The Nature of Truth: Absolute or Perspectival?

What is truth? As trusted sources define it, truth is property of being in accord with fact or reality. This will mean the sky is blue is true. Roses are red, john is a man, are all true. Only the things that exist are true, as the definition of truth insinuates.

But have you ever heard, "fact is precisely what there is not, only interpretations. We cannot establish any fact in itself". These are the words of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche argued that there are no pure or uninterpreted truth/facts, for everything we hold true are arrived from one perspective or another. This is the idea of perspectivism

So, the idea that 2+2 =4, Christianity is the one true religion or even the idea that Messi is better than Ronaldo is false because they are all truths perpetuated by a person's perspective

Nietzsche said perspectives have three features: unavoidable, false and useful.

Unavoidable: Perspectives are inherent part of human perception and cognition. They are essential part of our understanding the world and even when we try to be objective, our perspectives still influence us, making them unavoidable. Am sure we are all guilty of this.

False: Our perspectives are embodied in how we speak and view things. We are under the false impression that we capture reality with the web of our words and concepts. We build words and concepts by bracketing similar experiences as the same or equal whilst forgetting that every experience is unique with at least slight distinction and difference. These concepts that conceal originality and individuality of each moment of reality are now stored in our intellect and now language become a separate world we mistake for the real world.

Now, if there are no truths but perspectives and perspectives are false one might ask what's the point of anything?

Useful: Although Nietzsche dashed our hopes by saying there is no truth but perspective/interpretations and these perspectives are false, he did say they are useful. Our perspectives serve the purpose of helping us make sense of the world. By imposing our interpretation on the world, we make it manageable, calculable and comprehensible.

Feedback will have it that it is just another philosophy but let's weigh the intelligence of the philosophy.

This philosophy very well explains the reason for the diverse cultures, traditions, societies and philosophies in the world. The reason for such diversity is because there is no absolute truth and science the contemporary bible keeps revising theories because it is a product of perspective or interpretation.

Or as Ludwig Wittgenstein implied the diversity of truth in the world is because each society explain a part of a whole. This could be the explanation for the diversity of worldviews, or we are just incapable of interpreting the world. But this will be a topic for another day.

This post was written by Favour, an intern at Primarald.