Unverifiable Truths are Still True

Water is H20 in this and all possible worlds.

In one of these possible worlds, it is also possible for the molecular structure of water or any compound to be unverifiable due to, for instance, a state of affairs in which it is impossible to produce a measuring device with the sufficient precision to detect molecular and atomic structures.

In such a possible world, water is H20 is a true but unverifiable claim.

Therefore, unverifiable claims can be true.

The unverifiable claim here is an ontological one — it is a statement of the being of H20, or, in the case of a non-discrete universe, the becoming of an identifiable mode of H20 from the processes of said continuous universe.

Therefore, it is possible in this world that there are unverifiable ontological truths because the methods by which to empirically verify those truths are themselves impossible.

Therefore, the ontological is more fundamental than the empirical, and the empirical is only that which can be communicated and understood, but not all that is, is empirical.

This, then, would confirm the ontological validity of Platonic forms as having an unverifiable reality in this world and in all possible worlds.

Consider Plato’s cave, wherein person a and b perceive shadow s of reality r, whereby s is the epiphenomenon of r, and a and b perceive only s.

In the example above, water is s, H20 is r, and people within that world are a and b.

This can be the case in our own world with e.g. moral truths about the Good or ontological truths about metaphysical entities — in either instance, we as persons a and b perceive s_Good or s_MetaphysicalTruth only as reflections of the fundamentally ontologically real truths that exist in all possible worlds. Our abilities, however, to perceive Good or metaphysical entities are necessarily limited to the epiphenomenal, and our abilities to communicate both are further limited by language.

Thus, over two thousand years later, western civilization must concede that Plato was right to an extent. Exactly how right he was, though, we both never will and never can know.