Part Two: What is Truth?......5. In Search of Truth

Great is truth and strongest of all. — 1 Esdras 4:35 Buy the truth and do not sell it. — Proverbs 23:23[p 160] [p 161] What we are looking for In this and the following three chapters we set out to examine the question: What is truth? We shall be concerned not merely with the content of truth, i.e. what facts, propositions or beliefs are true, but with the nature of truth, i.e. what does a belief or a statement have to be in order to qualify as being true? In other words, how should we define truth? In addition we shall be asking whether there is such a thing as absolute truth, which is objectively true and exists independently of us and of our beliefs or feelings, or whether there is no absolute truth about anything but only various, partial truths which we create for ourselves, or society creates for us, by choosing to accept them or to construct them out of life's experience. In other words, is there such a thing as absolute truth which everybody must accept simply because it is true; or is there only 'truth for us', which we accept because we like it and it suits us, but which is not necessarily true for others if it does not suit them or they don't like it? Now this is a very ...