True for You but Not for Me

Can something be true for you and not true for me? In other words, is the truth relative or is the truth fixed? How you answer this question shapes the way you look at the world. Renowned philosophy professor Paul Copan provides an excellent road map through this tricky and vitally important issue.

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Script:

Is there such a thing as truth?

Or is everything, including truth, a statement of personal opinion or preference? In other words, is truth relative?

For our purposes here, let’s put aside the science angle. Yes, you can sit on a couch and not appear to be moving, but since the earth, at the equator, is rotating at 1100 miles per hour, you are, from that perspective, moving—and very fast. I’m not talking about that kind of relative.

Let’s confine ourselves to the more everyday questions of truth. Like, does it exist?

Once, the answer to this question was obvious—usually confined to late-night discussions in college dorm rooms. But no longer.
Truth is going through a tough time.

A white woman feels black and represents herself to be so. She rises in the leadership ranks of the NAACP until her fiction is exposed. She refuses to go quietly, however. She feels black, and so she is black.

A 69 year-old man in the Netherlands petitions the court to legally change his age to 49 because that’s how he feels.

And, of course, seemingly on a daily basis, men (and more and more boys), with all the chromosomes and body parts that make them distinctly male, declare themselves to be female; and women (and more and more girls) likewise declare themselves to be male. They feel they are one sex or the other; therefore, they are that sex.

And we must accept that, regardless of what the truth is.

In a viral video, a 5-foot, 9-inch American Caucasian male asks students at the University of Washington to acknowledge that he’s Chinese, or six-foot-five, or a woman. Some hesitate, but no one will tell him what he’s saying is not true – that he’s not what he says he is. That would be “mean”—and “intolerant.”

This “true for you, but not for me” relativism is disconcerting because it requires the acceptance of obvious contradictions, denial of reality, and common sense. Rather than adjusting our lives to the truth, the truth has to adjust itself to us.

But it’s very difficult to live this way, not to mention it being highly impractical. We rely on mind-independent universal truths in order to think clearly, to navigate life. Otherwise, we quickly get lost.

There must be some things that just are—things that are true. This way points North for everybody, no matter what anyone happens to prefer or sincerely believe.

So, what is truth?

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