Introduction
It seems as if there is no firm basis for what anyone believes. People’s opinions vary depending on who one talks to. Perhaps one can accept this difference of opinion, asserting that someone else’s opinion is simply incorrect. One might say this is because, for example, their views are tainted by bias, or that it is simply because of the crowd they run with. Making these claims about others, one must believe that there is a certain truth that others are missing, ‘that if only they were more educated, or more open minded.’ In objecting to the others opinion, one might feel sympathy for their erroneous beliefs, perhaps bewilderment, or even anger.
While such differences of opinion may, at times, seem innocuous, such differences may turn out to have dire consequences. Wars can be fought not only over resources such as oil and gas, but also ideas. Ideas can often serve as the rationale for wars. Differences in ideology can turn into animosity, and animosity can turn into conflict, and conflict can turn into hatred.
Someone’s opinion may seem certain in their own eyes, but in fact these beliefs, while valid, could be based on false premises. Also, one’s beliefs could be the result of the persuasion of some orator who practiced some sleight of speech using the logical fallacies such as the Bandwagon Fallacy, the Ad Hominem Attack, or even the Poisoning the Well fallacy. The demagogue may also use such rhetorical devices such as the enthymeme [1. Frame, D., (1998) The Logical Nature of Aristotle’s Enthymeme. Master’s Thesis: San Diego State University]
Truth is most often thought of as a shining ideal. Perhaps there are some truths shown with opinions, but oftentimes these truths seem unreliable. Are opinions the only types of truths? It seems not. It seems most often one’s opinions are considered to be a truth by at least the one asserting these opinions. How many ways are there to talk about truth? In fact, there are many different types of truth.
There is the type of truth where there is a correspondence between what is asserted and the things it refers to. Other types of truths include a coherence theory of truth, where beliefs seem to hold together by virtue of their composition. Also, there is the pragmatic theory of truth where if things work there is truth (i.e., a machine if functioning properly works).
The correspondence theory of truth is the most common type of truth easily accepted, understood and used in the world. When looking for a correspondence, one identifies what they believe is true corresponds with something else. If I say that I see a blue beach ball at the beach, and there is in fact a blue beach ball within view, and it is the one I see, then my statement is true. This sort of truth can be applied to opinions, facts, laws of science, and as well as all objects of perception. All of these truths can be observed. We can observe that the Democratic or Republican party is right, or that the sky is blue, or that some element has a certain atomic weight. We know all of these things through experience.
When talking about using sense perception, we are referring to what can be observed. When we speak of observation, we most often think of seeing with the eyes, but to observe something can arguably contain hearing sounds as well as including the other senses. Most often observation comes together with most or all the senses engaged at once. When using the senses for understanding of the world, one acquires empirical knowledge, making judgments about that which is observable based on sensory experience.
When we look at an object, we see that object in a certain way. If we look at it today, tomorrow or the next day it always appear the same. If it is blue it always appears blue, if it is coarse to the touch then it always feels that way. There is a certain constancy and therefore permanence in that which we perceive. We feel assured that things are as they are, and they will under ordinary circumstances, be the same tomorrow.
This sort of idea of constancy and resilience permeates our contact with the world. As the sun rose yesterday, it will rise today, and likewise will rise tomorrow. The decay of fall and the coldness of winter, the rebirth of spring and the gloriousness of summer, present themselves in reliable cycles. As we are born, mature, reproduce and die, this is the life and legacy of being human.
These things that are seemingly permanent give comfort to us and provide a sense of security. This reliability of existence allows us to be at ease, to revel on holidays, celebrate with friends’ successes, but also to find sorrow at another’s passing, knowing that you have yet survived. The unknown is what disturbs us most. The unknown is the stuff of stories of horror contained in movies and novels of ghosts and vampires, werewolves and demons. While one may enjoy the diversion of such a story, which releases us temporarily from the cares of the world, when the stories are over, we are happy to return to our adjusted lives.
Living this life, with all its foibles and pitfalls, results in a greater understanding of ones’ self and the world. When we are a new-born babe, any event surprises us, because without experience we know not what to expect. With experience we know what to expect whether it be another day’s toil, or a holiday, or even a sedentary moment.
While even as one ages, one finds that one can take nothing as certain. There is that one day where the check did not arrive on time, or a day where one’s love did not arrive. Experience is a great teacher and individuals and society as well benefits greatly by knowing what to expect. Knowledge depends on the understanding, and one can only acquire understanding through experience. Most feel confident that experience is what can be relied on, and it is that experience that has enabled the human species to survive.
Although it is possible of course, for example, for a species to be an excellent predator and because of this has been able to thrive, but later finds itself without food because of the extinction of the species it feeds on. Nowadays the world has excelled in the production of increasingly destructive weapons and have been able to exterminate those less well armed. But now the nations that have triumphed face each other in hardened befuddlement. What are we to do now their leaders might wonder? One possible outcome, hopefully, is an age of cooperation.
While we know experience is vital for species survival, being the nurture in the nature/nurture distinction, the role of nature is less clear. Like a driving force which leads one to act beyond or without ones understanding, this force evades consciousness, and therefore, like bias itself, is beyond comprehension. Socrates claimed that the only knowledge one can have is the knowledge that we don’t know. One cannot really know for certain the true motives for one’s actions. It might be thought by an individual that they acted out of love, or perhaps justice, but actually acted primally as our genetic ancestry dictates. The scope of consciousness must be necessarily unknown, because our genetic inspired drives do not rise to consciousness. How much is a true self-conscious motive is forever a mystery.
If we cannot know the extent of our conscious motives, we cannot really feel secure in these motives determining behavior at all. This is not to claim that the two, nature and nurture, cannot act hand in hand in the quest to survive. The relationship between these two is a very contemporary enterprise examined largely by science and philosophy and is especially poignant in the writings of Sigmund Freud.
While it seems to be true that our consciousness is limited to some degree, this does not rule out the usefulness of the human intellect. Certainly, great skyscrapers, elaborate mathematical theories, and human cunning, is unrivaled in the animal kingdom, points to a conscious determinate existence. When looking more closely at Socrates’ dictum it becomes clear that his is a call to skepticism, a call to avoid dogma. We are indeed thinking beings with the ability to scrutinize and hypothesize as shown by Descartes’ Cogito “I think therefore I am.” One can find a sense of comfort with this assertion. It seems we must live meaningful and robust lives. For if we are able to think, we must exist, and be a thinking thing at that, a free independent consciousness.
When one scrutinizes the nature/nurture distinction, only one can be confused about what is reliable, what can be known, but when looking at assurances that at least to some degree one is a truly free-thinker all trepidation recedes. Many would find it depressing if this great mind which humans possess only served ancestral animal instincts. We are then, at least to some degree thinking free beings, but the question may arise, as Rodney King after being beaten by the police, most famously stated during the subsequent rioting in Los Angeles, California in 1992, “Can we all get along?”.
