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Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
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Something to Think About
by Gordon Francis Corbett
An oft-repeated saying is, "There are no absolutes." Another runs, "There are two truths: yours and mine." These statements are false. The philosopher Aristotle said that A is A: existence exists. There is only one reality. For every part of reality, there is only one set of facts. Hard work done right lets us discover them. Several philosophical studies have developed the necessary principles. Epistemology is the study of knowledge: what it is and how to discover it. One of its subsections is historiography, which teaches how to write history: evaluating sources, selecting facts from them, and assembling them into a coherent narrative. Police do historiography when they investigate a crime. They examine the scene and gather evidence for the trial. This evidence must meet many legal and historiographical standards. At the trial, the prosecutor shows his evidence. The defendant presents his. Each tries to disprove or to compromise the other's case. The jurors then decide whose evidence, and, perhaps, who, is most trustworthy. If they deem one whole side to be unreliable, they will find for the other. In different ways, police, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and juries all practice epistemology and historiography. We depend on their ability to discover, to interpret, and to report reality. If reality actually were "flexible," they could do no good. So, when someone tells you that "there are no absolutes," you know, absolutely, that he has to be wrong. When he tells you that "there are two truths: yours and mine," you know that his "truth" is an untruth. Any person's first tool is his mind; his second is his mind's information. Distrust of the second paralyzes the first. Persuade him that there is no reality, and he will drift without rudder, map, or compass. He may then be controlled by anyone. Sound familiar?
Enrich your life with a book about politics and current events... Enrich your political & social life with a politics or news magazine... |
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Something to Think About Index |
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