Truth or Fact — What have you?
Fire is Hot: Truth or fact?
I’ve never been much of what you may call a consistent ponderer. That’s not to say I do not brood, dwell, evaluate, toss-in-head, reason, reflect, mull or what have you. I attempt all of the above and then some more. However, the chief concern is my attention span that’s been a constant competition to the housefly. Words, phrases, statements, starkness, subtlety, sarcasm, love — all make a significant impact and provoke musings and opinion. But not many wise sayings make me ponder for ever after.
Constant observer, yes, but constant ponderer – not sure. (I am confident, though, that they register somewhere on the microchip and will be available on recall). But two words have caught my imagination for way too long now and each time I read them both — either in isolation or together but mostly interchangeably (tch!) — I spend the better part of my conscious hours trying to sort them out. In fact, even as I write this, I realise I keep thinking about them all the time.
Hmm. Truth and fact. What separates the two? Are these two the same? Or is there more to one than the other? Is it fair to use them interchangeably?
Analogies confuse me. Is “truth” absolute? Is there one, single, applicable-to-all truth? Is there more to this thing called truth than just facts?
Let me exemplify my confusion. That sun rises in the East is a fact universally acknowledged and however many assertions can’t prove otherwise. Therefore, popularly, it’s also “true”. So does a “universally accepted” fact become truth?
Then again, there’s the tricky question of “my truth” and “your truth”. That Faith works is my truth and that it’s to no avail is someone else’s. That it’s 2 pm where I am and 5 am where my mom is. So, is something that’s subjective also truth?
Peter Vardy’s Realists vs Anti-Realists is an interesting one. The Realists are of the opinion fact is one definite answer for a question or belief, with a rider of ‘though I may be wrong’. An Anti-Realist believes answers are specific to a culture, society or person — belief in God or a form of him being one example.
In legal parlance, there seems to be a clear distinction between fact and truth. Fact becomes a statement of reflection on the world as it is, a statement devoid of all embellishments and adjectives, a statement without bells and whistles – a technically correct and accurate statement.
Truth, legalists say, is a larger holistic statement that’s not just made of facts but of deed, motive and emotion. Hence, “truth and nothing but the absolute truth”.
(Argh, again, motive and emotion are relative so how can truth be absolute?!)
Sigh. I do wish I could find an answer to this onion-peel of a question. And then sometimes I sadistically wish I don’t. That’ll keep me pondering for long. May be, for good.
