Simultaneous Immanence and Transcendence of Truth

Abstract

Debates on whether truth is dependent or independent of human concerns are present throughout the history of Western thought. According to one side, truth depends on mind-independent states of affairs, like facts or the relevant aspects of extensional reality. For others, truth depends on humanbound factors, like what is useful to believe or what science has at any given time proven to be the case. In more recent history, this debate has been labeled as the realist/anti-realist debate. For realists, the truth of chosen truthbearers is based on them adequately connecting with the world. For anti-realists, truth is determined by what one knows or is justified to believe. The conflict between these views has proven persistent because both sides have persuasive arguments in support of their position. I argue that both sides have lessons to be learned from a historically significant yet nowadays largely dismissed distinction between truths immanence and transcendence. Based on this distinction, I proceed to demonstrate how truth can involve both, human-dependent and independent aspects. My contention is that acknowledging such multifaceted nature for truth is necessary for achieving a philosophically plausible and scientifically legitimate account of its nature that can further be used as an explanatory instrument in defining various socially crucial phenomena, like knowledge, trust, and deception.