Discussion about 'objective truth', 'subjective truth' and related issues run into difficulties that have led some to propose a range of different kinds of truths. This is a response that serves neither the task of knowing truth nor how to work with it; the article suggests that we refrain from claiming to know truth, and focus on discussing meaningfully how we should arrange our world.

On different types of truth

Discussions here and elsewhere about objectivity, subjectivity and truth have led to the proposal of a whole slew of types of truth, having ol’ Occam rotating in his grave. There has been the suggestion to use different names, but nobody took that one up -- the talk about truth, and how we must continue our search for it, and how it will set us free, seems to be too comfortable and engrained to give up. So it seems to be necessary to backtrack.

Let’s look at some statements:

1. There is a reality ‘out there’
2. I think there is a reality out there
3. It is true that there is a reality out there
4. It is true that I think there is a reality

Trying to speak truthfully, to the best of my ability, I claim that these statements are true . The question is: How can I be sure? Several answers are proposed: for example:
a) It’s true if you can observe, measure, and describe it, and other can as well, arriving at the same description.
b) It’s true when you are totally convinced that thinking and saying otherwise would be lying, that it would be crazy and nonsensical to say otherwise.
c) It’s true if the Bible (the Quoran, the Constitution, Darwin, Marx, ... fill in your preferred authority) says so.

These suggestions have led to different ‘isms’ in the understanding of truth.
With (a), it has led to the scientific attitude, to the recommendation to seek ‘objective’ knowledge (the kind we can observe and measure...) -- but also to a kind of consensus definition (if most scientists agree...) Another, more sophisticated answer, suggested by Popper, was based on his insight that the ‘scientific’ argument “If my hypothesis H is true , then evidence E will follow and should be observed; I observe E, therefore H is true ” is a logically inconclusive one -- not ‘valid’; it can’t be trusted. B y comparison, the argument “If H is true then E must be true ; I observe that E is not true ; therefore H is not true ” is conclusive and valid. So he argued that we shouldn’t ever talk about our hypotheses and theories as ‘true ’, only ‘corroborated’ at best (by the evidence we can see in support of it) but ‘refuted’ (falsified) by contradicting evidence. This admonition to make more modest claims has largely fallen on deaf ears, as far as I can see.
All these answers are about the ‘reality’ out there, and about what and how we can know anything about it. (This includes the part of reality that is me.)

The answer (b) is an interesting one. At first glance, the objective scientist would be inclined to reject it out of hand as ‘subjective’. This is because such feelings of certainty can neither be measured nor observed by anyone else, and therefore neither verified nor falsified; nor does there seem to be much of a possibility for relying on consensus about them: We see too many instances of bitter disagreement even among so-called scientists.

But it turns out that the very ‘first concepts’ as well as the basic reasoning rules we use in making obervations, measurements, descriptions, and inferences about them, are statements of the kind Euclid called ‘axioms’ -- statements so obviously true that they do not need any further explanation or justification: “intuitively accepted as true ”. So the whole edifice of objective scientific truths rests on such intuitive foundations.

This is causing considerable problems, especially if people disagree -- as they can be seen to do -- about just about anything. If my intuition tells me ‘A’ is true , and your intuition tells you it isn’t: what to believe? Which one is “The Truth”?

Resorting to answer (c) has been adopted eagerly by many as a convenient and therefore popular escape tactic. In the long run, it is acknowledged to be a shaky one, since the various authority sources of truth are seen to not only contradict each other, but every once in a while to appear to be hopelessly refuted by observable evidence.

So the real argument seems to be between (a) and (b). Now it might be an acceptable way out, as well as preserving the peace, if we just adopted (b) and let everybody believe whatever they want to believe, and just avoid the more violent arguments. Let everybody have their own ‘truths’. It isn’t necessary to kill everybody who doesn’t believe in ‘My truth’ if they will in turn let me believe in it; much as solution (c) has led humanity into trying to solve the problem that way.

The trouble is, there are some other statements and claims, to which we equally apply the label ‘truth’. Those are statements about what we ought to do. The first thing we should consider about these is that ought statements are not claims about reality at all, as it ‘is’: they relate to things that are not true now but perhaps will be at some future time. Or should be. So why do we call them ‘truths’? They seem to be a quite different kind of claim than the statements about everyday reality. And the seekers of objective truth bolstered by observation and measurement and logic have nothing to say about these, since there is nothing to observe or measure about them yet? So should we try to find a different name for these kinds of claims, so as to avoid confusion? And simply agree that science and scientists should stay out of the discussion about these claims?

Things are not that simple, however. This is because these kinds of statements arise in discussions that very much involve scientists and bon-scientists alike: We find ourselves troubled by some aspects of reality and would like to change it. In the perhaps mistaken belief that we have some capacity for doing that, we make plans -- designs, blueprints for a different reality. This is such a defining feature of humans that it might be called a human right to do so. We have the right to make plans: I make my plan, you make your plan. The trouble is that these plans have a nasty habit of affecting each other, getting in each other’s way. Your plan could change reality in a way I wouldn’t like, and vice versa. What this means is that ‘my plan’ and ‘your plan’
becomes ‘our plan’. And in keeping with the idea of the human right of this, we have the right to expect that the outcome of ‘our plan’ be acceptable (hopefully: ‘better than before’) for both of us. We could eliminate this conundrum by one of us killing the other, but that seems to be incompatible with our plan to become a somewhat less caveman-like and more civilized species. So we resort to discussion, negotiation, debate: trying to convince each other of the advantages of our version of our plan: bt means of arguments.

It is interesting to pursue this line of thought into prescriptions for the conduct of this debate anbd the resulting decision-making, but here, the focus is on truth. Specifically, the truth of the statements we make with our arguments. It is useful to examine the kinds of arguments we make about proposed designs and plans: simplified, most of them would sound somewhat like this:

We should do A (the proposed plan)
because
If we do A then B will happen -- given conditions C --
and
conditions C are present
and
B is desirable (ought to be).

(and all these claims are ‘true ’...)

We can see here that there are several kinds of claims in this argument, only one of which is the kind of claim about reality we started from above. That is, of course the claim about conditions C. So we can apply ‘scientific method’ criteria to establish whether that claim is indeed ‘true ’. What about the other claims? the claim ‘If we do A then B will happen’ sound like the kind of hypothesis Popper was talking about: even a kind a ‘law of nature’. In spite of Popper’s warning, we persist in talking about such claims in terms of true or false; we treat it like a fact-claim of the ‘objective knowledge’ type. But with the third kind of claim, both the ‘conclusion’ (We should do A’) and the justification ‘B is desirable / B ought to be’ we are into the realm of the not-yet-true (and only possible) statements to which the Aristotelian ‘true ’ and ‘false’ does not seem to apply in quite the same way. Yet we persist in calling these ‘true ’ and false as well.

The confusion could have arisen because some of the justification statements about B are actually claims like ‘doing A would be acting in accordance with moral principle B’. They refer to moral, ethical, legal or religious principles, commandments, laws or constitutional mandates that are proposed as beyond challenge in ordinary discourse, and therefore ‘true ’. (“We hold these truths to be evident ...” ) And the basis for our acceptance of these claims as truth can be either consensus, (we agreed to abide by a rule of behavior), authority (of the law, or the religious books), or plain intuition. But clearly, they are all of a different kind of truth than the pedestrian real-world facts. And it might be useful to use different names for them, stepping back from the grand notion of ‘truth’.

This suggestion is supported by the different means we use to convince ourselves and our discussion partners about the truth -- and I will now switch to a different and less ambitious term: plausibility -- of the various claims in our argument. For the fact-claims (C) the scientific method is the proper one. For the If-then claims (if A then B) likewise; with Popper’s caveat of sticking to ‘corroborated’ (to a greater or lesser extent) or ‘refuted’ by evidence. But what about the ought-propositions? For these, the kind of scientific evidence we use to refute or corroborate fact-claims simply does not apply. And the pattern of argument sketched out above -- that we use all the time in our disputes about what to do -- is, alas, no more valid and conclusive than the argument ‘If H then E, now E, therefore H’: it is, from a formal logic point of view, just ‘inconclusive. And there is never just one ‘clinching argument’ that settles the case but always a number and pros and cons: all plans come with costs and drawbacks attached.

But we don’t have anything better. So we have to ‘weigh the pros and cons’ before making a decision. And ideally, in keeping with the design as a human right principle we established above, keep adapting, changing the plan until it is acceptable to all affected parties. This is something that all the scholarly efforts of logic, rhetoric, and related disciplines have neglected to analyze (probably because the arguments involved are inconclusive and thus not worthy of study).

So where does that leave all the proposed ‘types of truth’?

The first thing I suggest we observe is that all the things discussed in the preceding are statements: claims about something, in this case, reality, and what we believe about it. So ‘truth’ is a feature of the statements -- they either ‘have’ it or they don’t. (And for the many statements that occur in design discourse, this was seen to be inappropriate, since truth in the future, or moral truths, are at the very least a different kind of truth, and I suggested to use ‘plausible’ instead.)

Compare this to the statement:

5. The truth shall set you free.

Here something else is happening: Now, ‘Truth’ is not just a property of statements but a subject, an entity in its own right. One that has the desirable power of ‘setting us free’ from whatever bondage may afflict us. Which of the many proposed truth types -- objective, subjective, abstract, absolute, intangible, unknowable ... -- is meant in this statement? If it still is a statement, who is making it? And how do we know it when we see it? If it is ‘the truth’ about what reality, what the world ‘really’ is like and how it works: how would we know when we encounter it? What evidence, what experiments, what factual data will be involved in demonstrating it? Or what state of intuitive insight or feeling will occur to convince us? And if it is really pertaining to the ‘moral truth’ about what we ought to do, what our plans should be like, what kinds of arguments will be presented, how will we assess their weight, to know that we know when we encounter it? Or do we have to abandon entirely the criteria we have come to require for the respective kinds of claims -- scientific evidence for fact-claims, good ‘weighty’ arguments for ought-proposals -- in favor of what? The statement implies that we will, somehow, know, but does not provide any hints about how. This gap is being filled with all kinds of helpful advice from various religions, which usually amount to either answer (b) or (c) above (rely on intuition, or authority); some combine the two saying that just giving yourself over to some faith advocated by authority, we will come to know. As long as we have not been granted the favor of such enlightenment, and as long as the religious and spiritual and other authorities give rather conflicting advice about how to achieve such a state, we are left with: what?

What we are left with is that we do not know truth. Knowledge means nothing more than forming a picture of something in our mind; we call it ‘true ’ if it corresponds to what our sensory experiences tell us, or if it lets us make predictions about what future sensory experience will be, which then will come ‘true ’. Being suitably skeptical about how even our senses can be fooled, and how our intuition tells us different things, we should adopt the cautious attitude of refraining from ever claiming to know the truth.

The problems arising from this make me think, more than ever, that the term is much abused, or used in vain. And this means that the multiplication of labels for ‘different kinds of truths’ is another form of just not knowing. We should be honest about that.

Which does not mean that we should let go of the idea as a criterion for what we say and how we act. We are still left with is the task of arriving, together, at the plans for how we ought to live, how we ought to arrange our world, how we ought to relate to one another. As stated before: for that, we need discourse, debate, discussion. And the criterion of truth in that simply means that we must be open to the arguments of others, that the ‘desirable’ claims of others cannot be proved or disproved by ‘scientific’ means, and that we must not deliberately or uncosciously be misleading in the arguments we offer. The ‘truth’ about the vision of the future world we want to create lies in its desirability and acceptability (for all affected), its fairness, its clarity, its responsibility (can we - personally - accept responsibility for that future, not pass it on to some leader or other authority?) and its beauty.