DOES TRUTH EXIST?

In the contemporary society there is often the tendency to doubt of the truth's existence  and to affirm that truth is relative because it is linked to one's own opinion or to the one of others and to the historical circumstances where it is stated. This is the result of some philosophical currents of the last two centuries  that, instead of denying the truth's existence as the skeptics did, decided to redefine the truth as something relative depriving it of its essence.

Therefore it is right to ask first of all what the truth is. Man has always had the tendency to  transform a doctrine or external theory (that is not coming from the subject's experience) into the truth and, starting from it, to judge the reality. This attitude make us state the truth's relativity because in it the subject accept other's opinion without verifying the factual reality, so as a person can accept a doctrine he could as well accept the opposite one. Therefore one needs to start from the personal experience of reality. But if this experience is based only on the observation of the things and even more if it is not compared with other's experience,  it ends up becoming the simple opinion of a person which has nothing in common with the objective truth. Even in the case of scientific knowledge, which is based upon a series of observations that are experimented through math's objectivity, subsist a certain 'relativity' which makes the scientists doubt of a theory as soon as it has been stated as true.

This doesn't mean that in all these types of knowledge there is no truth, but it means that it is necessary a critical spirit that tries to anchor these knowledges to the reality as it truly is, that is the essence of the things. The latter can be known through an intuitive process  which requires not only particular intellective capacities, but also a respectful attitude towards the being, sincerity, scrupulosity and thirst for the truth. Only an essential knowledge can get us to the truth. Therefore we define the truth as adaequatio rei et intellectus (adequation of the intellect to the thing)  because are the things in themselves, as expressed in their essences, that determine the truth or not of a knowledge.

A knowledge which is based on the essence of a thing will always be valid, because the essence never changes (if this had to happen, the thing would stop existing); so it brings to a universal truth which is valid in every place and time. Examples of universal truth are the aristotelian difference between the efficient cause and the final cause, and the fact that the human being was born to love and to be loved  because of his essence as 'being in relation' (as alredy said in the article "Because of love you will live eternally").

Instead we call particular 'truth' that knowledge which is relative because it is not based on the essences of the things but it is linked to a specific condition and historical period. This is for example the case of homosexuality, both in the opinion of the gay movement and in the one of the different religions, because none of those cases is based on the essence of the homosexuality which remains still unknown. In spite of this, both opinions on  homosexuality are sold as universal truth. The same thing has happened many times in history and an example is that of slavery considered right and advocated as true by many, included Aristotle, but considered unacceptable nowadays because freedom is part od the essential dignity of the person. So it is necessary to doubt of what is offered as true and to ask oneself if it is really based on the essence of the object.

THE INDIVIDUAL REVOLUTIONS

Every human being from the moment of birth, drawing from one's own experience and from the ideas that are passed on to him/her, develops a worldview, or to be more exact produces or supports  a Weltanschauung (the german word is translated as "worldview", but it has a dimension which goes beyond the single person and his own point of view), trying in this way to organize one's own existence and to find one's place in the world. This idea on "the way things work" can be built upon misconceptions or  a correct understanding of reality, but usually upon  a mixture of them, and it includes: the identity of the individual, the world order, the existence of God, the way of relating to others and to nature, the priority scale, the individual life plan (this group of ideas in particular constitute the framework of the individual's Weltanschauung and we are going to name them 'paradigm') and it extends even to one's opinion on each person or the judgement on every single event. Each human being moves within the worldview he/she has built for oneself and makes choices through it.

Nevertheless each person, in his lifetime, has to face certain events that can compromise one's own worldview because they are in contrast with its paradigm. These life-changing events could be for example the death of a dear one, experiencing extreme poverty, falling deeply in love with a person and so on; they can be different for each individual depending on the paradigm of one's worldview. Facing such events, the person can choose to adopt one of three different approaches: 

• to overlook them pushing them in the subconscious; 
• to justify them through reasoning but still remaining into the existing Weltanschauung or  
• to change the paradigm and start an "individual revolution" that will produce a new worldview.

So during the lifetime of a human being it takes place what Thomas Kuhn theorised for the science history. According to the american philosopher, science in its historical process doesn't accumulate truth upon truth, but it develops around some main ideas that he calls paradigm. During the periods of "normal science" the scientists develop new theories that don't compromise the paradigm. But there are discoveries  that undermine the old scientific system, leading to "scientific revolutions" that generate a new paradigm. The best example is the one of the Copernican system that replaced the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic system revolutionising science.

Science, with its method and its historical progress towards truth, becomes in this way the example for the right development of the human being and for the individual journey towards a fuller life and a better understanding of the world. As the scientist doubts what is given as a fact and take the risk of experimenting on something different which life-experience shows as correct, so each person facing events that contradict one's own worldview must doubt the veracity of the latter and take the risk of building a new worldview which is able to include the aspects of reality showed by those events.

Life has got, however, a fundamental difference in comparison with science, that is, life is more profound, existential and because of this it acquires a greater dramatic nature and radicality. For a scientist, to experiment a new theory, means spending a lot of time and effort; but for an individual, to invest in the development of a new worldview, means having to face a temporary disintegration of oneself, of one's identity and world: it means getting lost for a while, and without the possibility of going back to the previous worldview. Such a choice requires a particular personal strength  and the hero's courage. It is clear now why so many prefer avoiding life and being locked in their own faulty Weltanschauung. But this last decision carries hidden in itself a greater danger: the one of not living but surviving miserably, building everything upon half-truth, the danger of a non-existence. The reward, instead, for those that choose to take the risk will be personal growth, a life enjoyed to the full and the achievement of a truth deeper than the scientific one.