Truth: Pt. One

When a commonsense philosopher says you listen to people not truth, it is the same as saying you are a subjectivist. Being a follower in this one eliminates the process of learning from reality. When we define iconoclasm or Nietzschean individualism we might just say: he follow truth not people. When people are right, yes, you will also follow them if they have power. But the maxim is: Follow truth not people.

This is something that has brought civilization to its needs. Communism died because of this and because of blind optimism. The movie Fight Club relied on this premise to criticize pop culture.

When the ad-hominem-ish process of looking at someone'd merit or position of power and using that to verify their belief dominates, the societies are follower-societies. When people have to figure out reality, scientific, psychological, or philosophical, on their own, they become skilled …. and right. They are not right all of the time. They are efficient at being right.

As Kirk said: "Spock's guesses are better than other people's facts."

A real philosopher always asks: What underpins your belief about certainty. It is the prime epistemological question. My mentor always said of Kant - "It's reason." Which always seemed glib to me. When what underpins your certainty is status and power, what you call truth is merely religion. It is useless and uncommunicable. I'd love to become Continental and spend 300 pages explaining it, but for now it suffices to call this a rule of critical commonsense philosophy.