Disentangling Truth from Facts
Sometimes, I get round to thinking. Not often, but sometimes. One of the things that I’ve been thinking about lately is the nature of truth.
You see, truth is a slippery thing. I get the impression that a lot of fundamentalist believers and non-believers present a very limited view of truth at times. The limited view that I’m talking about is the one that presents facts as truth, and truth as facts.
Now, I’m pretty sure that anything that is factual is true. But should we really think that something must be factual to be true? For example, there are those that believe that Bible to be literal fact. And there are those (including me) who say that it is not.
But to my mind, the whole thing is irrelevant. Because the facts don’t form all the truth in the world. Think about the tale of the tortoise and the hare. I’m going to stick my neck out and say that there aren’t and never have been any hares and tortoises racing each other. But if you have any familiarity with Aesop’s fables, it’s easy to see that that’s missing the point. It isn’t factual, but it is truthful.
Other kinds of truth, are more helpful than facts. They illustrate important lessons about the meaning of life. They can lead us to a greater and more meaningful understanding of our existence. They can enable us to be better human beings, if we take them to heart. These are the truths that I seek.
You might argue that without authority behind a text, you won’t know when there is truth in it. Nobody said that things were going to be easy. We all bring our past experiences, knowledge and understanding to bear as we try to discern truth, we do the best we can with the tools that we have. Some truths come quickly and easily, and others elude us for a lifetime, but there is no other way.
If a religious text is to have any value at all, then I don’t care whether it is factual, it must be true.
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4 Responses to “Disentangling Truth from Facts”
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Good point. Would you agree that another fine way to put this is that the truth of a fact claim is limited to a literal interpretation, but that truth in general can be based on either a literal or abstract (metaphorical) interpretation?
As you wrote, a myth might in fact be false, yet true by some abstract interpretation. In either case, though, the matter can be settled by measuring correspondence with observations (either of the root facts or the claims implied by the abstract interpretation).
Thanks for the link in the blogroll, btw. I added you to mine also.
You’re talking about conditional truths.
The early bird gets the worm. Sounds like a good motivation to start your day early, right? Problem is that you’re not always the bird: The early worm gets eaten!
Personally, I feel that these kinds of truths are the ones with the greatest potential for harm. Selective interpretation is the root of “Salad Bar” Christianity, which allows for a wide range of behavior.
An issue I have is that too often, so-called authorities are permitted to define truth. The truth needs no authority to call it true.
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@godma:
I agree with you that it’s that determining facts is restricted to a literal interpretation but truth in general can have other interpretations.
@rivalarrival:
The truth needs no authority to call it true
That’s a sentiment that I really like. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter what you think, you’re deciding what’s true (in an abstract sense) without a completely objective standard. You can either accept that and work with it, or pretend it’s not happening and try to abdicate responsibility in the form of some kind of authority.
I think that the term truth here is a bit misleading.
These stories have meaning, they fit into the your internal narrative or worldview about your life, and they can be used as tools to model behavior that may get favorable outcomes.
But this does not mean they are true, in terms of being a universal immutable law etc.