How do we know that what we know is actually true? Wittgenstein and the post-modernists argued that we never will know absolute truth; all we can have is perspectives (including this one). This has not sat well with traditional philosophers, but it has certainly had a field day in the world of academia. We now have endless lists of perspectives as subjects for study: queer literature, minority art, feminist politics, proletarian ethics, trans-gender discourse, and so on, ad nauseam. The end result is lots and lots of insignificant jobs for post-modern academics. Lots of heat, but not much light.
We have argued that rationalism--one of the traditional justifications of knowledge--elides into tautologies and irrationalism. The second major tendency to justify knowledge as being true-truth is empiricism. This is probably the tendency which is most popular today--largely, due to the widespread belief that science (which employs the "empirical" method) delivers the truth. As Frame explains:
The common view is that during the ancient and medieval periods, the growth of human knowledge was slow because the methods of acquiring it were based on tradition and speculation. Great thinkers like Bacon and Newton, however, convinced the world of a better way: forget traditions and speculations. Verify your hypotheses by going to the facts. Experiment. Observe. Measure. Gradually, observed facts will accumulate into a dependable body of knowledge. . . . That kind of investigation is successful, the argument goes, because it provides publicly observable checking procedures. If you do not agree with a theory, you can go and check it out. The facts are there for all to see; just compare the theory with the facts. [John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God (Nutley: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1987), p.115.]This approach is widespread and appeals to the modern tendency that equates "science" with near certainty. But, in the end, empiricism fails as a justification of truth and knowledge.
1. In reality we know many things which we cannot check out ourselves. For example, we believe most certainly that the City of London exists, although we have never verified it personally. We believe that quarks exist, that Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, and that man has landed on the moon. We know these things to be true not because we have verified them by checking the facts, but by accepting the testimony of others whom we trust.
2. Our senses often deceive us.
3. There is no purely empirical inquiry. All data has to be first recorded and reported, then analyzed and evaluated. The analysis and evaluation of data draws upon our pre-commitments.
What we "see", "hear", "smell", "taste", and "feel", is influenced by our expectations. Those expectations do not come just from sense-experience but from theories, cultural experience, group loyalties, prejudice, religious commitments and so forth. Thus there is no "purely empirical" inquiry. We never encounter "brute", that is, uninterpreted facts. We only encounter facts that have been interpreted in terms of our existing commitments. [Ibid., p. 117.]Science is not purely empirical; therefore, it cannot bear the weight which empiricism wants to hoist upon its shoulders.
4. Empiricism cannot verify propositions which we all accept as true truth. For example, "all men are mortal" cannot be verified by empiricism, although everyone accepts the proposition as true. To prove or disprove them empirically, empiricism would need to study and research the entire universe. Mathematical propositions cannot be verified empirically, although most accept such propositions as universally true. In fact, empiricism relies upon such mathematical propositions in testing and examining the facts. Empiricism cannot prove, nor therefore accept as true, the proposition that the sun will rise tomorrow. Anything to do with the future must remain in perpetual doubt for the empiricist. Moreover, empiricism can say nothing about ethical values--for example, that murder is wrong. True, the empiricist will accept that murder occurs, but has no foundation or basis to assert that it is right or wrong. The proposition, "man ought not to kill another human being" is beyond the ability of empiricism to validate or establish as true. In the final analysis, empiricism cannot verify or justify empiricism.
Frame concludes:
Like the problems of rationalism, the problems of empiricism are essentially spiritual. Like rationalists, empiricists have tried to find certainty apart from God's revelation, and that false certainty has shown itself to be bankrupt. Even if the laws of logic are known to us (and it is unclear how they could be on an empirical basis), we could deduce nothing from statements about sensation except, at most, other statements about sensation. Thus, once again, rationalism becomes irrationalism: a bold plan for autonomously building the edifice of knowledge ends up in total ignorance. [Ibid., p. 119]
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