Suppose we want to know what the rules of football are \u2013 what the nature of football is.\u00a0 Who do we ask?\u00a0 Where should we search for an answer?\u00a0 Which person or source we choose to treat as authoritative is pretty important in cases like this since the Green Bay Packers fan will tell us something very different the Manchester United fan will.\u00a0 And if we, in our attempt to be very thorough and even handed, go to both sources and (obviously) get two different and incompatible answers, how will we decide what the \u201ctrue\u201d rules or nature of football really are?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let us now suppose that we want to know what the rules of truth are \u2013 what the nature of truth is.\u00a0 Who do we ask?\u00a0 Where should we search for an answer?\u00a0 More importantly, I suppose, is what do we actually<\/i> do?\u00a0 Who do we actually<\/i> ask?\u00a0 The philosopher.\u00a0 The intellectual historian.\u00a0 The philologist.\u00a0 The linguist.\u00a0 The dictionary.\u00a0 In short, we consult the academic and the books he has written.\u00a0 But why in the world would we ever assume that the scientists and philosophers see truth in the same way that the non-academic rest of the world sees it?\u00a0 What makes us think that the academic\u2019s search for truth is a game that is played by the same rules as we play by in our everyday lives?\u00a0 Why should we allow academics to be the final authority on ought and ought not to believe?<\/p>\n
The academic (if we\u2019re still actually listening to him) would probably claim that there\u00a0aren’t\u00a0any alternatives – that he has the only real game in town.\u00a0 This, however, is simply not true.\u00a0 The academic sees truth as a set of facts \u2013 a collection of independent, but logically consistent pictures of the world which are binding regardless of context, values, traditions and\/or authorities. \u00a0But this is not how the non-academic views or has viewed truth.\u00a0 For them, context, values, traditions and\/or authorities are and have always been part and parcel with truth.<\/p>\n
So, since we have legitimate alternatives, why should we insist on consulting the academic or his books regarding the nature of truth? Why would we ever assume that his account is not self-serving, biased or otherwise skewed in some way, even if he himself does not recognize it?\u00a0 What reason do we have to think that his account \u2013 his list of rules – must somehow be binding on us non-academics any more than the rules of American football are binding on Manchester United?\u00a0 To be sure, we can let him have a word in our lives, but I see no reason why we must let him have the final<\/i> word regardless of context, values, tradition and\/or authorities.