Truth
Confucius was despondent and said,
“May I ask what is meant by complete truth?”
The stranger replied,
“Complete truth is pure sincerity at its most perfect.
Without pure sincerity one cannot move others.
If one forces oneself to weep, however convincingly
he does so, it is not true sorrow.
If one forces oneself to be angry, however stern
he may appear, he will not evoke awe.
If one forces oneself to display affection,
however much he may smile, he cannot inspire
reciprocal empathy. When there is truth within,
It has spirit-like power without.
This is why we regard truth to be so powerful.
In our relations with others, it emerges as required
in each context.
Zhuangzi trans. by Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, Book 31 The Old Fisherman
Plato’s allegory of The Cave is a staple of introduction to Western philosophy. The story depicts nearly everyone seated on rows of benches within a cave as if in a theater. We face the back wall of the cave upon which are projected the shadows cast by rays of sunlight tracing activities in the world outside. Plato implies that what we take for truth are bare shadows of the external, objective “real” from which we have happily turned our faces. Plato maintains that “truth” is reason, rather than sense experience which may entertain us, but is not certain. Ideas as if illumined by the light-of-day are true according to Plato.
Americans on the other hand, prefer front seats in the cave-theater to enjoy the show. Sense experience is sought after, preferred to ideas. Ideas in the form of education is desirable by and large as a means to success. Success is another word for affluence, the ability to have more stuff, or more and better experience.
We Americans have a bias towards what is empirical, counted, especially when that is a measure of wealth.
This quoted segment offers yet a third definition option for truth. Confucius, a celebrated scholar-consultant is at a loss for words in a conversation with the old fisherman. Confucius is a well regarded theoretician regarding family relations and by extension, the proper relationship between a ruler and his advisors, to the bureaucracy, then expanding all the way to the common people. The anonymous old fisherman, who is a chance on-the-road encounter demonstrates himself to be more than a match for Confucius in this discussion.
On this account, a taoist notion of “truth” is dynamic. Truth is the unfiltered response of the body to words or actions or circumstances. “Truth” is not contrived role-play. Truth is personal. Truth is effortless, involuntary. Truth is persuasive.
What do you think?
4 thoughts on “Truth”
As we have discussed many times, my belief is that the definition of the word “truth” is ill conceived. That most people seem to feel that truth is rock solid. That once you find truth there is no other way to view the world. Yet for me, truth means something different to every individual on earth. The meaning is both malleable and transitory since truth on one day will mean something different tomorrow. Truth (or what we think is truth) is as porous as water through a sieve.
And so those of us who understand this volatility we seek empirical data by which to better understand our environment. And the word truth can live in the imaginations of those who will continue to believe they have a lock on the true nature of life. Ultimately this leaves me feeling very sad, for how can we ever agree on how to fix the multitude of problems that face us every day?
Tobin, one more comment. If you are advocating an idea of truth that is personal, a human precursor to endeavor, I support the notion. On the other hand if you mean to complain about the unequivocally personal nature of truth then I disagree. Truth is a construction of our minds, which has potential to unify us into joint, single-hearted action as evoked by our circumstances. We cannot do without the concept of “truth” as what we mean to say will always be up for review and revision. Truth as such is evoked by the empirical facticity of social and natural environment, and thus it means change, without recourse. Humans, that is “we”, make-truth-up at the demand of context of time and place. Truth is a joint creation, something that “shimmers” between us. Moreover the “truth” of 1776 cannot be the truth of 2026. A horse and a church bell are vastly different than the iphone.
There is no “lock” on the true nature of anything. We are called to “step-up” to the demand of our time and situation, answering for ourselves, seeking attunement, resonance with those who stand around me. As is expressed in the Zhuangzi :
In our relations with others, it emerges as required in each context.
In my mind, at least in a view from the cheap seats, definitive truth is supposed to be irrefutable. I would like there to be something solid that can be set in stone, to be passed from one generation to the next. Something that is not dependent on our subjective nature. This perspective is probably the definition of unrealistic idealism, plus being incredibly naive to think that it’s possible to find that. Much like the tale of Diogenes in his search for an honest man, ultimately my point of view is both self-aggrandizing and delusional. But I am who I am. As I approach the last few years of life, I doubt if this mindset will change.
The world is incredibly fucked up my friend. We can point fingers, we can attempt to analyze the reasons, and we can try to make a difference, but in the end, life will either go on or it won’t. The bits and pieces of effort we make will have little bearing on what happens next. It just is what it is.
The notion that truth is a bedrock quality has not panned out, irrespective of how much we’d wish that to be so. Who would not desire a foundation for knowing/being that is unmoving? I know the feeling. That was the heart of my motivation to jump into the deep end of philosophy. Along the way an insight shattered the expectation of the adamant foundation. Truth is contextual, more akin to a floating raft, that depends upon the collaboration, the skill and passion of we the voyagers, etc.. Humankind is tasked with constructing the necessary ways-of-life, the institutions suitable for survival and thriving. We now know this task assigned to us by fate is a global in nature, that everyone is needed, that the clock is ticking.
The foundation floats.