When Truth Undermines Itself: Lyotard, Vervaeke, and the Limits of Modern Epistemology

Modernity introduced one of the most powerful cultural revolutions in human history. Born out of the Enlightenment, modern thought championed reason, individual liberty, and scientific objectivity. Central to this transformation was the idea of objective truth—a belief that the world could be understood through observation, logic, and empirical inquiry. The immense achievements of the modern era, from technological progress to liberal democracy, seemed to validate this worldview.

However, the same intellectual tools that propelled this progress eventually began to destabilize the very framework that made them possible. In The Postmodern Condition (1979), philosopher Jean-François Lyotard captured this internal contradiction with a phrase that has since become iconic: “incredulity toward metanarratives.” Though often misread as a rejection of truth itself, Lyotard’s warning was far more nuanced. He argued that the epistemological standards of modernity—particularly its reliance on propositional and empirical validation—had made it difficult to sustain belief in the grand narratives that once gave societies cohesion and direction.

Metanarratives, in Lyotard’s formulation, are the overarching stories that legitimize a society’s values and institutions: narratives of progress, emancipation, national identity, or divine purpose. These stories are not merely abstract theories; they are the scaffolding of cultural meaning. Modernity, however, empowered a form of rational skepticism that could interrogate any claim not grounded in observable, testable fact. In doing so, it created an epistemological regime in which metanarratives could no longer justify themselves. The paradox Lyotard identified is that the modern pursuit of propositional truth ultimately undermines belief in the very stories that gave truth its cultural significance.

This crisis of legitimation is not simply a philosophical issue—it manifests in widespread cultural disorientation. A civilization governed by propositional rigor but starved of shared meaning becomes vulnerable to fragmentation. Institutions lose their authority, social trust erodes, and a kind of narrative nihilism sets in. We become a society saturated with information, yet increasingly unable to agree on what it’s all for.

To understand the roots of this epistemic collapse, it is helpful to turn to contemporary cognitive scientist John Vervaeke, whose work on the "4 kinds of knowing" offers a richer framework for understanding human cognition and culture. Vervaeke argues that knowledge is not monolithic, but multi-dimensional. In addition to propositional knowing (knowing that something is the case), he identifies:

• Procedural knowing: knowing how to do something—skills and techniques.

• Perspectival knowing: knowing what it is like to be in a situation—embodied, situational awareness.

• Participatory knowing: knowing through being and becoming—the process of identity formation and mutual transformation with one’s environment.

Modernity elevated propositional and, to a lesser extent, procedural knowledge as the only legitimate forms. It framed perspectival knowing as mere subjectivity and relegated participatory knowing to mysticism or sentimentality. As a result, the dominant cultural institutions of the modern West became increasingly effective at solving problems, but less and less capable of telling us what problems are worth solving.

It is within this historical and philosophical context that we can better evaluate Tim Urban’s recent cultural commentary in What’s Our Problem?. Urban presents a framework that divides society into “low-rung thinkers” and “high-rung thinkers,” where the former are tribal, emotional, and ideological, and the latter are rational, evidence-based, and truth-seeking. His proposed solution to societal dysfunction is a renewed embrace of objective truth and reasoned dialogue.

At first glance, this seems like a much-needed corrective. In an age of online echo chambers, political polarization, and epistemic chaos, calling for rational discourse is admirable. However, Urban’s project ultimately reaffirms the very modernist epistemology that Lyotard critiques. He treats objective, propositional truth as the foundation of cultural health, seemingly unaware that this narrow conception of truth is what helped unravel our shared narratives in the first place.

By centering propositional knowledge as the gold standard of legitimacy, Urban inadvertently replicates the reductionism that characterizes the post-Enlightenment worldview. In his narrative, subjectivity is suspect, tradition is easily dismissed, and the solution to deep cultural malaise is more clear thinking. Yet, this misses the deeper point: reason alone cannot repair a meaning crisis. Facts do not generate purpose. Logic does not restore faith. A purely rationalist epistemology cannot support a pluralistic, psychologically integrated culture because it cannot recognize the validity of the very forms of knowing—perspectival and participatory—that generate identity, belonging, and coherence.

What is needed, then, is not a retreat from reason but an expansion of our understanding of what it means to know. Vervaeke’s framework offers a way forward: an integrated epistemology that honors propositional precision without discarding procedural wisdom, perspectival insight, or participatory transformation. Under such a model, truth is not merely a static correspondence between statements and reality—it is a dynamic process of embodied engagement, skillful interaction, and existential alignment.

In this light, Lyotard’s critique was not nihilistic but diagnostic. He was not denying truth; he was illuminating the limitations of an epistemic monoculture. And Urban, despite his earnest efforts, remains caught in that monoculture—defending a model of truth that no longer carries the cultural weight it once did.

If modernity taught us how to think clearly, and postmodernity taught us how to doubt wisely, then our task now is to integrate deeply. We must reclaim metanarratives—not as dogmas, but as living, evolving frameworks that support the full richness of human knowing.

The truth that can hold a civilization together is not merely the truth we can prove, but the truth we can live.

References:

Lyotard, J.-F. (1984). The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1979)

Urban, T. (2023). What’s Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. Wait But Why Publishing.

Vervaeke, J. (2019). Awakening from the Meaning Crisis [Lecture series]. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/user/johnvervaeke