On knowledge

"This truth is sometimes referred to as the objective truth in the sense that it is independent of the subject or the observer and it could be said that an object that exists independent of the observer has an objective existence and that existence is an objective truth."

by Prof. Nalin de Silva

(December 17, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Many learned men and women have expressed their views on Science and History in the pages of "The Island" and I was thinking of responding to them at sometime. In fact, on the second of July this year I had intended to commence a series of articles on History, which unfortunately did not go beyond the first instalment. I am now of the opinion that instead of responding to various scholars who contributed to these "debates", I would write a series of articles elaborating my views, at the risk of being sounding somewhat pedantic and philosophical.

In a society where people who are considered to be "yuga purushayas" argue "I eat therefore reality is" a la " I think therefore I am" of Descartes, it is somewhat dangerous to step into Philosophy, but one cannot help in discussing knowledge as after all both History and Science, meaning Western Science are forms of knowledge. At the outset I must say that my views on Science are not in agreement with those of the scholars who participated in the debates. Also I have to be excused if I do not contribute weekly on knowledge in general and History and Western Science in particular, as knowledge of the so called ethnic problem presented as a post fifty six problem intentionally by people with ulterior motives, is more important than anything else at the present moment of History of the country. I must also add that the views expressed in the present series of articles are in print in Sinhala and the rustic Sinhala educated youth, unlike the sophisticated have been exposed to these ideas. A cynic would say that rustic ideas are for rustic people, but let us expose the sophisticated also to some rustic ideas mostly home-grown.

Many people are accustomed to think of knowledge as that of an external world existing outside the observer and independent of him. (It is easier if we get used to he as a gender-free word rather than using he/she combination). The general view that prevails is that there is an external world, which is also considered to be a reality, and that we obtain/discover knowledge of this external world (reality). Now can the knowledge of the world differ from the world itself? It is said that the function of the Scientists, Historians etc., is to "discover" knowledge of the world. Do they discover a knowledge of the world or the knowledge of the world implying the world itself in the latter case? The world as it is, is the truth and the Scientists, Historians and others are supposed to discover/arrive at this truth. The reality is there for the Scientists, Historians and others to discover/find out. The general belief is that the Scientists, Historians and others may not have discovered/arrived at the truth as yet as at present in most cases, though they may have done so in a limited number of cases. However, they are expected to do so at some future date.

For example it is said that the earth goes round the sun and that it is not only the knowledge of the system but the system as well. According to this view the motion of the earth round the sun is a reality which the Scientists have discovered. However, it was not the case before Copernicus, though some may argue that the Bharat Astronomers knew it long before that, and the people had a knowledge of the motion of the sun round the earth. Though it was a knowledge then, it was not the reality according to the present day Scientists/Philosophers of the realist school and it was left to Copernicus to come out with the truth. The truth is nothing but the reality or what exists. The Sanskrit Sathya, Sinhala Sath or Aththa all refer to what exists (Aththa yanu Athi de) and it may be that Sinhala was influenced by languages from Bharat in arriving at these concepts. Of course the question may be asked as to how we know that the present knowledge on the motion of the earth round the sun is the reality or the truth and whether some other knowledge would replace the present knowledge. In answering that question, in order to justify that the present knowledge is the truth, the Scientists could refer to various direct observations that are possible today. Even without the observations using the sophisticated equipments, the Scientists were convinced that in reality the earth went round the sun as a Historian would testify.

This truth is sometimes referred to as the objective truth in the sense that it is independent of the subject or the observer and it could be said that an object that exists independent of the observer has an objective existence and that existence is an objective truth. Thus though truth is associated with objective existence independent of the observer or the subject, people had realised that it was possible to have subjective truths and subjective existences. The motion of the sun round the earth was true subjective to the observers in Europe before Copernicus and they including the Pope in Galileo’s time would have believed it to be true. It is not known what Jesus Christ thought about it but what the Pope observed daily was the motion of the sun round the earth and not the other way around. The European people, who lived before Copernicus, and many even after him, would have considered the motion of the sun round the earth to be true.

Before we proceed further we have to discuss an important problem regarding knowledge. It is clear that people have had different "knowledges", and that not all of them were the reality or the world or the objective knowledge or whatever one may call it. It could be said that the motion of the sun round the earth was knowledge but not objective knowledge. If it was not objective knowledge could one state that it was discovered? Can somebody discover something that is not the objective truth? One could say that in the case of motion of the earth round the sun, there was nothing to discover but it was mere observation. In that case what do people observe? Do they observe, of course with their sense organs the reality or something else? It could be said that people observe "things" like mirages as well, though they do not exist in reality. Thus it may be argued that what is observed is not necessarily the objective truth or reality.

If we leave Copernicus and Galileo and come to Newton we find that he has been attributed with the so called universal theory of gravitation. It is very often said that Newton discovered the theory of Gravitation. Now the question we are confronted is whether Newton’s theory is an objective truth, reality, the world itself? It is known that we can send projectiles and calculate the distances travelled etc., using Newton’s theory of gravitation. However, it is also known that Newton’s theory does not describe the motion of the planets round the sun with sufficient accuracy. Thus it is clear that Newton’s theory of gravitation is not the world or the objective truth or the reality or any other thing that one could imagine with a world that is supposed to exist independent of the observer.

To complicate matters further Einstein came forward with his theory of General Relativity that is founded in an entirely different conceptual frame work. His theory also leads to equations that describe the motion of the planets round the sun. These equations are different from the equations that one derives using Newton’s theory and it is not necessary to say that the two systems give different solutions to the problem of the motion of the planets. Even if one assumes that Einstein’s theory is the world, the reality, the objective truth it is clear that Newton’s theory is not. Then the question may be asked very bluntly "What did Newton discover?" Did he discover a theory or did he do something else? Did he discover knowledge or the reality or the world or the objective truth? If not what did he do? - Sri Lanka Guardian