I suspect the initial response most people will have to the questions posed in the title of this essay is a resolute “yes” and an adamant “of course!” Prior to the surreal experience that was the 2016 presidential election, I may have been inclined to agree. Now I’m not so sure and I think both questions deserve more reflection.
To begin, we need to define our terms. First, what do we mean by “truth?”
Truth (noun) – “that which is in accordance with fact or reality.”
So far, so good. Truth is determined by a proposition’s agreement with fact or reality. Since we all know what facts and reality are then we’re done, right?
Not so fast, what is a “fact?”
Fact (noun) – “a thing that is indisputably true.”
Hmm, I’m already sensing a problem here. Okay, maybe the solution is to define what we mean by “reality.”
Reality (noun) – “the world or state of things as they actually exist.”
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. All we need to know now is what is meant by “actually.”
Actually (adverb) – “the truth or facts of a situation”
You see the problem. In logic, it’s referred to as circular reasoning: If truth is defined by facts and reality, but facts and reality are determined by what is true, then we are right back where we started, definition-wise. Truth, if it exists at all, cannot be defined by facts, nor vice versa, unless there exist certain things that are indisputably (i.e., unquestionably, undeniably, incontrovertibly, indubitably) true.
But is there anything that is indisputably true? Here, at last, we finally seem to find some solid ground, because if we learned anything at all from the past several years it’s that the answer to that question is unquestionably, undeniably, incontrovertibly, indubitably . . . No!
So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us with the unsettling conclusion that facts, truth, and even reality itself are social constructs that are determined by the extent to which people accept them as such. This raises a question of fundamental importance: How do people decide what they believe to be true and untrue?
Scott Adams, creator of the popular Dilbert comic strip, confidently predicted a Trump win well over a year in advance of the election. When asked in an interview how he knew, he responded “people are never rational. They rationalize. So after the fact they tell you why they did something and there’s plenty of science to support that. Now we can show that people actually make their decision before they come up with their reasons. . . . That was the perspective that I took when I saw Trump.”
What Adams recognized and the election appeared to confirm is that Stephen Colbert’s term “truthiness” better reflects the basis for many people’s beliefs and behaviors than does truth.
Truthiness (noun) – “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support.”
Over a decade later, the Oxford English Dictionary selected a similar term (indeed, a direct rip-off, according to Mr. Colbert) “post-truth” as their 2016 word of the year:
Post-truth (adjective) – “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
The apparent influence of “fake news” on our elections and the more recent emergence of “alternative facts” would appear to confirm the appeal of truthiness/post-truth over objective, factual evidence in determining – or at least justifying – the beliefs of many Americans. If so, a question of profound importance is “can a vigorous liberal democracy be sustained in such an environment?”
I believe the answer is no. A liberal democracy is based on participatory decision making in which each citizen has a vote of equal value to every other citizen. That being the case, democracy’s viability as a system of governance rests on the assumption that most citizens are rational.
But are they? Are people rational? A quote that is commonly attributed to Francis Bacon might express it best, “man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.”
Case in point: a 2011 CBS poll found that nearly 8 in 10 adult Americans believe in angels. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-nearly-8-in-10-americans-believe-in-angels/
Not convinced? How about this: A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found that 34% of Americans reject evolution entirely, insisting that humans and other animals have existed on the planet in their current form since the beginning of time.
So if many (most?) people’s beliefs and subsequent attitudes and behaviors are determined more by what they wish were true than by what a reasoned examination of available evidence supports is true then what is to be done? How can rational participatory governance succeed in such a society? Indeed, how can civil discourse even be preserved?
Of course, it may be argued that some people merely choose to believe things they know are probably not true. The famous argument advanced by 17th century French philosopher, Blaise Pascal, to explain why people should believe in God despite the absence of supportive evidence represents perhaps the quintessential expression of this idea.
In his argument, Pascal suggested that belief in God amounts to a wager with various possible outcomes that must be weighed if one is to “win.” If we believe in God and he does not exist then we have lost nothing. If we believe and he does exist, then we stand to gain salvation and eternal life. However, if we do not believe and it turns out that God does exist then we risk suffering eternal damnation. The smart bet is clear: We should believe.
It is not entirely clear that Pascal was serious when he proposed his famous wager, but it does raise another important question: Is belief a choice? Can one choose to believe or not to believe in something?
The notoriously pessimistic 19th century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, once observed “a man can do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants.” That is, while we may have free will over our actions, the same does not apply to our desires. We want what we want.
I think the same reasoning applies to genuine belief. We do not choose to believe in something as a matter of policy. The evidence either meets our personal criteria for establishing its probable truth or it does not. Besides conflicting with basic human nature, Pascal’s wager has yet another problem: It suggests that an omniscient God would not recognize and/or care about the difference between genuine belief and someone who is cynically hedging his or her bet and merely going through the motions and playing the odds.
Another possibility is that people do not choose to believe so much as they choose not to disbelieve. An example here is how we are able to temporarily suspend our disbelief to enjoy a movie. But once again, this is not genuine belief. Even while completely absorbed in the movie, we know at some level that the kid riding his bicycle across the moon with an alien in the front basket is not real. That said, it does elicit real emotions, doesn’t it?
Okay, we have a problem. Reality is socially constructed and exists only insofar as we can achieve agreement, if perhaps not consensus. But agreement is not possible unless we are using the same criteria and process, i.e., the same reasoning, for determining truth. So what’s to be done?
The solution, I believe, is the restoration of philosophy in American education, particularly the disciplines of logic and epistemology. Logic being that branch of philosophy concerned with the principles and criteria for sound reasoning, and epistemology referring to the study of how we know what we know. Together, these two areas form the foundation of reasoned, rational thinking including the ability to recognize fallacious reasoning in our own arguments and those of others.
What is a red herring diversion? What is a straw man argument? An ad hominem attack? Why are appeals to authority weak and unreliable supports for an argument? Why should we not infer causation from correlation? In short, how can we recognize the stock-in-trade tactics of the disingenuous, the deceitful and the demagogue?
The good news is that truth does exist, but not with the rigid certainty that we might wish. Instead, truth is something of a moving target. All truth exists on a continuum of probability from almost (but not quite) certainly true to almost (but not quite) certainly false, depending on the quality and preponderance of evidence. Furthermore, all truth is provisional and subject to disconfirmation at any moment as new evidence becomes available. Thus, the great tragedy of science: The beautiful theory slain by an ugly fact.
Facts do matter, but only if we can agree on the criteria for what constitutes a “fact,” and that requires a common approach to reason and rationality. A fact is not a fact simply because I say it is or because you want it to be. There has to be a mutually acceptable way to adjudicate disputes and come to agreement.
The pursuit of truth can be thought of as a game – albeit a very serious one – that we want everyone to play. But that is only possible if we are all playing by the same rules. Philosophy, especially the philosophy of logical reasoning, provides us with the rules of the game. Everyone must follow these rules if they are to play the game fairly. A society in which many have never been exposed to such rules cannot be expected to follow them. In that case, we all lose.