None of us knows with certainty the truth about anything. But two approaches to truth-seeking suggest themselves.
Firstly we can turn to authoritative sources. An authoritative source might be a religious text, or an expert, or Wikipedia, or @justinbieber. For this to work for us, we need to have faith in the source.
The advantage of authoritative sources is that we can be certain what the truth is. The truth is what the source tells us.
The disadvantages are:
- The source might be wrong.
- We have no way of knowing if the source is wrong.
- If the source has nothing to say about a particular subject, then we have no way to find out the truth about that subject.
The second approach is to learn to think for ourselves. To seek explanations that make sense to us. The disadvantages of this method are that it’s hard, we may still get the wrong answer, and that the truth becomes a journey not a destination.
The benefits are:
- We can learn to think better if we practise.
- We can learn from the thoughts and writings of others.
- We can form an opinion about how close we are getting to the truth.
- We can apply the method to any question or problem.
- We can help others to think for themselves too.
You won’t be surprised to hear that I prefer the second method.
To fully engage in this method of truth-seeking we have to be open to new ideas, receptive to people who argue against us, and willing to question our own beliefs just as we question the beliefs of others.
That’s why I’m putting my thoughts out here on this public blog, and why anyone is welcome to leave comments.