5. Don’t Panic!: Toward a Tentative Truthiness

[A Supplemental Essay]

essay-5-image [About: Some pragmatic assumptions and hopeful attitudes about Truth, Reality, and Knowledge.]
[Length: Approx. 1,000 words; 5 minutes to read.]

[In these essays I will use the tag "Supplemental" to indicate a piece that cleans up or extends the ideas of the previous essay (or essays). These are less central to the progression of ideas of the posted essays and are good ones to skip if you must skip some. Also, I put less effort into trying to make them interesting or grounded in examples or story lines.]

In essays 2 through 4 I highlight the difficulties, uncertainties, and complexities inherent in our attempts to find the truth or determine whether to believe something we hear. On the oft chance that the examples given have lead you stumbling toward a deconstructive nihilism, wondering whether any search for truth is futile, or wondering whether I am of that opinion, I will clarify a few things in this post.

Though questions of ultimate Truth may be esoteric, from a pragmatic (more at this essay) perspective some beliefs are definitively “truthier” than others, closer to that reality we want to know about.1 And, more importantly, some methods and approaches to truth-finding and justifying one’s beliefs are superior to others. Checking sources is a good thing. Questioning bias is a good thing. Empirically testing hypotheses is a good thing. So there are methods and attitudes that should give us more confidence in our findings. Still, no method is a guarantee.

I’m a big fan of the scientific method (and wear the scientist’s hat in some of my work). I am, however, also a big skeptic of many specific “scientific results,” especially their interpretations and uses. The examples given in previous essays are chosen to highlight the all-too-frequent limitations of valid methods, even when competently performed.

Lets get some basic assumptions out of the way. Though somewhat obvious, they are worth summarizing as the list will clarify my fundamental attitudes toward the subject.

  • Not all information sources are equal. Through the character of those creating them or the methods used to inquire, some sources are far superior to others.
  • Truth finding is like “triangulation” in navigation, better to have several perspectives and to have each fairly represented. (Balanced defenses of Pro and Con positions being the most basic example.)
  • In a very general sense, additional effort usually leads to more valid truths. Digging deeper, checking one’s sources, etc. adds to the valid certainty of one’s belief.
  • It is important to try to separate facts from opinions (though there can be a fact-to-opinion spectrum). “Facts” can be backed up with credible sources. Opinions don’t need to be, but benefit from the support of facts.
  • Similarly, it is good to clearly differentiate opinions about “what is true” from those about “what is right” or just (fact vs. value). The two types of questions usually require different treatments.

These basic principles (the list is suggestive, not comprehensive) portray a hopefulness that high quality knowledge is possible and that effort spent toward producing it is not wasted. On the other side, there are factors that force us to be ever diligent, never completely confident in our (or others’) beliefs:

  • Discovering the truth can be very time consuming and expensive. The tradeoff means we rarely have as much valid information as we would like. Missing pieces and leaps of faith are inevitable in making decisions about complex issues.
  • We live in a time of information overload, where, arguably, the quality of information on average is degrading as the quantity threatens to burry us alive.
  • Some degree of bias is inevitable in information sharing among people. If our goal is to understand reality, we can and must try to minimize the uncertainty, but just as importantly, we must expect to encounter it and interpret information accordingly.
  • Presenting fair information from both (or all sides) is desirable, but, as one can see in the “What’s good for pharma is good for America,” and “Should the drinking age be lowered” articles mentioned earlier, multiple perspectives are just as likely to lead to greater confusion and complexity as greater clarity.

How much time and effort does one really need to put into questioning or evaluating other’s claims and one’s own beliefs? Is it really so important an issue? Yes and no. Yes for reasons I hope I have made clear. But then again, even with all the sources of uncertainty that could be revealed in every belief we have and every piece of information we receive, we seem to get by OK, learn from the media and each other, make our daily decisions, and somehow get on with life without much reflection on the uncertainty and without being forever skeptical. The persistent skeptic is an unhappy fellow with a muscle-bound brain and an under-utilized heart.

So, while these articles may leave you enmeshed in a focus on the complex or troubling indeterminacies of knowledge, take an occasional deep breath of the sort that says “there is hope after all” or “all is wonderful just as it is” on the exhale. This balancing perspective is every bit as “true” as the one claiming that indeterminacy is rampant and we must become more skillful in its waters if we are to successfully navigate our modern context.

  1. On the perspective of Pragmatism see Lois Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, Farrar, Straus & Giroux Publ., 2001. [↩]