Is it true that there is no truth?

Is it true that "There is no common truth. What is true for you may not be true for me. You have your truth, I have my truth"?
By: Doug McManaman

Immediately one may reply by saying that there is at least one common truth, namely that there is no common truth. The subjectivist may in turn reply that there is no common truth except this truth (that there is no common truth).

So there is at least one common truth, namely that there are no common truths except this one. All else that we can affirm or deny about anything is not truth that is objective, hence true independent of my affirming it or denying it. Rather, the truth is subjective, that is, dependent upon and linked inexorably to the person affirming it or denying it. Hence the claim to objectivity is unfounded.

But the question can be posed: "What are your reasons for saying 'there is no common truth, except this truth'? If you begin to provide me with reasons, you begin sharing truths with me. You begin by establishing premises that you hold to be true for me as well as for you, and you begin drawing a conclusion from those premises, namely that there is no common truth. But if that statement is true, it can only be true on the basis that the prior premises are true--not to mention sound reasoning. But if the prior premises are true, then the conclusion, in this case, is false. There would have to be more than one common truth. For example, if I were to say that all birds have wings (first premise), and then say my bluejay is a bird (second premise), I can logically conclude that my bluejay has wings. But the conclusion does not follow if the premises are false. If my conclusion is true and derived from the middle term, and if the reasoning is sound, the premises must be true. If the premises were false (which they would have to be if there were only one common truth), the conclusion could not be derived from them. Now, I cannot logically conclude an argument with a true statement unless the premises are true and reasoning is sound. But if the premises are true, then there are more common truths than the one supposed truth that "there is no common truth except this one". And so, the conclusion is false. But you cannot derive a false conclusion from true premises if the reasoning is sound. Which means that if the conclusion is true, it cannot be true on the basis of true prior premises. That means that the conclusion cannot be established. One cannot provide reasons for saying, "there is no common truth". And so the statement is indefensible. It is arbitrary and unfounded.

But even in putting forth the statement "there is no common truth except this one", it is obvious that I imply that there are many truths we hold in common other than the above. It is true that we have ideas in common; it is true that we can communicate those ideas; it is true that we can disagree; it is true that truth is worth knowing and worth trying to communicate; it is true that I can know something other than myself - it is true that I at least believe it as a condition for communication. It is true that you can know something other than yourself, otherwise I wouldn't bother trying to communicate with you. Even if I hold that language is prior to thought, I hold it to be true. If I affirm that I could be wrong, then I affirm that it is true that I can be mistaken. If it is true that I can be mistaken, then I also imply that it is true that I am not the measure of what is true, that there is something outside of me that is the measure of what is true and that I am to conform to that measure.

Also, to be able to see or understand that there is no common truth, that is, no truth that we hold in common, implies the intellectual ability to grasp what is common and what is not common. In other words, it requires the ability to grasp universality, for I can't deny what I cannot grasp. Not only does it require the ability to grasp universality, but it also implies the ability to" step outside myself" so to speak. In other words, I am able to know something other than myself. I can see into your reality, enough to know that we don't hold any truth in common. I also presuppose that you can do the same, for I am telling you that there is no common truth. Hence, I expect you to understand that.

If I am completely locked inside myself, if I have no contact with that which is outside of me, then I cannot affirm or deny that there are truths that we hold in common. For it is not possible for me to grasp the "we" (for I am stuck inside myself).

But the subjectivist would not go this far. He believes that he can know something outside of himself, and if he attempts to communicate what he discovers to others, he seems to believe that others have the same ability, otherwise they couldn't begin to understand him (at the most they would only be able to know themselves). If I communicate something to you, I imply that I at least believe that we have some abilities in common. For we are able to commun / icate, enter into communion, enter into a common arena, so to speak. We have a lot in common, which is why we can communicate, and which is why I communicate to you that "there is no common truth". Yet it is true that we have "common ground" on which to communicate. We have this common ability to "exit ourselves" and know something other than ourselves. There is a world outside of ourselves, something other than ourselves, otherwise the ability to exit ourselves would be entirely useless. If there is nothing outside of ourselves to know, why do we have the ability to exit ourselves? But there is something outside of ourselves, at least the person to whom I am communicating my idea that "there is no common truth". I can know something about him, namely that we have no truth in common. If I know that, then what I know about him is not mere opinion, but truth. Hence, there is a lot more that I can know than the inability to hold truth in common.

No matter how we come at this problem, denying that we can hold the truth in common is entirely self-refuting.