Creative critique and anthropo-philosophy

We do notat all claim that we know the truth, but we do claim that others take too much for granted and make false claims to knowledge.

It does not follow, because philosophers and philosophical systems have up to now contradicted one another and have not produced any universally acknowledged philosophy, that they are for that reason all false and that there is no truth to be found in them.

Nor should it be assumed that all the world’s religions and scriptures are out of date and irrelevant to modern times, simply because they use a language which does not correspond to the ordinary experiences of daily life.

Nor is it axiomatic that only what is measurable in space and time and perceptible to our physical senses should be taken as evidence of truth. We say, indeed, because our modern minds cannot with honesty do otherwise, that we will not accept anything as true that is not based on what we ourselves can personally experience. But we question whether the outer world—that which is perceptible by our five senses—is all that we are able to experience and whether purely intellectual conclusions based on the evidence of our senses can be taken for granted without far more critical examination.

We cannot reject without consideration the assertion that our true experience is inner—that is within our own personal consciousness—and that therefore only what is inner—what human beings think and feel—can truly be taken as real.

Certainly the individual subjective consciousness is by itself no guide to truth, for the human capacity to cherish illusions and deceive oneself is quite evident. But that is not sufficient reason to affirm that truth must be objective and wholly outside human consciousness, or that there is no truth and real knowledge is impossible because there must always be realms which are unknowable to Man.

It is possible that the real standard of truth may be intra-subjective, that is to say within Man’s own consciousness, but attainable only between persons sharing together their own subjective truth and not by any one singly.

It is now naive to think that there is an Absolute Final Truth knowable to any one man, or that any of the major world views