Has Any Truth Been Discovered? Poem by Paul Hartal
Has Any Truth Been Discovered?
In the spring of 1931 Will Durant sent a long letter
to Bertrand Russell. It included the assertion:
“The greatest mistake in history was
the discovery of truth”, because truth has neither
made us free, nor made us happy.
In his response Russell wrote: “I do not see that
we can judge what would be the result of
the discovery of truth since none has hitherto been
discovered.”
Now, this implies that if Russell is wrong, then,
of course, his statement is false. But if Russell
is right, then he is wrong again, because a collateral
verity is incorporated in his claim. Thus, through
the denial of the discovery of truth,
we discover a truth.
the latter's Autobiography (London: Unwin,1978; pp.443-445) .
Truly, by judging the discovery of truth, the truth is discovered. Nicely envisioned.
Confusing, controversial and as always, with me at least, dependent on an agreed upon definition. In this case; truth.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/25/2024 12:41:23 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Thank you for your comment. I agree that the notion of truth is confusing and controversial. At the same time I believe that the value of definition appears to be rather overrated. If one says, for instance, “It’s raining now”, or, “Many tourists visit New York”, we don’t really need explanations to understand the plain meaning of these sentences. Nevertheless, let’s provide a common denotation for truth and define it as correspondence between belief and fact. Thus truth represents the opposite pole of falsity. Throughout history philosophers and scientists have struggled with the problem of what can we know for sure about ourselves and the universe. Unfortunately, truth remains murky and elusive. Even mathematics, the most exact among the sciences, in corresponding contexts fails to pass the test of irrefutable certainty. Bertrand Russell, a great mathematician, envisions “the perfect model of truth in the multiplication table, which is precise and certain and free from all temporal dross”. Yet, in his own playful definition of the Queen of Sciences, he defines mathematics as “the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true”. And the fact remains that in relation to nature the laws of mathematics are saturated with uncertainties. Furthermore, the cardinal concepts of science - such as matter, energy, space and time—represent poetic metaphors in an ultimately unknown reality. Let’s face it. We don’t have definite answers to fundamental existential questions: Is the universe finite or infinite? Who are we? Where do we come from? Are we alone in the cosmos? What is consciousness? Is the universe alive? In”The Problems of Philosophy”, Russell writes: “Has the universe any unity or plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? ’