There Are No Absolute Distinctions Between What Is True And What Is False Essay Example

and God existed and consider this to be an example of an “absolute truth”; however, disputes start whenever Christians try to impose their beliefs and practices on other religions. Depending on the religion a person follows, they will have a different opinion about the existence of Jesus and God, and because of this relativists believe that this is an example of relativism rather than absolutism. There are several factors which can affect how we interpret things including language, culture, historical epoch, gender, and status.

For example, I’m a girl which can affect how I perceive boys and their way of thinking. Boys and girls are very different and since I spend most of my time around girls I sometimes catch myself thinking that boys’ behavior is more immature; even though I’m sure if you asked them they would say the complete opposite. In order to really understand the claim we need to look at the different ways of knowing to find out how humans acquire information and evaluate how accurate this information is.

There are many different ways of knowing and with time philosophers have manages to organize these into four categories; sense perception, reason, knowing, and language. Relativism believes that we are unable to perceive without subconsciously having an opinion about what we see, which makes our judgment more biased. To discuss this idea let’s look at the strengths and weaknesses of sense perception and reason as ways of knowing. Sense perception is one of the most widely used ways of knowing in which we use all of our five senses to get information.

All of our senses are very sensitive

and technology has even been developed to improve some of our senses such as microscopes used in the lab; however, even this way of knowing has faults to it. Firstly human’s senses are limited; humans can only hear noises within a certain range of pitch and sometimes humans perceive things that in reality don’t exist such as mirages. Secondly humans always have biased points of views which affect the observations they make on a daily basis.

We use our five senses to appreciate art works when we’re visiting an art gallery; however depending on the viewer they might understand the artist’s message behind the painting differently. In other words the painting is open for interpretation and as a result you could argue that the knowledge the observer acquires through sense perception is not necessarily the same as intended by the sender; there is not always a correlation between the perception of the sender and the receiver.

Despite the fact that reasoning is considered the most accurate way of acquiring information, even this way of knowing cannot be considered perfect. Reasoning is based on logic and working things out which makes us able to support statements with proofs. As a result the answers we get through reasoning are often very correct; however, reasoning also contains bias as it depends on a person’s knowledge etc. One example which challenges the idea of reasoning being the best way of acquiring information in science, and more specifically experiments carried out in chemistry.

As a student who takes Chemistry as one of their higher level courses for IB I’m often asked to carry out experiments and write

up my result to form “a lab write-up. ” In a lab write-up students start by stating their hypothesis – their educated guess – and end with writing a conclusion in which they say whether their hypothesis was correct or not. In order to determine whether their hypothesis is correct students have to look at all the qualitative and quantitative data they collected throughout their experiment.

The data a student collects depends entirely on their observations and use of senses. Since our senses can be false we can conclude that the knowledge we gain through sense perception is not always correct, and as a result one could argue that data is not an example of an “absolute truth. ” The people who disagree with the claim that “there are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false” are referred to as Absolutists. Absolutists believe in the concept of “absolute truth” and that there is only one correct and one wrong point of view.

In an attempt to understand the concept of “absolute truth” we’re going to start off by defining truth. According to the online dictionary truth is “conformity with fact or reality; a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle. ” A famous absolutist was known by the name of Aristotle described truth by saying “to say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true.

This statement says that something cannot be both true and false at the same time,

and supports the idea that there are certain factors which can distinguish between what is true and false. While Relativists believe that religion is an example of relativism because they believe that there is not one true religion but instead each religion has its own opinioned on the existence of god, absolutists disagree with this statement. Absolutists believe that people who accept that all religions are equally right oppose the Bible and the Christian beliefs which say Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Another relativistic belief which absolutists disagree with is the idea that science is not necessarily accurate because out senses can be false. In contrast to relativists, absolutists believe that science and laws of science are examples of absolute truth which can be discovered and proven through a series of experiments. As a person who leaved her home country at a young age I have a hard time defining who I am, which could be considered an example of relativism.

I was born in Denmark and my passport states that my nationality is Danish; however I never read Danish books or watch Danish movies to improve my language and I rarely speak Danish outside of the house. When I go to Denmark during holidays I feel like I’m “visiting” rather than “home. ” I prefer speaking English to the other languages that I know, and practice my English language whenever watching an English movie, reading an English book, or simply communicating with my friends at school.

Despite this fact I am not an Englishman; I don’t come from England and I’ve never lived there.

When someone asks me where my home is, my answer is easy; Belgium. I’ve been living in Belgium for half of my life now, and for almost as long as I have lived in Waterloo and gone to St. Johns International School. So who am I? Am I Danish because that’s where I was born? Am I English because that’s the language I speak? Or am I Belgian because that’s where my home is? There are sometimes cases in which it is hard to define what is true and what it false.

With all the arguments discussed in this essay I have come to a conclusion that there are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false. While others will find this argument completely settling others might disagree greatly. Some people believe that there are no distinctions between true and false because our senses can be false and it all depends on your point of view, while other believe in the concept of “absolute truth” and the idea that something can’t be both true and false at the same time.

Nevertheless I think it’s scary to think that despite all of our modern day resources we might not be able to distinguish between true and false – what to some people seems simple. Then again it’s ironic that I’m writing a paper stating my opinion on the claim since I’ve just discussed the problems with our ways of knowing and could argue that there is no way of knowing if I’m correct.