“For such truth as opposeth no man’s profit nor pleasure is to all men welcome.” With this opinion, Thomas Hobbes closes his monumental Leviathan, a great work devoted to the broadly understood issue of the state.
Should the truth be undisputed and accepted by all it concerns? This intriguing definition may mean that the truth with which we come to others cannot be only “our” truth, that is, the truth only beneficial to us somehow. The truth we offer to someone must meet their needs. It may be true that someone does not know yet that they need such a truth. It may be that he does not see any benefit in the challenges he has to take to obtain the truth that awaits him at the end of the road; he must take to reach it. It may also be the case that we must adapt our truth to others’ truth to be acceptable to them. We can also convince others to our truth, but it will only be effective when they see their “profits and pleasures” in it. Immanuel Kant, the great eighteenth-century philosopher, used a very thoughtful tactic in his dispute with Prussian censorship, with the help of which he avoided “clashing” with the truth that was unacceptable to him. He promised the King of Prussia that he would not speak up on religious matters, knowing that the king, being in poor health, would die soon and thus Kant would be “released” from the oath. In Kant’s opinion, on the one hand, the prohibition against him was wrong, but on the other hand, the king’s order was legal, so an intermediate solution had to be found.
Kant’s case leads to the conclusion that the “negotiability” of truth if we can call it that, results from the imperfection of the sphere of interpersonal relations, within which attempts are made to reconcile the often contradictory and, in fact, irreconcilable, interests of different people. Since we do not have a solution that satisfies everyone, we must accept intermediate forms. Above all, we must remember that our truth is not necessarily attractive to others.
