about truth
that even very many serious and intelligent people doubt it? We are not now concerned so much with those whose agenda it is to attack anything that smacks of real objective knowledge, though many have no doubt been influenced by that camp, which manifests itself in all aspects of what is nowadays described as post-modernism, but most obviously as, "multiculturalism," "political correctness," and "diversity."
The word "proof" itself no doubt lost much of its reputation, soon after the enlightenment, when the first striking examples of what scientific proof was capable of manifested themselves. This was a very powerful concept. Once a thing was proven, and everyone knew it, it swept away everything that opposed it, and changed everything touched by it, not by force, but by light.
The word "proof" immediately became the favorite of con men and charlatans promoting their scams, cures, and useless devices. It remains to this day, the most common word used in the hawking of alternative medicine and all other quackery. It is understandable that people became suspicious of this word. Certainly nothing should be accepted or believed just because the claim of proof is made for it. This does not mean the word proof itself ought to be rejected, because its real meaning is both legitimate and important.6
The other "honest" reasons for a hesitancy to embrace the concept of proof are mostly a matter of misunderstanding about its true nature:
We cannot know everything - The idea that we most know everything to know anything is frequently implied by those who deny anything can be proved. When made explicit, we see there is no basis for this view. We do not have to know everything, to know something.
We are not infallible - Similar to the we cannot know everything objection to proof, it is almost never explicit. Again making it explicit makes the mistake obvious. The fact we can make mistakes does not mean that we can only make mistakes.
Proof is seldom neat - There is a common idea that proof must follow some preconceived notion of regularity and formality, like a rigid three or four step process. In fact, proof often comes in a very disorderly fashion, like two bicycle repairmen in a clumsy contraption that just barely performs the thing they are trying to prove. Proof is proof, however, no matter how clumsy or inelegant it is.
Some things are difficult or impossible to know - This is true. So what? Many objections to proof dwell on things which are truly difficult, maybe even impossible to prove. Proof pertains to those things that can and have been proved.
When looking at the trees through the window, we do not see the window - The very odd thing about proof is its very commonplace nature. We are tempted to wonder if those who deny it have just arrived from another planet or been asleep all their lives.
In fact the attitude, from this aspect, is really understandable. Our lives are saturated with proof and the proven, but most have [next page]