TOK Essay for IBDP Year 5

Question 2: “Different cultures have different truths.”
“A truth is that which can be accepted universally.”
What are the implications for knowledge of agreeing with these opposing statements?


Truth, Aristotle claims, is to “say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not” . However, in the modern world, “truth” is a word which can be widely interpreted, and has many different meanings in today’s context; however, the traditional interpretation of what truth is, “conformity to fact or actuality” , is still very widely utilized.
With this in mind, let us take a brief glance at the two statements. By asserting the different conditions under which something is true, both of these statements have different conclusions. The first statement, “different cultures have different truths” implies that culture somehow affects truth, and that the variance of each culture thereby brings out the various truths which can be determined. The second statement, “a truth is that which can be accepted universally”, hints that the nature of truth transcends all barriers, even that of culture, thus, the conflict in agreeing with both statements.
If I agreed with the first statement, I am proposing that truth is different because of my cultural context, and that because every person has a different upbringing, their evaluation of facts will always be relative to what they have experienced in life, justifying that there are different values attached to everyone’s beliefs due to cultural multiplicity. This kind of belief, also known as cultural relativism, proposes that when a person has a different culture from yours, it implies a different upbringing, a different experience in life, and in general, a different amount of perceptual evidence he has received, although the content of what he may have received through perception does not necessarily differ from yours or mine, because we are both human beings. The existence of different cultures, therefore, substantiates the fact that he can have various values attached to his beliefs, and therefore believe in a universally accepted statement to a different extent, conflicting with another’s views, because his experiences and other filters for information are different. This is what is meant by “different truths” in the statement.
This position is echoed by the philosophy of relativism, which proposes that “Man is the measure of all things” , meaning that the only way truth can be gained, is through the individual, and his defined perception of the world. Therefore, the truth, in this sense, is personal to everyone because of the filters with which they perceive the world in brought upon by culture. An example is when I state a truth personal to me, like “I believe that giving alms to a beggar is good”. When I state a truth like this, I propose to the world that I am inclined to giving alms to a beggar. However, my statement does not objectively show that giving alms to a beggar is something which is a “universally good” action. In fact, it simply shows my psychological state and attitude towards giving alms. However, to another person brought up under wealthy conditions, his interpretation of a beggar would, perhaps, be someone who is poorer than him, and essentially totally different from, say, a man who has been starving all his life. Therefore, similarly, when one says a truth like “such and such is good”, far from making a factual statement about the “goodness” of the object in question, the person is, in actuality, revealing his psychological and personal stand on the issue. This psychology within each person differs due to a non-parallel culture, and this is an example of how culture affects truth.

Now, what does that imply for knowledge if the truth is represented in this statement as non-absolute and relative in nature? Knowledge, firstly, can be defined as “justified true belief”, and therefore, becomes uncertain when people believe in a truth to a different degree, because if this statement is true for me, but not for anyone else, then the knowledge I gain will only ever apply to me, and therefore have no utilitarian use at all for anyone except me. Therefore, truths being different between cultures imply that each of us utilizes human reason to connect our own experiences to a truth, by rationalizing our beliefs, and thereby agreeing with it to varying degrees. On the other hand, reason also allows us to compromise conflicting beliefs between cultures by agreeing with both of them at the same time, but to various degrees. Again, this forms the same truth which differing cultures agree with, but relativism comes in to change the extent of which any culture believes in a truth, making it “different” for everyone. The implications for knowledge of agreeing with this statement, therefore, show that we glean a varied amount of knowledge from truths, because firstly, not everyone’s beliefs are true, and secondly, because our justifications are through reason, which differs because every cultures imparts different values to people, . Ultimately, this leads to personal “knowledge” like bias being imparted to us, affecting our judgement of reality.

On the other hand, a truth being that “which can be accepted universally” is a statement which does not have any contradictions when compared from culture to culture, and is therefore seen as absolute in nature. It is defined as absolute when it can be said to be correct, at all times and at all places. Therefore, this statement promotes the issue of truth being affected by our basest instinct- human nature. The fact that we are all human, no matter what our culture, has given rise to truths which have crossed the barriers of culture. The concept of ethics also comes into play here, because some truths able to be “accepted universally” mostly appeal to human nature rather than anything else. Other absolute truths also exist, for example, the truth of mathematics, in which I state the answer to a mathematics question, and it is, and ever will exist no matter what culture that question is asked in. This is not subjective to relativism, and will therefore always provide a singular truth. On the other hand, relativist questions like “is it raining now” do not prove the same answer every time you ask it. This is why this statement is in direct opposition to the previous statement. Consequently, a universally accepted truth is one without relativistic restrictions, and constitutes enough justification for truth in itself, because due to the fact that it is believed universally across cultures, it anchors us to reality, which is the awareness of our existence now; anything not related to reality in inconsequential.
To quote an example of an absolute truth, many people believe in the “Golden Rule” of “What you do not want others to do to you, do not do unto others” , or more aptly phrased as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Historically, this rule has appeared in various doctrines in so many cultures, that it is almost universally believed. Ethics here plays a part in the proliferation of this belief, because we are essentially human in nature, and therefore pander to basic human instincts; basically, this rule supports moral intiative in a person. Subsequently, because so many cultures follow this rule, it is almost absolute and eternal. Implications for knowledge are therefore clearer; due to the fact that very few value judgements are used for justification for absolute truths. As a result, everyone gets almost the same, consistent form of knowledge due to the fact that personal belief is less of a question here, than ethics. This has different implications from knowledge than the first statement because we are able to derive a different form of knowledge from examining an absolute truth. I personally lean towards agreeing with this statement because firstly, I believe that truth has various areas where it may be relative or not; mathematics is one example of where relativism does not apply, while the above arguments listed in the proposition for the first statement in the question give an example of how relativism does affect truth. Therefore, absolute truths do exist in a universal context. Also, the fact that the proposition for relativism, the statement that “all truths are relative” is universal in nature, and therefore contradictory, attempts to explain that universal, absolute truths do exist. On the other hand, we should not ignore truths derived from relativism, because relativism is truth that has undergone personal reason, and therefore thought, and is the product of our conclusions from experience, affecting how much we are able to rationally believe in a truth.
All in all, both statements provide different implications for knowledge, the first, one which is relevant and justified in a personal context to us, and the second, one which can be applied universally based on others’ belief in it at the same time, but both statements of which can said to give rise to an awareness of rational decisions which are informed with regards to various cultural contexts.


Word Count: 1477 words




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