most obvious one is to turn again to activity. If truth is uncovered and perceptible in being, then it should furthermore affect will or action. The will or action, even of an individual, is not cut off from other beings in a subjective universe built on the fancy of the person who has experienced it. The effects of this experience are tangible in the outside world through activity. If they were not, they could not truly reside in being. I hate to be circular, but this is because being too is a unity, and by this nature, as the truth in it is uncovered, it cannot stand to cut off some part of itself. This is not the activity of truth within it, though this is a very common misconception (as we often characterize those who have special perception of truths to be on a new, separate path from the ordinary beings--and indeed they may think this is so as well).

So, will we arrive at truth in principle? Can we satisfy the desire for truth as an end, or do we simply need to point ourselves away from such a construction? I don't know, but I believe that we do not do ourselves a service in an attempt to arrive there by constructing ways to circumvent other ways of knowing--more likely that arriving at truths in principle is an activity which requires truth in being and truth in activity or will, and understanding what those cycles look like will be fruitful toward placing truth in principle within the ecology of the real.




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