2006-07-01 02:15:22 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
The statement disqualifies itself. If the statement is true than some absolute truth must necesssarily exist, because the statement itself can not be absolutely true.
2006-07-01 02:19:40 · update #1
It can't be.
Truth by it's very definition is absolute. If it's not absolute it's not truth.
You can believe whatever you want to believe, of course, but that doesn't make it true.
When I walk down the street in my neighbourhood and look around, it's all flat. That's my experience. That's what I feel. All the so-called 'scientists' are trying to tell me the earth is round. As if. If you want to believe the earth is round, well you go ahead, your earth is round, but since I can't figure out how it can be round when my experience is flat, then my earth is flat.
This is ludicrous! Either the earth is flat or round (truth) regardless of my feelings/experience.
2006-07-01 02:23:07 · answer #1 · answered by Tavita 5 · 6⤊ 1⤋
What I'm wondering is why you think that it might be.
Some of the respondents go the relativistic route--"What is true for one person may be false for someone else." There may be some areas where this actually works. For example, one person may like cabbage and another does not--for Person A, "Cabbage tastes good," is a true statement, but for Person B, "Cabbage tastes good," is a false statement. These are issues of personal likes and dislikes.
But whether or not cabbage tastes good is not really a matter of truth--it is a matter of taste. (The only truth involved is whether cabbage has taste.) When you are asking about matters of truth, it is not at all clear that we can be relativistic about it.
Here is an "absolute truth": 2 + 2 = 4. If someone disagrees, then it must be that they are changing the definitions of the terms that are being used--which is a communication problem, not an error in truth. For everyone, in any culture at any time and in any language, this is a statement of truth and it does not depend on whether the person agrees, whether a person likes it, or whether a person is even aware of this truth. (Presumably a 3-month-old baby does not yet understand this truth--but that does NOT mean that this is not a truth for that child.)
Truth is truth. It is absolute. It may be that we sometimes disagree about matters of truth--but when that happens, at least one person must be wrong.
The difficulty is that we equate "truth" with what a person chooses to believe, or with emotion, or with preferences. The fact is that the statement, "There is no absolute truth" is false. It fails to correctly identify the "absolute truth" which it questions.
2006-07-01 13:55:43 · answer #2 · answered by tdw 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Although what you suggest above can be compared to "This statement is false", the two are not the same. The statement "there is no absolute truth" says nothing about relative truths, so if the statement is taken as a relative truth on the part of the speaker, than it is true in a relative sense. In this way, it represents the speaker's beliefs and deductions about the nature of truth without requiring that everybody everywhere subscribe to the same notion.
Further, if enough people hold this belief, than the statement "there is no absolute truth" can also be made a truth by concensus. In this way, we take the theories of gravity as true, though it's still just a theory.
Using a different tactic, one can treat "there is no absolute truth" as a practical truth, rather than a necessary one. In this way, since it's virtually impossible to prove an absolute truth, we can say that there is practically no absolute truth. Practicality is an important distinction from metaphysics.
2006-07-01 02:45:26 · answer #3 · answered by Fenris 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You have posed the ultimate paradoxical question, but you left off the end of the quote... "and that's the absolute truth". I believe this question is not so much a question as it is a philisophical statement. I believe that it means life is full of paradox and one man's truth may be another man's myth. That we can never be sure that our own perceptions are real. For all we really know we could be hooked up to some machine with some mad scientist pumping "realities" into our brain and none of what we think is real really is. We just don't know. That's why we have faith I suppose, to keep us from going crazy wondering if what we perceive is real or not.
2006-07-01 02:22:29 · answer #4 · answered by rackinfratchin 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The things that we consider as "truths" only come from our understanding of everything, and once in a while, we discover things that prove our "truths" as false. We cannot know "absolute truth" since our understanding of things change and since things themselves change. Looking at the big picture, there is no such thing as "truth." But as for now, our "truths" are true, and since we are living now, that's the only thing that matters in this matter.
Bow.
2006-07-01 03:39:15 · answer #5 · answered by walrus carpenter 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your are stumbling into the realm of the paradox.
Consider the statement:
"nothing is absolute, everything is a matter of degree"
which then mirrors itself:
"degree of matter is everything, absolute is nothing"
Which side of the magic mirror does which version of statement belong with our lives and which one with God?
Paradox is the bane of science and philosophy. It is hated and discarded (as many of your answerers have done).
That's because it is so scary.
2006-07-01 02:43:07 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because there is no absolute truth!
2006-07-01 02:39:22 · answer #7 · answered by Temple 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It can't be true, it in itself is an absolute.
2006-07-01 02:20:23 · answer #8 · answered by Red Yeti 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because what one person might thing is true, another one might not. every one thinks of truth in varying degrees. thts why there isnt any ABSOLUTE truth
2006-07-01 02:17:47 · answer #9 · answered by sacred_90 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
THIS STATEMENT IS WRONG.
GOD IS THE ABSOLUTE AND THE ULTIMATE TRUTH.
2006-07-01 02:19:51 · answer #10 · answered by AMIT 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋