SPIEGLER: What about?
ROMER: It was about science.
ROMER: Lathoron! We meet at last!
LATHORON: Indeed we do Romer.
ROMER: If you don't mind, I would like to ask you a few questions about science. I have heard great things about your knowledge of this subject. It is said, by some, that you know science better than scientists themselves do!
LATHORON: It is the case that science for scientists is not the same as science for ordinary people. My concern is to look at what scientists do and what it is we call science.
ROMER: A most interesting and necessary task, my friend. Many persons I have talked to refer to science in conversation but it is never clear what they mean by this.
LATHORON: I know.
ROMER: What, then, is science Lathoron?
LATHORON: Science is a culturally produced symbolic of objective truth, whose method is required to meet certain criteria of validity if it is to be accepted as scientific.
ROMER: A learned definition, if ever I heard one Lathoron. I'm not sure, however, that this is what people have in mind when they use the word 'science'. I think they mean objective truth but have dropped, out of ignorance or forgetfulness, the other elements of your definition.
LATHORON: I wouldn't be surprised if they had. It is in the nature of a symbolic to be confused with what it symbolises.
ROMER: What about the word 'science', Lathoron. Is it culturally determined?
LATHORON: As I just told you.
ROMER: Let me ask you this, instead: is language a cultural symbolic?
LATHORON: I believe it is. Language is the most cultural of phenomena. And of course it is symbolic.
ROMER: Do you agree that the symbolic of language consists of words?
LATHORON: I would say that. However, there is also sign language and what is called body language.
ROMER: Undoubtedly. But English does consist of words, does it not?
LATHORON: What is your point?
ROMER: Bear with me for a little while. I have a few more questions to ask you, after which you shall be free from my pesky influence.
LATHORON: Alright. Go on.
ROMER: So, thus far, we agree that language is a cultural symbolic and that English consists of words. Not so?
LATHORON (sighing): Yes.
ROMER: From these propositions we can infer that words are cultural symbols, since language as cultural symbolic was said to consist of words. Yes?
LATHORON: Go on.
ROMER: You needn't be patient any longer. I think we have arrived at a satisfactory conundrum.
LATHORON: If you say so. What would that be?
ROMER: It would be as follows: if your statement according to which 'science is a culturally produced symbolic' is part of our language, then it must be part of a cultural symbolic consisting of words. This gives rise to the question: how can we be sure that science is a cultural symbolic if the words 'science', 'cultural', and 'symbolic' are cultural symbols?
LATHORON: Very clever, and I don't think. Now, if that is alright with you, I must return to more pressing matters.
ROMER: Always a pleasure, Lathoron.
ROMER: That was it in essence, Spiegler.
SPIEGLER: What about the rest of Lathoron's definition... 'Objective truth' I think it was?
ROMER: Ha indeed. We didn't broach that topic. How would you, Spiegler, characterise objective truth?
SPIEGLER: As truth pertaining to the object, I think.
ROMER: That's sensible enough. Would you, by extension, agree that there is a truth that does not pertain to the object?
SPIEGLER: Probably. What would that be?
ROMER: Well, my feeling on the matter is that were objective truth truth, there would be no sense in qualifying it as objective.
SPIEGLER: Indeed. But I have noticed that what is objective is often taken to mean the truth.
ROMER: If that were the case, the very expression 'objective truth' would be an empty formula. Let us revert to your own definition, namely that objective truth is truth that pertains to the object. What does this tell us?
SPIEGLER: That truth need not pertain to the object, that truth and object are separate things. Perhaps truth need not pertain to anything at all?
ROMER: But you surely don't think truth separate from us, do you Spiegler? I mean, it took the mouth and, indeed, our vocal cords to be able to produce the sound 'truth' and thereby establish the idea?
SPIEGLER: And your point is what, exactly?
ROMER: That talk about objective truth necessarily implies a subjective truth, only subjective truth pertains to the subject.
SPIEGLER: That would be us as human beings, no doubt.
ROMER: Precisely. As the ancient statement testifies: 'know thyself.'
SPIEGLER: I feel that I do know myself for the most part. To dig too deep into this injunction may lead to our being labelled as mad.
ROMER: Let us not worry ourselves about that can of worms for the moment. What I was trying to imply is that because objective and subjective truth are not easily separated, it is perhaps a condition of knowing the object to also, at the same time, know oneself. In other words, people who fail to know themselves may come to confuse their knowledge of the object (so-called objective knowledge) with the object itself. Perhaps, I dare say, it is the lack of this self-knowledge among most researchers, scientists, and commentators that explains the modern confusion between objectivity and truth.
SPIEGLER: So, if we are to know ourselves in order to know objects, how must we proceed?
ROMER: I would suggest appealing to what is called 'conscience', on the basis that science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme.
SPIEGLER: I suppose science has meant knowledge for most of history, in opposition to its modern technical understanding. Conscience could therefore be termed...
ROMER: The knowledge of your knowledge, my dear sir.
SPIEGLER: I agree that lack of self-knowledge leads many weak-minded people to confuse what is objective or what is related to an object of study with truth itself. But are there any additional reasons for the confusion between objectivity and truth?
ROMER: Well, we have seen that what is objective is what pertains to the object, whether of research, of analysis, of study, of commentary, and so on. An object is objective in its relationship to the beholder of the object, the subject.
SPIEGLER: That is the traditional philosophical view, yes.
ROMER: My hunch is that it is believed, for a variety of reasons, including of a political nature, that subjects interfere with the objectivity of objects, coming as they do from different horizons and backgrounds, affected as they are by their subjectivity, that is to say, their emotions (what silly things those are!), prejudices, or idiotic perceptions, and so on. Because an object is seen differently by each beholder, some agreement is required, especially in a democratic society, as to what characterises the object in such a way that we can all agree to those common characteristics and subscribe to them. This is the task fulfilled on a practical level by common sense and, on a theoretical level, by science. In the case of science, it can present a claim to universal validity since all those who adhere to these common characteristics, otherwise known as conventions, must deem these characterisations to be valid.
SPIEGLER: And, in your own somewhat high-handed view, what is held to be universally valid, i.e. valid for all, that is confused with the truth?
ROMER: That is what I think happens. To take the following examples, one from mathematics, '2 + 2 = 4,' one from historiography, 'in 1939 Germany invaded Poland,' and one from physics, 'speed is equal to distance over time,' these statements, universally valid as they are by force of convention, are all held to be correct, hence true. Truth then degenerates into an idea of universal validity or universal correctness.
SPIEGLER: All the more so, I would surmise, that modern technology, such as that which makes the viewing of this publication possible, has a direct link with scientific discovery?
ROMER: That is beyond my own intellectual capacity to answer, Spiegler. But, according to a common view, technology is a physical, that is to say, objective, validation of scientific conventions, and this, in a twofold sense, namely, first, that technological objects, such as the computer equipped with internet access, validate whatever characterisations made their design and fabrication possible, and, second, technological apparatus itself is essential to scientific and laboratory-based work. A scientific hypothesis or formula, I would imagine, would require technological verification before it were accepted within the scientific community.
SPIEGLER: I can see now that we've covered a lot of theoretical ground, simply by thinking, but so far our conversation has focused mainly on the term 'objective'. Truth itself remains elusive, something of a mystery, unless you wish to elucidate us further.
ROMER: Gladly. Let us investigate the meaning of the word 'truth' right away, this very minute!
SPIEGLER: Before we do, however, I have to air a reservation. How, indeed, can we investigate the meaning of the word 'truth' without knowing what truth itself is? It seems to me that, not knowing what truth is or what it means, we could never know in advance whether the meaning your elucidation provides is true or false.
ROMER: Well, let us look at your reservation this way. By decreeing in advance that such an investigation into the meaning of the word 'truth' is impossible, for the reason you give, we would in fact be agreeing to something about the word 'truth' that makes its investigation impossible. That something, I would contend, can only be suggested to us by its meaning, before ever having clarified that meaning once and for all.
SPIEGLER: That merely tells us that truth has a meaning, a meaning we perhaps already know, but not what the meaning actually is.
ROMER: You will find, though, the same problem for all investigations into the meanings of words. Without knowledge of truth we could never know whether the meanings our investigations produce are true or false.
SPIEGLER: Precisely. The need to know the meaning of the word 'truth' seems all the more necessary as it is impossible.
ROMER: That is defeatist of you and, indeed, I feel that we have been speaking about this matter like blind, cowardly folk.
SPIEGLER: How so?
ROMER: Truth must be that which makes meaning possible.
SPIEGLER: What do you mean?
ROMER: I mean this, that in the same way that denying the possibility of meaning suggests a meaning that is not possible, truth must be both that which makes meaning possible and is suggested by the possible meaning of a word.
SPIEGLER: Talk about going round in circles. I take it that your definition of truth, in so far as it carries meaning, suggests truth and is made possible by it?
ROMER: Yes, I would say that.
SPIEGLER: Okay. That is all very well but how, from this definition, can we determine whether a meaning is true or false?
ROMER: A meaning, my friend, is neither true nor untrue. It merely suggests the truth by virtue of which it is made possible. I would go so far as to say that where there is no meaning, there is no truth, and where there is no truth, there is no meaning.
SPIEGLER: Nicely put, though I say so myself.