Taking another example as to how there could be different interpretation to a similar act is the example of the killing of the famous navigator Ferdinand Magellan who died because of shaking hand to a tribesman who took it as a challenge to come to war. For example in mathematics, there is stream called probability where there is calculation of the uncertainty of the event occurring and therefore it always lies in between 0 and 1 but if the probability is 0 then the event is not possible and if it is 1 then it is certain.
As we know that probability of an event is defined only between 0 and 1 therefore the probability of an event occurring can be either greater than 0 and less then 1 which defines the context of the theory. We now arrive at a conclusion that any statement to be true has to pertain to the Plato’s test for truth. We could then state that the statement is true. These sorts of statements are what we call as “Eternal or Absolute truth”, but as we saw earlier that to define a statement that has a mixed reaction about it’s validity, a context is very important to be defined so that the statement is true.
These statements are what I term as “contextual truth” where any changes in the context of the statement would result in the statement being falsified for example “there is a majority of Hindus” this statement is incomplete as it can only be true for some region which would be the context of the statement, therefore the statement should be rephrased by saying that “there is a majority of Hindus in the Indian sub-continent”.
Lastly, I would like to conclude by saying that a statement that is true eternally will remain true irrespective of the frame of reference, which is nothing but the context of statement. Many a time statements are true for only a particular reference which means that the context in those statement is all that draws the line between it’s acceptance as truth and it’s rejection. ‘Change is a changeless law’ this statement is a very paradoxical statement as we know that change is inevitable but this can’t be applied to this statement as it would stand as an exception.
Taking another example ‘space is indestructible’ this statement is also true as space can never be destroyed but on the other hand we know that there are philosophical believes of spaces curves which would mean that the universe too has a shape and therefore it has a beginning. There is also another philosophical belief that everything that has a beginning has an end and therefore these statements to be true have to be defined in a particular context or a frame of reference.
I therefore believe that the statement “context is all” doesn’t support the proposition that there is something called truth that is absolute and beyond any frame of reference known to the human knowledge of the universe and therefore it doesn’t pass the second criteria of Plato’s test of a true justified belief.
Word count- 1545 BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. MICROSOFT STUDENT WITH ENCARTA PREMIUM 2007 1 from Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2007- quotations 2 from Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2007- Encarta dictionaries 3 from Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2007.
