Posted: Feb 23, 2012 10:48 pm
logical bob wrote:Bill offered the speed of light and its status as an universal speed limit as a candidate for absolute truth.
No. He didn't.
It's odd to say that what truth is has nothing to do with epistemology and ontology. If there's such a thing as absolute truth, but it's not to do with what we can know or what exists, perhaps you can tell us what you think the word means?
But that's not what I'm saying.
A claim about what the truth is constitutes an ontological claim.
A claim about the extent to which we can know the truth constitutes an epistemological claim.
Neither Bill nor I have presented either of these. We are merely saying that the truth exists, regardless of whether anyone's conception of it is accurate, even regardless of whether anyone can possess an accurate conception of it.
If reality is ultimately unknowable then the statement, "reality is ultimately unknowable" would constitute a truth. The frustrating thing - possibly what you are trying to discuss - is that if reality is ultimately unknowable, we could not know that it is ultimately unknowable. If we knew that the statement "reality is ultimately unknowable" was true, then the statement "reality is ultimately unknowable" would actually be false.
Relatavism could be correct. But we cannot know that. If we knew relatavism was correct, then relatavism would be incorrect.