Truth?

We commenced the lecture with the explanation of how the word truth is a complex and problematic term with different connotations, to add further detail to this Mr Tomalin shared with us one of his experiences. While in a wine testing trip in Mendoza, Argentina, he was asked to share his opinions regarding the smell of a particular wine which he could smell as many times as he wanted. However, he was reluctant to say what he could smell since “it could be wrong”, it could not be what the guides could actually smell. Evidently, when they compared what each one of them could smell, all opinions were different but they explained him that there was no wrong or right answer. This lead us to the conclusion that truths based on sensory perceptions depend on the individual person, hence, there is no false or true statement. 

Furthermore, we discussed the two types of propositions.  Analytic proposition is that whose predicate concept is contained in its subject. An example for this is, 

"All bachelors are unmarried", this proposition is right since being unmarried is part of the definition of bachelor. The other type of proposition is synthetic, this is a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept. "All bachelors are unhappy" is an example of this, since being unhappy is not part of the definition of  bachelor, hence, this proposition is wrong since there can be lots of bachelors that are not unhappy. In addition, when we were given time to consider another example of analytic proposition, I struggled to make a right proposition since I was assuming concepts that were not in the word’s definition. This proves how one must be extra careful when making analytical propositions.

Moral relativism was another topic that we discussed which states that absolute truths and values are socially constructed, this means that they depend on the cultural background of each person. However, for me this was controversial since I asked myself  if imposing values on others is justifiable to get an universal truth, or if that meant that other values were not right. On the other hand, cognitive relativism states that there are no universal truths whatsoever, consequently there are no methods for getting the truth that are better than others. This relativism ask questions such as, why is science superior to others methods of gaining knowledge like witchcraft? And states that judgments are true depending on your perspective and it is up to you to choose which method is better but you have to be aware it was YOUR choice. 

These two relativisms made me analyze up to what point we decide what we believe. Everyday we are bombarded with information at school that was chosen for us to learn, that is said is going to help us to study a career, to get a job, “to live”. But to what extend do we have an option to choose? Or to even go against this? Nowadays’ society compels us to study, to work in order to gain money; we are forced to believe this is the right way to live. But is it?