Revisiting Familiar Truths

In a rush to seek out unfamiliar truths about a given subject even in specific issues where there are none a person has not already given thought to, people more fixated on new discoveries than on truth for its own sake are at risk of ignoring, trivializing, or even pushing back against familiar truths.  Unless a particular truth really is trivial, like the mere knowledge that one perceives the sky to be the color one means by the word blue, there is a need to revisit familiar truths.  In fact, knowing that even familiar, utterly foundational truths need to be revisited is itself an important detail that needs to be discovered, celebrated, and lived out on a constant basis.  Familiarity does not invalidate a logical fact one is faintly or thoroughly aware of.

There is never a time or situation where even the smallest of foundational truths can be rightfully dismissed.  There is never a context where the inherent truth of logical axioms, the existence of an uncaused cause, the errors of all gender and racial stereotypes, and the epistemological uselessness of conscience do not need to be understood.  There is no time or context where one needs to be unwilling to appreciate or affirm such important philosophical truths.  Instead, there are many times when individuals would find greater stability, peace, psychological liberation, or empowerment in knowing these truths--and these are just the subjective benefits.  More could be said about the need to tell others truths when they would not look for them on their own, to correct their misconceptions, and to honor truth for what it is.

A new rationalist and someone who has long been a rationalist alike can savor and rest in the constant relevance of important truths like these.  One does not simply outgrow the presence and epistemological or metaphysical significance of key truths.  To some, it might seem less urgent to personally acknowledge them after an arbitrary amount of time has passed.  To others, newer realizations (though there are only a finite number of truths to recognize in the first place, as unlikely as it is that certain ones will be discovered without prompting) might become the focus at the expense of focusing on the most foundational of truths, as well as more basic logical facts.  Both familiarity and novelty come together in that truth spans them both.

Even if a rationalist--whether they have just given their life to rationalism or have been a rationalistic thinker for years--enjoys the surprise or specificity of discoveries that go beyond recognizing the self-evident epistemological nature of logical axioms, they would betray the very core of rationalism and reality if they actually came to regard the starting points as no longer vital.  There is far more to reality than just the aspects that are self- evident, and there are not many that fall into this category in the first place, but there is never a point at which a person or concept goes where logical axioms are not of immediate prominence and philosophical importance.  After all, there is no such thing as something outside the scope of a necessary truth.