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Dr. Mortimer J. Adler's 

Six Great Ideas

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The Pursuit of Truth

In different disciplines or departments of learning, progress
in the pursuit of truth is accomplished in different ways—-by
the employment of different methods and by resorting to dif-
ferent devices for correcting errors or expanding knowledge.
The way in which mathematicians arrive at new and better
formulations has little in common with the way in which his-
torians make new findings and revise earlier views of what
happened in the past. Different from both are the procedures
of the experimental sciences and the data-gathering routines of
the social sciences.

Differences aside, the pursuit of truth in all branches of or-
ganized knowledge involves

(1) the addition of new truths to the body of settled or established truths already achieved,

(2) the replacement of less accurate or less comprehensive formulations by better ones,

(3) the discovery of errors or inadequacies together with the rectification of judgments found erroneous or otherwise at fault, and

(4) the discarding of generalizations—or of hypotheses and theories—that have been falsified by negative instances.

By all such steps, singly or together, the sphere of truths
agreed upon enlarges and comes closer to being the whole
truth. As the wheat is separated from the chaff, as agreed-upon
errors or falsities are eliminated, it also comes closer to being
nothing but the truth.

The complete realization of the ideal that is the goal—the
whole truth and nothing but the truth—will never be achieved
in any stretch of time. The pursuit is endless. It is in the main
progressive, though there are periods when no advances are
made and even some when impediments to further progress
appear at the time to be insuperable. Nevertheless, the pursuit
of truth is never so blocked or frustrated that despair impels us
to give up the enterprise.

Viewing the pursuit of truth retrospectively, we find that
experts who are competent to judge—mathematicians, scien-
tists, historians, each in their own departments of learning—
have reached agreement about a host of judgments that they
have come to regard as settled or established truths in their
respective fields. This does not mean, of course, that all these
agreed-upon truths have the finality and incorrigibility of cer-
titude. It means only that the shadow of a doubt that still hangs
over them because of what an uncharted future has in store
does not at the present moment threaten their status as estab-
lished truth, temporarily undisputed by experts competent to
judge.

Looking toward the future, the ongoing pursuit of truth pre-
sents a different picture. On the periphery of the sphere of truth
in each department of learning lie disputed matters about
which experts are not in agreement. Out of each conflict of
opinion emerges the investigations, researches, criticisms, and
arguments by which it is hoped the disputes can be resolved
and agreement achieved. When that occurs, the matter under
dispute becomes a settled matter, and the pursuit of truth
pushes the edges of inquiry on to matters still disputable.

The movement from the disputable to things no longer dis-
puted, or from areas of disagreement to things about which
agreement has been reached, gives direction to the pursuit of
truth. Each step in that direction is a dramatic episode in the
long history of mankind's effort to know as much as can be
known.

The sphere of truth, in short, is the sphere of those matters
about which we think disagreement is profitable precisely be-
cause we think these are matters about which it is possible to
resolve differences of opinion and to reach agreement instead.
There are matters of a quite different sort concerning which we
think the very opposite. These are matters of taste rather than
of truth.

We are all acquainted with the commonplace maxim De gus-
tibus non dispntandum est. About matters of taste, there is no
point in arguing. Disputes are fruitless. Our differences of
opinion look irreconcilable. Arguing about such matters will
not bring us into agreement. On the contrary, we should wisely
live with and gladly tolerate differences of opinion that express
divergent tastes.

About matters of truth, the opposite maxim should rule: De
veritate disputandum est. About matters of truth, dispute is fruit-
ful. Wherever the truth of our judgments, opinions, or beliefs
is a proper concern, we should be prepared to argue with those
who disagree with us, with the firm hope that our disagreement
can be resolved. Wisdom does not counsel us here to desist
from the effort to reach agreement. Disagreement about matters
of truth is not, in the final reckoning, to be tolerated.

I am not saying that, where disagreement about a matter of
truth is extremely difficult to resolve, we can expect to achieve
the agreement we seek within any specified period of time or
by any resources available to us at the moment. I am only say-
ing that we should never abandon our effort to reach the agree-
ment we ought to seek in all matters that fall within the sphere
of truth rather than the sphere of taste. To give up is to abandon
the pursuit of truth.

We may have to live for a long time with disagreements that
cannot be easily resolved. That should not cause us to regard
them as permanently-tolerable. As long as it is possible for us
to carry on, by empirical and rational means, a process of in-
quiry directed toward resolving a disputed question and reach-
ing agreement about the answer to it (even if that agreement
should itself be altered or transformed in the future), our
dedication to the pursuit of truth obliges us to proceed in that
direction.

We should never rest satisfied with anything less than the
agreement of all (about matters concerning which common
sense is competent to judge) or of all who are experts (about
matters belonging to special departments of knowledge). Unan-
imous agreement is the appropriate condition of the human
mind with regard to anything that is a matter of truth rather
than a matter of taste.

To illustrate the difference between matters of truth and mat-
ters of taste, let me offer some examples.

There is a spectrum of matters some of which at one extreme
clearly belong to the sphere of truth and some of which at the
other extreme just as clearly belong to the sphere of taste. Let
us first consider the clear cases at either end of the spectrum.

At one extreme, clearly belonging to the sphere of truth, is
mathematics and, associated with it, the exact sciences, espe-
cially the experimental sciences. Placing these disciplines in the
sphere of truth does not mean that at any time there is perfect
agreement among all mathematicians or experimental scientists
about everything in their fields. But it does mean that, when
they do disagree, we expect them to be able to resolve their
disagreements by recourse to rational processes employing the
methods and techniques of their disciplines.

Not only would we regard an irresolvable disagreement in
their fields as scandalous and intolerable; not only should we
expect mathematicians and experimental scientists to be able to
resolve whatever disagreements confront them; but we also
think that they are morally obligated to sustain their efforts to
settle their disputes until they finally succeed in doing so.

At the opposite extreme, clearly belonging to the sphere of
taste, are such matters as cuisine, social manners, styles in
dress or dance, patterns of family life, and so on. Here we do
not expect human beings to overcome their conflicting predilec-
tions or preferences, nor do we think they should try to do so.

We do not look for uniformity in these matters. On the con-
trary, we are fully acquiescent in an irreducible pluralism in all
matters of taste. We would regard as monstrous any attempt to
impose universal conformity to any one diet or culinary pro-
gram, any one set of social manners, life-style, or style of dress.

The adoption of one style rather than another is an act of
choice springing from emotional predispositions and cultural
conditioning. It is determined extrinsically by temperamental
inclinations and by environmental circumstances. In contrast,
the affirmation of opinions or beliefs as true and the rejection
of their opposites as false involve judgments that are deter-
mined intrinsically by the substance of the matters being con-
sidered and by reference to the probative force of the relevant
evidence and the cogency of the applicable reasoning.

In matters of truth, objective considerations play the major
role. Ideally, they should operate exclusively, inhibiting even
the slightest intrusion of emotional preference or wishful think-
ing. The ideal may seldom be fully realized in the actual process
whereby mathematicians, scientists, and historians attempt to
resolve their differences or settle their disputes. It remains the
ideal nevertheless and, being so, it enables us to draw a sharp
line of demarcation between the sphere of truth and the sphere
of taste. On the other side of that line—in the sphere of taste
—temperamental inclinations, emotional predilections, cultural
attachments predominate, as they should and must because
differences in matters of taste do not yield to reason, to argu-
ment, to the weight of the evidence.

 
One further polarity characterizes the two spheres. The
sphere of truth is transcultural. Where at a given time it fails to
be transcultural, it can become so in the future. The agreement
of those who are competent to judge in the fields of mathemat-
ics and experimental science transcends all national boundaries
as well as the ethnic and cultural barriers that separate different
subgroups of mankind.

The sphere of truth is global. To whatever extent the whole
human race operates as members of a world community, it is
with regard to matters that clearly fall in the sphere of truth
rather than in the sphere of taste.

In the sphere of taste, mankind is divided into a multitude of
factions and is always likely to remain so. There are those who
will always prefer Chinese or Japanese cooking and those who
will always prefer the Italian or the French cuisine. This is quite
different from the principles of elementary arithmetic, the laws
of algebra, the demonstrated theorems of Euclidean geometry,
which cannot be characterized by adjectives derived from a
nationality or a culture that has produced them. They are not
Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French, or anything else like that.

I have been using mathematics on the one hand and styles of
cooking or cuisine on the other hand to exemplify as clearly as
possible the opposite poles at which lie the sphere of truth and
the sphere of taste. Between these polar extremes, philosophical
opinions and religious beliefs occupy a middle ground.

The prevalent view today, in academic circles at least, tends
to place philosophical opinions and religious belief on the side
of taste rather than on the side of truth. That has not always
been the regnant view, nor is it necessarily the correct one.

Many philosophers in the past have looked upon themselves,
and some in the present regard themselves, as engaged in the
pursuit of truth, seriously concerned with efforts to resolve dis-
puted questions by rational means. For them, the adoption of
one philosophical position rather than another is not deter-
mined by emotional preference or personal prejudice.

What, then, leads one to place philosophy in the middle—
not as clearly in the sphere of truth as mathematics and experi-
mental science, nor as clearly in the sphere of taste as styles of
cuisine or dress? The answer lies in an undeniable historical
fact. Over the centuries there has been less evident progress in
the pursuit of philosophical truth than has been manifest in the
advances made in mathematics and experimental science. Also,
over the centuries and at a given time, the agreement of philos-
ophers with one another about fundamental matters falls far
short of the unanimity achieved by mathematicians and exper-
imental scientists with regard to matters that form the core of
settled and established truth in those fields.

Differences in religious belief, considered within the orbit of
our Western culture or seen from a global perspective, would
appear to be even more irreconcilable and less amenable to
resolution by rational means. This fact tends to align them more
with differences in matters of taste, where dispute is futile,
than with differences in the sphere of truth, where dispute is
not only profitable but obligatory.

Nevertheless, adherents of different religious faiths are sel-
dom willing to accept this alignment as correct. Orthodox be-
lievers are wont to regard their religious beliefs as constituting
the one true faith. The missionary zeal of proselyters springs
from the conviction that reason, not merely emotion, is at work
in the process of converting the heathens, gentiles, or infidels.
It is by opening the mind to the truth, not by coercion or du-
ress, that religious conversion should be consummated.

With regard to the very difficult problem of assessing the
position of philosophy and religion on one or the other side of
the line that divides the sphere of truth from the sphere of taste,
I must content myself with three brief observations.

First, whatever allocation one makes, the determination itself
should be regarded as a judgment that is genuinely disputable.
It, therefore, belongs in the sphere of truth rather than of taste.

Second, if the judgment is that philosophy and religion are
composite in character, combining matters of truth with matters of taste, then, so far as these matters can be separated, they
should be dealt with in a manner that is appropriate to the
sphere to which they belong.

Third, to whatever extent philosophical opinions and reli-
gious beliefs belong to the sphere of truth, we should look upon
disputed questions in these fields as resolvable by rational
means. However difficult it may be to resolve them, our obli-
gation here, in the pursuit of truth, is to be unrelenting in our
efforts to reach agreement—even if it takes until the end of time
to do so.

When we recognize that the possession of truth is the ulti-
mate good of the human mind, and, recognizing this, commit
ourselves to the pursuit of truth, we have a number of moral
obligations to discharge.

About any human judgment (whether made by a person of
common sense or made by an expert in one of the learned
disciplines) we must ask, Does the judgment belong to the
sphere of truth or to the sphere of taste?

Upon deciding that it belongs to the sphere of truth, we
should then look for and examine the grounds upon which it
may be judged either true or false.

If our own affirmation or denial of its truth brings us into
disagreement with others (either about whether it properly be-
longs to the sphere of truth or about whether it is true), then
we have one further obligation to discharge. We must take
whatever steps of inquiry can be employed effectively to re-
solve such disagreement.

However difficult and protracted that process may be, we
must never tire of carrying it on. We must never suspend fur-
ther inquiry as futile or discontinue argument as profitless. To
do so is to abandon the pursuit of truth and to treat the matter
in question as if it belonged to the sphere of taste.

Only if we fully discharge all these obligations are we entitled
to regard ourselves as engaged in a lifelong commitment to the
pursuit of truth.