The Nature of Truth | Existential Basics ep.1

Hello everybody, and welcome to the first episode of Existential Basics. I'm Mark, with the Modern Existentialist, and I'll be your host today. So, first step, we've got some pretty widespread misconceptions that we're going to need to address before we can really get into it. Here's a question. What is philosophy? Well, I've met more than my fair share of people that are pretty convinced that they know exactly what philosophy is. It's a couple old white guys sitting around arguing back and forth about a bunch of ---- that doesn't matter. And honestly? They're right. About half the time. What we're interested in, though, is that other half. The half that actually lives up to the name of the word. Here's the Greek. Where the word comes from. And what it's actually supposed to mean. That's philo. That means to love. And sophia. Which means wisdom. Put them together, what you get is the love of wisdom. Or something like the pursuit of knowledge. What that means for us, though, is that we can make it real. Make it concrete. We can call it the search for truth, and we'd still be right about on the money. But now, that leaves us with an even more basic question we're going to need to answer first. And that's this. What is truth? How can we know that we know what truth is? Well, I don't know about you, but I'd start by looking at the things that I can see, and I'd assume that they're real. I can touch them. I can smell them. I can hear and taste their properties. Sure, I can't know for sure that I know anything's real, but it seems like it makes perfect sense to just assume that they're real, if I can see that they're real. Unless I've got some other reason to believe that they're not. But that's a different conversation. We'll get into it next time. Can you see what I just did there, though? Here, let's draw it out. First, I asked a question. What is truth? How can we know that what we think is true is actually the truth? Then, I formed a hypothesis. There's a sense in which I can know truth because I can go out into the world and confirm whether or not the things which I see match up with the things I believe. Next, I took data. I observed the world, and found evidence that it was actually the case, that I can go out into the world and confirm whether or not the things which I believe match up to what I can see. And finally, I confirmed my theory. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, the best I can do is assume that I can know truth, and assume that the reality which I see is real. Now, all that. What I just did there. What does that look like to you? Was that philosophy? That was just science, wasn't it? It was logic, and simple math, putting two and two together. It was rational, and testable, and provable, and it's what we call empirical philosophy. Philosophy that's informed by empirical methodology. In other words, science. So, back to our question then. What is philosophy? Well, what it's supposed to be, what it was originally, was always empirical, and always scientific. It's supposed to be where you use your eyes to look, and then you use your brain to think. Your eyes do the science, your brain does the logic, and together you can use them to try and reason your way through, and see if you can figure out for yourself what truth is. To learn how reality actually works. That's what philosophy is supposed to mean. So, we got that settled then. Philosophy is the search for truth. To take what you can see, and what you think you know, and to use your brain to put it all together. Let's talk about that other half then. The half that a whole lot of people, especially me, think is just wishy-washy armchair bullshit. They call them metaphysics and ethics, and what they are is abstract theories that are based on assumptions, that are essentially detached from the observable world. But, hang on. If we think back to the science of it, to the empirical philosophy we were doing earlier, then... How can you form a theory based on assumptions that are detached from the observable world? How can you say that you believe something is the truth, if there's no way that you could have ever found information that could confirm if that belief was actually the truth? The problem with this other half, with these unempirical philosophies, is... Well, it's just that. The problem is that they're not empirical. They're not scientific, so they never give us any rational reason to think that their truths are reliable. These are what we call dogmatic philosophies, the ones that pick and choose what kinds of evidence they'll take. They don't care about reaching the truth, because, usually, they believe that they already know the truth. Why would you go out and look for something, if you think you already have it? This is what Nietzsche says, that dogmatists are the ones he calls dreamers. The ones who closed their eyes a long time ago, and now live in their own fantasy world, completely detached from reality. A dogmatic philosophy is any pursuit of knowledge that believes that... There are properties of existence which are absolutely inherent to it. And... That we can know these inherent properties as objective facts of reality. What makes a philosophy dogmatic is a belief that we can know that something is absolutely true, even though we can never observe or confirm it. So, Nietzsche calls it dogma, or objectivity. Sartre calls it the spirit of seriousness, or sometimes just the belief in essence. It doesn't really matter what we call it, they all mean the same thing. Just any unempirical or unscientific way of thinking. Me, though, I like to call it inheritance. A philosophy of inheritance, after all, means exactly what it says. It's a belief that things are supposed to be some way, without any evidence, and that it's wrong to think that they might not be that way. To doubt is evil. To think is evil, because somebody else already did all the thinking for you. All you need to do is follow and believe. That's what dogma means. So, there's your first lesson in existential philosophy. We, as existentialists, and therefore as empiricists, reject the idea of inheritance in all its many forms. We reject dogma and any form of dogmatic philosophy. Any pursuit of knowledge or truth that claims to know anything that can't first be proven empirically. Innocent until proven guilty. No crime unless there's proof of a crime. Absent until proven present. Nothing can be truth until it's proven that it is. What's a philosophy of inheritance that you know of? Are there dogmatic belief systems that affect you or your life? Comment below, if you want, and let me know what that system is, and your thoughts about it. Alright, this is Mark, signing off. Catch you guys on the next one.