John asked:

I'm having trouble answering a big question. Maybe you can be of help. Here it is:

"Different cultures have different truths."

"A truth is that which can be accepted universally."

What are the implications for knowledge of agreeing with these opposing statements?

============

These 2 statement are examples of 2 opposing visions in philosophy, the relative one and the
absolute one. Accepting one of these visions means that you chose for a camp, either that of
Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Kuhn (relativists) or that of Popper and his followers.

For what is worth: My very personal opinion is that Karl Popper (though I admire him) chose what has
been since the since Enlightenment the dominant camp, but was nevertheless mistaken.

The relative camp SEEMS to have the future.

Henk Tuten

It is not clear from your question whether you are interested in the implications for knowledge of
agreeing with each of these statements individually or collectively. I'm going to try to answer in a way
that addresses both possibilities.

It is widely (but not universally) accepted in Philosophy that "knowledge" constitutes a justified belief
in a true proposition — where for our purpose here we can define a "proposition" as an assertion that
says something that can be either true or false. So the implications of these two statements you have
provided arise from their respective notions of what constitutes a "true proposition".

The two statements that trouble you present quite distinct and conflicting notions of "truth". But that is
because they come from quite different conceptual realms. So it is not surprising that they appear to
conflict when juxtaposed out of their natural habitats.

The first statement — "Different cultures have different truths."This is a classic statement from
cultural anthropology. Within that context, the meaning of the statement derives from two
observations:(a) what makes an identifiable "culture" are the common beliefs shared by the people
of that culture; and (b) what separates one culture from another, are the differences between the
common beliefs of the two cultures. For there to be two cultures, there must (almost by definition) be
two different sets of common beliefs shared by two different groups of people.

For our purpose here, let's define "a belief" (like a proposition defined above) as an assertion that
says something that can be either true or false. What marks a cultural belief, then, is the acceptance
of some assertion as true by all (or at least the great majority of) the people of that culture. This
general acceptance can be (and often is) quite independent of whether the assertion corresponds to
the facts of the matter, or is consistent (coherent) with the other beliefs of the people of that culture. It
can even be independent of whether in fact anyone at all actually believes the assertion to be true.
All that really counts is whether the great majority behaves as if they believe the assertion to be true.

Within the context of cultural anthropology, the statement in question is not an attempt to establish a
definition of "truth". Nor is it an attempt to claim that the notion of "truth" is culturally relative. It is
instead a bit of poetic license used to express the fact that different cultures believe in different
collections of fundamental assertions about their culture and their world. It is a description of what
people believe to be true, rather than a statement about what is actually true or what is actually
knowledge.

To take this statement out of its cultural anthropology context is to dip into a school of philosophical
thought usually referred to as "Cultural Relativism" (for obvious reasons). Within this wider context,
the statement would have to be interpreted as both a definition of "truth", and a claim that the notion
of "truth" (and thus "knowledge") is culturally relative. Within Cultural Relativism, a belief is
considered to be "true" if it is widely believed to be true within the relevant culture. Since beliefs differ
between cultures, as documented by cultural anthropology, "truths" must necessarily differ between
cultures.

(Cultural Relativism is more widely maintained as a system of Ethics than as a treatment of truth and
knowledge. In Ethics, Cultural Relativism maintains that what is "good" and "right" is defined by the
common beliefs of the culture as to what ought to be considered "good" and "right".)

The second statement — "A truth is that which can be accepted universally."Taken at face value,
the statement is a straight definition of "truth". It establishes the criteria that determine whether or not
some assertion is to be considered true. Whatever the assertion is, if it can be accepted universally,
then it is to be considered true. Unlike the cultural anthropology context of the first statement, this
definition of "truth" does not require actual acceptance by anyone. It requires only that such
acceptance is possible, and makes no reference to how unlikely that possibility might be. Unlike the
Correspondence Theory of "truth", it does not reference the actual facts of the matter. And unlike the
Coherence Theory of "truth", it does not concern itself with the consistency of beliefs.

Consider an assertion such as "Unicorns exist" or "Fairies dance under the moonlight at the bottom of
my garden". Certainly it is thinkable that these two assertions could be accepted universally—
independently of whether unicorns or fairies exist or not; independently of whether a belief in the
existence of unicorns or fairies is consistent with other beliefs held to be true; and independently of
whether there actually is universal acceptance of these assertions or not. Therefore, each of these
assertions would have to be regarded as "a truth". Clearly this is not a reasonable approach to a
general meaning of "truth". And clearly, this notion of "truth" is inconsistent with notions expressed in
either the cultural anthropology or Cultural Relativism contexts of the first statement. So we must
assume that there is a hidden context behind this statement that has been lost in transmission.

If truth is determined by the cultural acceptance of the assertion as true, then you "know" any
assertion that you believe to be true, and that you have cause to believe is generally accepted as true
within your culture. Alternatively, if truth is determined by the possibility of universal acceptance of the
assertion as true, then you "know" any assertion that you believe to be true, and that you have cause
to believe could possibly be universally accepted as true.

Note that in both these cases, there is no reference to the actual facts of the matter, and no reference
to the consistency between one assertion of knowledge and another. Thus, it would be perfectly
feasible for you to "know" both that "Unicorns exist" and that "Unicorns do not exist". This is not how
people normally think of knowledge they consider whether they "know" something.

In the absence of any context for the second statement, there are a number of ways to reinterpret it
so that it makes a little more sense. We could, for example, draw upon the cultural context of the first
statement and reinterpret the meaning of "universally" in the second to mean "universally within a
culture". This reinterpretation would at least make the two statements consistent.

Another reinterpretation would be to understand "that which can be accepted universally" to mean
"that for which there is justification that all rational people would accept if they were aware of it". This
would incorporate the notion of justification critical to the concept of "knowledge" we are employing
here. It would also eliminate the unlikely but remotely feasible possibilities opened up by the use of
"can". On the other hand, without some contextual reason for this reinterpretation, it is certainly
stretching the use of English to find this meaning in the words provided.

I'll leave you with the question of whether or not either the Cultural Relativist or the universal
acceptance notion of "knowledge" and "truth" is consistent with how you employ those notions. I
know for me, neither is reasonable. Personally, I subscribe to the Correspondence Theory of Truth
(wherein an assertion is true just in case it accurately describes the facts of the matter). I find,
therefore, that both of these statements are philosophically incorrect,although they may certainly
possess poetic meaning within some special contexts (such as cultural anthropology).

Stuart Burns