Nothing but the Truth

Plato is one of the most prominent philosophers of Ancient Greece. He lived in a diverse world where cities worshipped numerous gods and open-minded people debated contrasting ideas beneath the sacred olive trees near Athens. Twenty-five centuries later, we still hold it self-evident that a diversity of opinions is a cornerstone of democracy, one that helps us make better decisions. Undoubtedly, such diversity is essential to an open, inclusive and stimulating environment. Yet opinions remain far, far away from the realm of truth.

Let me illustrate it with a story.

Imagine three students hiking through a forest. They come across a den hidden among the trees, covered with mossy branches and leaves. Curious, they challenge each other to put their hands inside.

The first student, evidently the bravest, slowly pushes her fist into the hole. As she stretches out her fingers, she touches the bare foot of a small animal. She jerks her arm back instantly. When the others ask what’s inside, she thinks for a moment and replies, “It could be a mole.”

The second student readies himself. He shakes out his arm, takes a deep breath, as if about to dive into deep water, and then reaches into the den. He feels the soft soil, then suddenly brushes against something that feels like whiskers. He pulls his hand back at once. When asked what he felt, he says, “I think I touched the whiskers of a fox cub.”

The third student rolls up his sleeve. “If the others could do it, I must be able to do it too,” he thinks. He reaches into the hole and touches a small object. Strangely, it feels like a cactus. He tells the others, “It must be a cactus.”

Plato explored the topic of opinion and knowledge in his works, The Republic, Theaetetus and Meno. He concluded that a multitude of opinions does not necessarily lead to the truth. To begin with, he distinguished between opinion and knowledge: knowledge is based on unbiased, flawless reasoning, and it can be proven to be true. Opinions, by contrast, are often biased and based on flawed reasoning. They can sometimes be true, but only by coincidence, when they happen to align with the facts.

In the story of the students, none of them truly knew what was in the den; they merely held opinions, as they lacked sufficient evidence. Listening to each other’s opinions did not bring them any closer to the truth. Had they made a greater effort to reconcile their conflicting experiences, they might have pieced together a mental picture: a fox cub sitting atop a cactus with a dead mole in its mouth. Then, they could have leaned back, pleased with themselves. It would have taken a bit more thought, but at least they would have arrived at an answer that satisfied everyone.

If an opinion is not the truth, can one opinion still be truer than another because it is closer to reality?

Let’s return to the story of the three students. One might say that the third student’s opinion was the closest to identifying a hedgehog (yes, it was a hedgehog 🙂), because the most recognisable feature of a hedgehog is its spines. A biologist, however, might argue that the mole was the closest guess, since hedgehogs and moles are closely related species. Yet another person could claim that the fox cub was the most reasonable answer. After all, it’s difficult to imagine a mole or a cactus in a forest den: moles live underground, and cacti are native to entirely different climates.

In short, it’s impossible to say which opinion was the closest, because ‘closest’ can mean different things to different people.

According to Plato, while one opinion cannot be truer than another, it can be better — if the consequences are better. That’s also a useful piece of advice for anyone weighing competing opinions: they should compare the consequences of those opinions before deciding which one to support.

Plato believed that our task is not to explore different opinions and try to reconcile them, but to search for the truth. The path to truth, he argued, lies through reasoning. When we engage in conversation with the aim of discovering the truth, our role is to identify errors and contradictions in each other’s reasoning. Through a process of statements, refutations and restatements, we gradually refine our opinions, distilling them until we arrive at the truth: a truth that is independent of authority, tradition, or personal bias.

The idea that we must search for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth marks a turning point in human history. Although Plato did not possess all the pieces needed to construct the vibrant mosaic of the scientific method, his insight — that the only way to understand the world is to begin with what is known, proceed step by step through deductive reasoning, and reject what cannot be proven — is one of its largest and brightest tiles. This insight, born from the desire to know the truth, paved the way for the development of mathematics and natural philosophy. When combined with experimentation and inductive reasoning, it forms a powerful solution from which the scientific method can be crystallised. This method has become the solid, though often invisible, pillar upon which our technologically advanced civilisation rests.

As surprising as it may seem, when we dig deep to uncover the foundations of our modern life, what we find is not fake news or deceptive politics, but a relentless, stubborn insistence on the truth.