Our question is: What prompts people to seek the truth; how do they find it and what obstacles must they overcome?
With this question in mind we read 3 books in which people had a great need to find the truth and we looked at how they went about finding it.
We read Anthem by Ayn Rand which was about an ultra collectivist society and the main character was questioning the bad logic of the leaders.
We also read Catch 22 by Joseph Heller about pilots during war time who were being asked to fly a quota of missions but just before they met their quota a larger quota was given to them.
Finally, we read Discourse on Method by Rene Descartes who was a 17th century philosopher who had come to realize everything he had been taught could not be counted on.
In all of these books the characters derived a means of finding the truth that worked for them. In every case it involved questioning the “truth” they were being given. Let's use the examples of how the characters in these books found the truth to answer our question.
What prompts people to seek the truth;
In Catch 22, one of the characters put crab apples in his mouth and Yosarian, the main character, was curious about his strange behavior and wanted to know exactly why he did that. He asked questions until he found out the main reason why he put them in his mouth.
“That the will as well as the understanding is required for judging.”
This just means that you have to want to know the truth and understand what you are observing before you figure out what is going on.
In anthem Equality 72521 found a cave from the past that had light bulbs and this tech got him to really start questioning what he had been told by his collective society.
The next question is how do they find the truth
Rene Descartes decided that he needed a specific method to find the truth and one of the most important steps in his method was to look very closely at the information that he had and in his words“lay aside our prejudices” and make a “Summary of what must be observed in order to philosophize correctly.”
Descartes created a 4 step process
a- Accept ideas as true and justified only if they are self-evident. an idea is self evident if it is clear and distinct in one’s mind.
b- Analysis: divide complex ideas into their simpler parts.
c- Synthesis: reach complex ideas by starting with ideas that are the simplest to know.
d- Exhaustive and complete: the inquiry should be complete and comprehensive. Nothing left out.
In Anthem The main character whose name is Equality 7-2521 found a book that had been written prior to the existence of the collective. This book contained the word “I”. He realized that he was an individual and he could apply his own thoughts to what he was being told.
what obstacles must they overcome?
Descartes was very concerned about the obstacle of prejudice which could distort a true understanding of the world around him. He perceived that ,
“These truths are clearly perceived, but do not equally by all men, on account of prejudice”
People perceive things differently based upon their experiences.
“The chief cause of our errors is to be found in the prejudices of their childhood.”
When we are children we take in all the information we are told without thinking if it makes sense, logical or has evidence.
“That to correct the prejudices of our early years, we must consider what is clear in each of our simple notions.”
We should try and find all of the holes in our beliefs that we took in before we had reason.
“We attach our thoughts to words which do not express them with accuracy.”
When definitions of words don’t match with reality finding the truth is very difficult.
“We cannot forget these prejudices.”
We can see that many people seek the truth and what they have in common is that they need a reason reason to seek it, a way to seek, and ways to overcome the obstacles that they run into. So we would like to conduct a little exercise in finding the truth.
Have you ever heard anything that you thought made no sense at all?
What did you do?
Did you ask about it or leave it alone?
Phrase #1
Now let’s do one together. Here is our statement,
“It is forbidden not to be happy... Men are free and the earth belongs to them; and all things on earth belong to all men; and the will of all men together is good for all; so all men must be happy.”
If men are free why is it “forbidden not to be happy”?
Do all things on earth belong to all men?
Is the will of all men good for all?
You can be happy or unhappy regardless of the emotional state of others.
Phrase #2
“we all know the things which exist and therefore the things which are not known by all do not exist.”
Do they know all the things that exist?
What if you don’t know what you don’t know?
What is the relationship between knowing something and it existing?
What if a few people know something exists but others aren’t aware of it?
If someone has a new idea is it automatically invalid and nonexistent?
“Secrets of this earth is not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them.”
We don’t know everything that exists things that are not known still might exist.
Phrase #3
We’re going to put on the screen a statement made by the leaders of the collective in Ayn Rand’s book.
“What is not thought by all men cannot be true.”
If what is thought changes, does reality also change?
What if all men are wrong?
Since everyone can’t have the same thoughts; wouldn’t all thoughts be wrong?
If I have a thought that’s not shared can it be true?
What is thought by all men has little correlation with the truth.
Phrase #4: If we were to take this phrase and relate it to laws made through the democratic process you would get the phrase;
Laws made by people who were voted on by people are good and disobeying them is evil.
Does that mean good and evil change depending on what laws are written down by politicians?
Wouldn’t that mean good and evil is subjective?
Is something good because a politician said so or did the politician say so because it is good?
To get rid of all of these problems with this phrase I will change it to;
Laws either are correct, in line with what is good or evil or it isn’t either way the law is irrelevant to what is good or evil.
It’s always important to find the truth about what’s going on around you and I hope this has helped.