Me - or thoughts you are not likely to agree with

 

My belief - perhaps it has become or will become one day my firm conclusion: it will certainly disappoint some of my readers now - is that there is no Truth. What we have is some intuition, some mental tic, that there must be Truth because the Idea won't go away.

We can’t blame Plato; we’ve all got this Idea. My response was to accept it for years without thinking, to become baffled by experience, then gradually to put it away. I see the point of everything, I find ideas and the search for them always engage me, but I do not believe any of it much beyond feeling that we’re here and have to do what we can. That's an idea that works, but hardly an Idea. If Truth were real, I should have bumped into it by now.

The best explanation I have for this in philosophical terms is that I am an "empiricist". (I use inverted commas here in case I'm accused of having a Philosophy.) I know everything that’s wrong with empiricism, but I am still an "empiricist". Empiricism “works” for me; metaphysics does not. I am naturally structured to take the world as I find it and quite put out when doing so is given some label: skepticism, or worse, cynicism, or worst of all, not understanding.

Though I don't go for theories and think Truth is the Emerald City, I follow the Yellow Brick Road with the best of them. And report on the journey from time to time like an historian.

History teaches Hitler invaded Russia, not that it was wrong, still less that it was ordained. History gives many reasons for it, not one simple answer. History tells me we have moved on from Ancient Egypt and Rome, left behind medieval and twentieth century Europe, socially, politically, intellectually and yes, morally. There it is.

My daughter called me a “good listener” when she was over last year. I liked that, but I knew anyway. I am what I am.