Personally, I think that through careful rational analysis we can go out and discover the way the Universe actually is and, although we might make many blunders and mistakes along the way, we do get closer to finding out the truth. However, I have been told this is an old fashioned view (I think Enlightenment rationalism was the term used), that I should go and read Richard Rorty (still meaning to do) and that what we really do as individuals is to make truths which are unique to ourselves and only true for us and hence the Universe is subjective. So my question is this, is there 'a way things are' or 'the truth' so to speak, that we can go out and find (or at least try to) or do we rather 'make truths' which are only 'true for us'?
Most philosophers today in the English-speaking tradition agree with you that truth is not just subjective. But there is a lot of room between thinking that there is a single, complete true description of all reality and thinking that truth is just what we make it. For example, you might deny that truth is just a matter of opinion (even collective opinion) and ALSO deny that reality is what it is entirely independently of us. (I think that Wittgenstein would deny both.) So, I don't think that we have to choose between 'the truth [independently of us]' and 'truth-for-us'. I think that this is a deep and fascinating question.
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