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ANNOTATION:
The denial of absolute truths is self-refuting.
You say, "There are no absolute truths."
Is this statement true absolutely, or only relatively (in particular contexts, predicting some phenomena but not all, as you explain)?
If it is true relatively, then there must be some contexts or phenomena that are explained by the existence of absolute truths, and the statement is therefore false.
If it is true absolutely, then it is self-contradictory, and therefore false.
Therefore it is false to state "There are no absolute truths", and there must be at least one absolute truth.
Author: Pat Mcgee (psilocyborg[at]hotmail.com)
Date: Nov 23, 2000REPLY:
Is the statement "There are no absolute truths" implicitly self-refuting? It seems this depends largely on one's personal concept of "absolute truth" and interpretation of the phrasing of the original statement. Perhaps the author defines statements of "absolute truth" as "statements that can never be replaced by better, more fitting statements" or "statements that accurately describe properties of the Cosmos instead of simply modelling such properties."
If such an interpretation is taken, the supposed self-contradiction disappears in a puff of smoke. The interpreted statement "There can be no statements that can never be replaced by better, more fitting statements" makes no claim, implicit or explicit, that it itself cannot be replaced by better, more fitting statements. Likewise, the statement "There can be no statements that accurately describe properties of the Cosmos instead of simply modelling such properties" makes no claim either to accurately describe properties of the Cosmos or not to be simply a model of such properties.
Furthermore, the original statement "There are no absolute truths" makes no claim of any kind, implicit or otherwise, to fall under anyone's definition of "truth".
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