The usual way to know if something has a property is to test it. For example, if I want to know if sheet of metal is magnetic, I grab a magnet and see if the magnet sticks to the metal. Can we find such a test for truth? Is there some means by which we can be certain if a statement is relatively true and points to absolute truth?
Alas, the answer is no.
That depends on how you are definitely truth. The problem is particularly acute for correspondence-truth , because there is no direct test for correspondence. In science it is hoped that some combination of predictiveness and simplicity adds up to correspondence...but it is hard to see how that works, hence philosophy -of-science is still an open problem.
If truth is lack of contradiction, as coherentism claims, then it can be tested
…But other problems ensue. It is obvious that coherence doesn’t pick out a singular truth, because multiple systems of mutually consistent propositions are possible. (Indeed, they are actual—ideological systems such as communism and Christianity are examples ) So, uniqueness, absolute truth, is a desideratum coherentists have to give up, however reluctantly
Full strength relativism about truth doesn’t just admit that there can be relative approximations to absolute truth, it rejects the very idea of of a unique absolute truth, in favour of the idea that there are multiple truths, based on no criterion beyond the fact that people consider true whatever they happen to believe. Whereas circular justification and coherentism are unable to sustain the I see of a unique truth as a (possibly unintentional and unwanted) implication criterion they are using, alethic relativism embraces it directly and enthusiastically
That depends on how you are definitely truth. The problem is particularly acute for correspondence-truth , because there is no direct test for correspondence. In science it is hoped that some combination of predictiveness and simplicity adds up to correspondence...but it is hard to see how that works, hence philosophy -of-science is still an open problem.
If truth is lack of contradiction, as coherentism claims, then it can be tested …But other problems ensue. It is obvious that coherence doesn’t pick out a singular truth, because multiple systems of mutually consistent propositions are possible. (Indeed, they are actual—ideological systems such as communism and Christianity are examples ) So, uniqueness, absolute truth, is a desideratum coherentists have to give up, however reluctantly
Full strength relativism about truth doesn’t just admit that there can be relative approximations to absolute truth, it rejects the very idea of of a unique absolute truth, in favour of the idea that there are multiple truths, based on no criterion beyond the fact that people consider true whatever they happen to believe. Whereas circular justification and coherentism are unable to sustain the I see of a unique truth as a (possibly unintentional and unwanted) implication criterion they are using, alethic relativism embraces it directly and enthusiastically