Do truths always have ontological import?

Could there be truths without truth-makers, without truth-bearers, and without any other kind of ontological footprint? In other words, could there be truths in a possible world that lacks concrete objects and that also lacks abstract objects such as universals and propositions?

Alain Badiou on faithfulness

Alain Badiou is a French philosopher who developed, especially in his Being and Event, a quite interesting conception of truth. Truth, according to Badiou, is inextricably connected with what he calls ‘the event’. For Badiou, an event is a rupture. It is an interruption in the normal state of affairs (or ‘the situation’ as he calls it). An event brings about an entire new constellation of reality to which we have to be faithful by means of further developing it. Although Badiou strives for a renewed kind of universalism in the public context, I take it that his notion of truth is especially relevant and fruitful if we limit its application to the personal context of aiming at a suitable worldview to guide us through life. Let me clarify.

At specific moments in our lives, perhaps just a few, things happen to us that have an irreversible impact on how we evaluate our lives and approach the world. These uncontrollable occurrences break in into our lives and leave an undeniable trail. These rare events are therefore best seen as unpredictable important turning points or ruptures that change the way we understand ourselves, our experiences and the world around us.

So, the specific worldview we adopt must at least properly cohere with these profound occurrences, or even better, must render them intelligible. We have to be faithful to the major events in our lives and we do this by adjusting our worldview to accommodate these events. Disruptive events in our lives reveal to us something new and irresistible. In such an event we are suddenly confronted with breathtaking undeniable truthfulness. Hence life events have a meaning and significance that we cannot else but honor and subsequently persistently adhere to by adopting a worldview that illuminates them. In this way the specific worldview we embrace deepens our personal understanding of our life in this world.

And this way of clarifying our personal lives, I would add, is surely a quite rational thing to do. To remain faithful to the revolutionary moments of truth in our lives, to allow these events to inform our worldview and our personal road through life, is a rational course of action. It is a rational act considered from the private context of our singular concrete lives.

A metaphysical principle entailing theism?

Take the following metaphysical principle, connecting logic, knowledge and truth: 'If it is logically impossible to know that p, then p is necessarily false'. This principle seems to be cogent. For, if a given proposition p could be true, then, plausibly, there is a possible world in which some subject knows that p is true. In other words, if in all possible worlds all subjects do not know that some proposition is true, then, plausibly, that is because that very proposition cannot in fact be true.

Well, on a cartesian view of knowledge, that is, to know p is to be certain that p is true, the above principle has an interesting consequence. For, take for p the proposition 'God does not exist'. It seems reasonable to hold that it is impossible to know that God does not exist. For, whatever the arguments against God, there will always be some (perhaps an extremely remote) possibility that God does exist after all, so that we can never truly say, on the cartesian view, that we know that God does not exist. But then it follows that it is necessarily false that God does not exist. Hence, it is necessarily true that God exists.

One might object that it is also impossible to know that God exists. And thus, by similar reasoning, it would follow as well that it is necessarily true that God does not exist. However, I would argue that there is a possible world in which some subject can truly say that he or she knows that God exists. Take a possible word in which God exists and in which there is an afterlife, such that all who enter the afterlife in that world will encounter the divine. In that case, those subjects who enter the afterlife will in fact know that God exists. So, it is not impossible to know that God exists.

Note that a similar move to reject the argument for theism is not open to the atheist. For, if God does not exist, then, plausibly, there is no afterlife. And besides, even if there would be an afterlife, then entering it would not bring a subject in the epistemic condition of knowing that God does not exist.