Context Is All Essay

624 Words2 Pages

To what extent can absolute truth exist if “Context is all” (–Margaret Atwood)? If I was provided with the statement, “Define the term ‘balance’.” my immediate response would be that balance means when something is equal or uniform. If a psychology major was asked the same exact question, they might answer that “balance” is a state of mental/emotional stability. Under the circumstance that the psychology major and I were in the same room looking at an art piece such as “The Starry Night” by Van Gogh, we might both answer that balance is when unity or harmony can be seen in a subject. Our answers to open ended questions or vague statements vary depending on what circumstances we are provided with or the settings that we see the subject matter …show more content…

This does not necessarily mean that truth does not exist, but that truth exists within one’s context. When my art teacher and I both critique the same art piece, we are given the same subject context wise, but if asked to describe the colors/values of the piece, arrive to different conclusions. The explanation to our varying answers is simply the idea of perception: an inevitable factor that affects the “truth”. I say green, but my teacher says moss. Does this mean that there is no definite description of the colors? Although technically there is no single answer, both of us are correct as it is the truth in our own contexts. In this case, an absolute truth does not exist, but is merely what is true for each …show more content…

Both the correspondence theory of truth and pragmatic theory of truth tie into this idea. The correspondence theory states that a proposition must reflect on what is realistically occurring to be true. So with 5+5=10, we know in reality that this is correct and therefore is true. One flaw with this theory is how we define reality, but this can also lead down a path of relativism and idle debate. The pragmatic theory on the other hand is regardless of reality, meaning something is true if one believes it to be or deems it important to them. Linking this back to the example with my art teacher and analyzing the same art piece, we both had different opinions on the color descriptions in a common piece. This does not mean that we are both wrong, or one is right, but instead, our answers our true for ourselves. If one believes that the sky is blue and another believes that the sky is gray; both are right in their own way and in their personal realities because of unavoidable differences in perspective and

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