Skip to main content "There is no absolute truth" is itself an absolute truth. : r/askphilosophy

"There is no absolute truth" is itself an absolute truth.

How do you go about this? Is there absolute truth? Is absolute synonym with objective?

"people see with their eyes", could this be considered an absolute truth?

Archived post. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast.

Aha. Thanks for clarifying.

On another tack. I reckon that a new version of (B), namely (B2) could be used which allows the existence of a limited, but infinite, set of true statements including and/or dependent on a primary statement.

(B2): "There are no absolute truths except (B2), plus any other statement which is a 'special function' of (B2)"

Where a statement (Y) is a Special Function of statement (X) if it (Y) satifies certain criteria such as:- it includes 1 or more statements which are equivalent to (X+) or which affirm (X+) and it does not affirm any truth which is not in (X+). Here (X+) is the set of all statements which are special functions of (X)".

Some more tweaking may be needed to make this bullet-proof. But hopefully not many.

The self-referential nature of B2 seems sketchy, though.

Russell's barber is lurking in the wings

Each to his own, I quite like it.

It could be simplified further to:-

(B3): "There are no primary absolute truths except this one."

Here the infinite set of true statements which refer to B3 would be classed as 'secondary' absolute truths - consideration of which can be relegated to the shadows.

I don't see a problem like Russell's barber here as there is no contradiction.

I would still tend to suspect that you've opened the door for other absolute truths, though, making B3 false......

5 more replies More replies
More replies
More replies
More replies