Indisputable Truths

 

  Suppose for a moment that we could form a set of propositions that state today’s basic foundational assumptions about ourselves and the cosmos, that we could somehow agree on a set U of indisputable truths, ranging from ethics to physics, from mathematics to psychology and the arts. The P_i propositions of U can be dependent or independent among themselves. If all of them were independent, the human experience would be the addition of disconnected actions, but our vital experience, as well as our science, shows us that this is not the case. Then, at least some P_i are related. But if there is even one proposition totally independent of the others, such proposition would not be intelligible, for it would not have a referent. All P_i are, therefore, somehow related, and the relation is the thinking-living human being. Now, if all P_i are related, they could be expressed in terms of some meta-principles or meta-axioms. This would imply that our axioms are not final (and not axioms), i.e., that there are other axioms U’, which are not covered by our intuitions and social agreements. The set of meta-axioms U’, being independent of the set of the axioms which form system U, would be independent of experience and intuition, for if they were dependent, they would be part of U, part of our life experience. But how could we think about something which is independent of any action of thinking? Traditionally, this dead-end has been solved calling to the idea of a final ground for thinking beyond human intelligence, a Divine Intelligence, that operates in a wider realm. In any case, since we do not know such axioms neither can we express them in our intuitions (for then they would be reducible to axioms in U), we could never construct a formal system of knowledge of Indisputable truths. Indisputable truths can be constructed only as a narrative of domination, reached by agreements on the existence of an unprovable universal law, or based on human conventions.