What is truth? What is the truth, of what truth is? There are many answers to this question. Each answer may lie different, inside of each person. Only you know what truth is to you. In this essay I will describe what truth is to me, how I verify truth, and whether I believe truth to be good or bad. I will then compare and contrast my idea of truth, to that of Plato’s truth, from his ideas in “Allegory Of The Cave.”First of all we have, what is truth to me? Well for my definition of truth we can turn right to Mr. Webster and see that he says, that truth is:”sincerity or honesty”To me truth is exactly what you think or how you feel.
Truth to me is not veiled by anything, making the real truth either more positive or negative. Truth is simply what’s on your mind, exactly how you feel, its just plain and simple and right down to the point. How do you arrive at my kind of truth? We’ll it’s simple: as stated before, you simply tell how you feel, being both honest and sincere. Now the tougher part, how is truth verified? Truth is verified by whether it’s honest and sincere by who, or where it came from.
This means for example, is a person telling you really that they like your new haircut, or they just saying “yes” they do, to avoid a possibly touchy moment. Truth can only be verified by whether or not it was genuine and from the heart. This test of verification is the only test to see whether or not the “truth” was genuine. How else could something be true, if where it came from was not genuine itself? To wrap it all up, truth is simply whether or not a person is saying what is at the bottom of their heart or not.
Now we move onto, is truth all good, like Plato believes, or can some truth be bad, evil and ugly? I personally feel that, unlike Plato, truth can be all good, bad, evil and ugly. For instance again with the haircut, you could honestly tell someone their hair cut is hideous. But is that good truth? To me that’s not a “good truth”. So what is a “good truth” then? A “good truth” to me is one that helps a person, supports a person, or does anything else to a person in a positive way. So then you may ask what are the “bad, evil, and ugly truths”? Well those are the exact opposite of the “good truths”, they are ones that will negatively effect a person. In the end though, a “bad truth” may be the best for the person. For example, you may have to tell someone the truth even if it may hurt their feelings at first, but as long as that truth is honest, sincere and from the bottom of your heart, then it’s the honest (or genuine) truth for that situation.
Now lets look at some of Plato’s ideas of truth from “Allegory of The Cave”. Let’s start by looking at Plato’s definition of what it takes to reach the genuine truth:”And suppose once more he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself”I agree with Plato on this issue. That to reach the genuine truth, the ascent, or journey it will take, may not be an easy one. And likely as in “Allegory of the Cave” you have to be dragged up that ascent, and forced to see the genuine truth (or the sun). Now I don’t mean you’ll have to be physically made to see or tell the genuine truth, but it may take other people coaching you or pushing you along the way, to see that genuine truth.
Next Plato goes on to describe what it is like when you first see the genuine truth (or the sun):”.is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approached the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities”Once again I agree with Plato on this fact too. When you first see the genuine truth, it may hurt you and dazzle you, just as the morning sun beaming trough your windows may dazzle you, when you first wake up in the morning. The genuine truth will take some getting used to, you’ll have to accommodate to not being in the dark anymore. You now have to adjust yourself to being in the light, of a whole new world, once you have entered the genuine truth.
The biggest point of Plato’s I don’t agree with is that of that:”Plato’s concept of truth is an absolute one, regardless of the observer.”I don’t agree that there is only one truth, and that, that truth is the genuine truth. I believe that each of us have our own genuine truth inside of ourselves. It just depends on whether or not we use that genuine truth, which lies within each and every one of us.
In conclusion I have defined what my definition of truth is:”One that sincere and honest, one that comes from the heart, whether good, bad or evil, as long as its honest, sincere, and genuine, then its your own truth.”I have also shared what aspects of Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” I agree with, and the one I don’t agree with. But remember: Truth is only what it means to one person, and only you know what truth means to you.
