Steve Watson

Two Questions about the Truths We Can Know

1. Are there any truths that are just inaccessible to the human mind – that just could not be thought by the human mind?

I’m not wondering about truths that are incomprehensible because of some gross physical limit, like the names of every person on Earth (or choose your own example,) which is incomprehensible just because our brains aren’t large enough to hold that information. I’m talking about concepts that are too complex or not of the right kind – whatever that kind might be – for our particular mental structure to accommodate. We do not doubt that this is true for all other kinds of minds of which we are aware: no one doubts, for example, that there are limits to canine comprehension, and we may even doubt that their mental processes are reliable guides to the truth of the world.

We feel no need to wonder at this in the case of dogs because we accept that the minds/brains of dogs are the accidental product of evolutionary processes that are not necessarily truth or true comprehension respecting. In such a case it is a wonder requiring explanation that their minds are capable of understanding the world at all (which I actually accept that they do.) However, since we are in precisely the same situation with respect to the evolution of our own cognitive faculties, why should we be advantaged in the way that we feel certain that we are advantaged? And if we are perfectly competent comprehenders, how did that line get crossed and when?

2. Are the truths that we accept even true?

If asked to choose the truest of our true beliefs, we would probably choose something like the claim that 2+2=4, or that ‘I am me.’  Why do we think these truths are so certain? Because we can’t conceive of them not being true. We interpret that realisation as meaning that 2+2=4 is a truth that is independent of any facts about the universe, but we have no real warrant for believing that. We have no real warrant for thinking that our minds give us access to ultimate a priori necessary truths.

Consider, as above, that our minds are the products of our brains and thus the products of evolutionary processes that are guided only by the requirements of species continuation. That is admittedly a debatable way of phrasing it, but at the very least it is not obvious that evolutionary processes are going to necessarily preference truth-tracking. In these circumstances it would be a wonder if our minds really were tuned to the eternal truths of the universe – or worse, the truths of all possible universes. How could evolutionary processes possibly be invoked to explain that? Possible universes exert no actual evolutionary pressure. But if our minds are so unmoored from ultimate truth, then do we have to accept that it is really possible that 2+2 is not= 4? It’s a toss-up which option is the more alarming.