No, despite the lead in, I'm not actually going to talk about psychics, aliens, or faith vs. reason: I have a far more sinister topic in mind. Objective Truth. That's right, Truth with a capital T. How can we possibly reach such an elusive quarry, when everywhere we turn, all we can rely upon are our subjective senses. We know how often these deceive us in the everyday realm – how could they be at all trustworthy in this far more important and elusive task?

Let's take a look at a thought experiment and analogy. If I'm stuck on one side of the glass, and the creatures I wish to observe is stuck on the other side, I can ponder the properties of the glass and sit all day wondering how much the glass is distorting my view beyond. This first view is Kant. He spends a great deal of time examining our reason, our instrument for peering into the world, and in the end concludes that it is untrustworthy. How can I possibly know anything about the animals on the other side, without first knowing all the properties of the glass? And how can I know about the glass, when I have to look at it with my eyes? And I certainly have no access to how my eyes distort the truth except through instruments created using my hands with the aid of my eyes. Around in circles he runs, walling what we can know into an ever smaller box of pure reason cut off from the world and finally even from itself.

On the other hand, we could just ignore the glass and start observing the animals directly. We could note their patterns, the way they move, draw figures and map out eating habits. After a few months of this, someone might question us on how we can say we know anything about the animals themselves, rather than just their images. We could only respond by saying we have no idea, but if the glass is distorting the image, it's doing it in the exact same way all the time. Quick, look at this pretty graph and be distracted from all your petty questioning.

Is there a third option? Does our search for Truth end up ultimately at only one of two extremes, acceptance of appearances on some level or total skepticism? No, there's a third option.

Nietzsche walks over, laughs heartily at Kant huddling in the corner observing his own navel, smacks the scientist over the head and calls him a timid naysayer, then breaks the glass with the axe called “willpower” and leaps into the cage. He promptly begins to wrestle with a baby bear and enjoy himself before he's killed by its mother. A horde or rabid followers leap in after him, shouting that he's discovered Nihilism – clearly, he meant to be eaten in order to show them all that life was worthless. The scene devolves into chaos as the scientists is drafted by the military saying the Nietzsche had the right idea, but now they must work together to destroy the enemy's glass as well. A post modernist begins to question Kant on the meaning of “glass,” and why he should give it a single name when it's clearly in so many different pieces with different shapes on the ground. Kant starts to cry.

I've strayed rather far off topic, it seems. But I hope one point came across: it's been a long time since anyone actually believed in an objective truth learn-able by humans. The last major philosopher I can think of who embraced the concept was Descartes, and even he was uncertain. After him (and before him as well) people insisted that either there was no such thing or if there was, only God could know for certain, and we could only reach it through His word.

It seems a shame to abandon such a useful and attractive concept as universal truth. Perhaps sometime I'll try to defend her, but for now I just wanted to ask the question: do you believe in Universal Truth? Is your pen strong enough to defend her against all the swords of the age?