Layers of proof maybe? Ignoring temporarily the philosophical criticisms of truths like does anything exist outside my head, truths like much of chemistry and some of physics that can be verified by repeatable experiment are the nearest things to objective proof we have.
[My italics.]
"Ignoring temporarily..." something that is fundamental to the argument? But I agree with you. Solipsism is a blind alley. In the end, we are obliged to behave as if the world around us is real.
Proof is rare in life. Evidence is more common.
Evidence suggests that something may be the case.
Proof establishes that it actually is the case.
This touches on cartesian philosophy. The thing is, we can't prove we're not figments of your imagination...
The delicious irony of two people engaging in debate about whether the other exists! If either of you believed that the other did not exist, you would not have engaged.
Point is — as you are both hinting — we can't prove that the world outside our imagination exists objectively, but it feels real.
We would have no way of differentiating between a real proof that it exists, and an imaginary proof that it exists!
Descartes cheated, and this is now widely acknowledged.
Cogito ergo sum: I think, therefore I am, or — more clearly — the very fact that I think proves that I exist.
However, this does not prove that "I" exist in any particular form: For all I know, I could be a disembodied consciousness, a lizard, or a tree. Other philosophers have pared Descartes' conclusion down to merely "Thinking happens."
However, Descartes goes on from his famous
cogito to make the "with one bound he was free" assumption that a perfect God would not deceive him, and as the definition of God includes that he is perfect, this "proves" that everything else that Descartes perceives is real.
So that's all right then. (A touch of the "begging the question" that St Anshelm also employed.)
I think there is a truth, but it is yet to be widely revealed.
The truth is the explanation of how the universe was created, why it was created, who created it, and why it is allowed to continue operating even when so much suffering happens.
@Victory , while I absolutely respect your right to believe, nevertheless, your points are based on your own preconceptions. Someone with different beliefs might have written, " I think there is a truth, but it is yet to be widely
discovered. The truth is the explanation of how the universe
came to exist, and
what caused it to come into existence."
Speculating about why suffering is "allowed" presupposes that there is someone or something that could prevent or forbid it, but chooses not to.
Truth is a very slippery thing.
Ten people can witness the same car accident, yet will tell ten different versions of that accident.
...
The first step of any philosophical inquiry is to determine the question, and define terms.
Like many words in English, and no doubt in other languages, "truth" or "true" have various meanings. It is usually more interesting to discuss the actual concepts and ideas rather than the words, which are often imprecise labels for those concepts and ideas.
I think
@Cochise 's opening post was about "truth" in the sense of whether anything at all is objectively true: whether it objectively exists.
@Ronnie Jersey you have added to this the further element of honesty or dishonesty which is a differerent but equally (more?) important aspect of what we often mean by truth.
If one witness says the car was doing about 30 mph, and another witness says it was doing about 50 mph, they may both be telling "the truth"in the sense that they are not trying to mislead. However, the "truth" in the objective sense may be that it was doing 40 mph and both witnesses were honestly mistaken.
Even in the objective sense of truth, there is still a subjective element. For example
Is the philosopher's table a solid object?
- Yes, at the human level, it is. That's why the philosopher is able to put her coffee cup on it.
- However, at the molecular level, the table is a structure that has more gaps than actual matter
- At the subatomic level, the table is no more than a collection of charges, waves, and probabilities.
- At the galactic level, the table could be said to barely exist at all: the argument that allows humans to go through life seeing a table instead of the molecules might allow an unimaginably vast intergalactic intelligence to perceive only star systems, and ignore anything smaller than a planet.
So I would suggest that a reasonable starting definition of "truth" is "
that which is not contradicted by strong evidence, and which is said without intention to mislead."
From here, Socrates would find an example that caused me to withdraw or refine this definition. This process would be repeated several times until he and I eventually concluded that there could be no conclusion. This is a situation known as
aporia — although even the word "aporia" has other definitions.