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View Full Version : Truth is Unknowable. True premise or false?



Flame of Hope
03-09-2011, 07:15 PM
I have heard many times the saying, "Truth is unknowable." A lot of people therefore think they can believe whatever they want.

Is this premise true or false? Give your reasons for your point of view.
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YieldedOne
03-09-2011, 09:46 PM
Just my thoughts. A disconfirmation of sorts. I say that there is a truth that can be known by human beings.

One can "know" their own existence via the human mind/brain's powers of self- perception, self-understanding, and self-expression. No one can communicate denial of their own existence to others without affirming it in their very denial of it.

So the "truth" of one's existence is directly knowable by a person, even if done imperfectly.

The only way that the dictum "Truth is unknowable" could be true is if the "truth" of one's own personal particularity and subjectivity could be completely impervious to our own corporeal and incorporeal powers of self-understanding, self-perception, and self-other comprehension (basically, the powers of the human spirit). I don't believe that's possible.

I highly doubt anyone who is on this computer board reading this right now will seriously doubt the "truth" of their own subjective intra-personal experience. What would you do? Type that to me? That you--as you--don't really exist? Again, to deny it is to simultaneously affirm it.

In short, the truth of one's own being IS directly knowable to the self as an embodied sentient being. The human being has a natural openness to itself and it's environment. That's one truth that can be known, because we are equipped with brains that are wired to do so.

And look at it this way. Not even an absolute nihilist could truly deny their own intrapersonal experience as being known by themselves. That's where the angst of nihilism is felt to be expressed, right?

Basically, people cannot actively choose to believe that they do not exist as sentient embodied being. People can't believe anything they want in that arena.
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Ali Mujahidin
03-11-2011, 11:01 AM
Truth, logically speaking, cannot be unknowable. Unknowable would mean that it does not reside in your consciousness. Since it has no presence in your consciousness, there is nothing to know or unknow at all.
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