Can literature “tell the truth” better than other arts or other areas of knowledge?
Can literature “tell the truth” better than other arts or other areas of knowledge?
John Stuart Mill once proclaimed that there are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home. This means that one cannot perceive the truth without understanding it. For example one cannot know the truth of Pythagoras’s theorem being that a right angled triangle’s hypotenuse’s square value is equal to the squares of both its other sides. This is because one would have to be familiar with basic algebra and mathematics. Similarly, a person who lived in Germany during the Second World War would be more likely to be able to comprehend a post-World War II work of literature than myself because the understand and can perceive it better than I can.
The idea of truth however, can be further divided into two categories. One is subjective to an individual and their experiences and personal choices; personal truth, and a more objective truth that is a result of unbiased and logical observation; universal truth. The former is an idea or belief that an individual believes to be true. For example, if, personally I say that strawberry ice cream is by far the best however this might differ from another person’s truth of vanilla being the best. The latter idea of truth is much more objective because it cannot be true in any other manner. For example, a circle’s diameter and circumference are proportionate at 3.1415 and this is universally true because there is no alternative that is logical. It is essential when determining the validity and nature of a truth to establish if it the result of evidence, unprejudiced data, absolute observation and logic- the principles of a universal truth. Conversely, “personal truths reflect physiological attributes, psychological tendencies and the learning and experiences of an individual.” (Andrew Bernardin, 2008). Personal truths have limitations that do not apply to universal truths for example
John Stuart Mill once proclaimed that there are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home. This means that one cannot perceive the truth without understanding it. For example one cannot know the truth of Pythagoras’s theorem being that a right angled triangle’s hypotenuse’s square value is equal to the squares of both its other sides. This is because one would have to be familiar with basic algebra and mathematics. Similarly, a person who lived in Germany during the Second World War would be more likely to be able to comprehend a post-World War II work of literature than myself because the understand and can perceive it better than I can.
The idea of truth however, can be further divided into two categories. One is subjective to an individual and their experiences and personal choices; personal truth, and a more objective truth that is a result of unbiased and logical observation; universal truth. The former is an idea or belief that an individual believes to be true. For example, if, personally I say that strawberry ice cream is by far the best however this might differ from another person’s truth of vanilla being the best. The latter idea of truth is much more objective because it cannot be true in any other manner. For example, a circle’s diameter and circumference are proportionate at 3.1415 and this is universally true because there is no alternative that is logical. It is essential when determining the validity and nature of a truth to establish if it the result of evidence, unprejudiced data, absolute observation and logic- the principles of a universal truth. Conversely, “personal truths reflect physiological attributes, psychological tendencies and the learning and experiences of an individual.” (Andrew Bernardin, 2008). Personal truths have limitations that do not apply to universal truths for example
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