Objective Truth

Some say there is no objective truth. We live in the age of tolerance and liberalism and no one is supposed to force their views on others. We can hardly be sure about anything ourselves, and therefore we should of course be equipped with an amount of healthy skepticism toward everything we see and hear. Still, from this it does not follow that nothing is objective.

We all have certain opinions about what we experience around us. We receive impressions and from those we draw conclusions about the world. We think that the rain makes the plants grow and we think the government has a good or a bad policy.

Whenever we have an opinion about anything, whatever it is, we think that our view is the right one, and accordingly we do think that there is such a thing as a right view. Granted, we are fully aware of our own imperfection and know that we cannot be a hundred percent certain about anything, but the fact that we care about having opinions at all that must mean that we actually believe that something is true. We would never venture to make a claim about anything if that was not our underlying conviction.

When some people still deny the existence of objective truths, that is probably due to some confusion about what is meant by objectivity. Objective certainty is admittedly not possible and nothing can be absolutely and finally proven. Objective agreement is also impossible, as there will always be someone who perceives even the most simple things differently. But the existence of an objective truth is not dependent on what anyone thinks and believes. Maybe we are all wrong, but the right answer may still be out there.

Whenever we strive for knowledge about anything, we are searching for the objectively right answer, even though we cannot be sure that we have found it if we find it. But it is the belief that it exists that makes us search at all.