The Hunt for Truth

"Truth indeed came once into the world with her divine Mater, and, was a perfect shape most glorious to look on: but when he ascended, and his Apostles after him were laid alseep, then strait arose a wicked race of deceivers, who . . . took the virgin Truth , hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth . . . went up and down gathering up limb by limb still as they could find them. We have not found them all, nor ever shall do."

-John Milton, Areopagitica

The fable Milton created about a personified truth ripped limb from limb suggests that truth is known only in part and the quest for truth can never be fulfilled. The question I ask is what fields can we discover 'truth' and what fields are we forever bound to 'opinion'? Math and science seems like easy answers to discovering objective truth whereas the arts will always develop based on opinion. On the other hand, their must be some visuals that are intuitively attractive to the human eye, some musical sounds that naturally appeal to the human ear. To some extent, even the arts may be reduced to objective measures. It has been said, "if you don't like the Mona Lisa, it says more about you than Da Vinci's skill as a painter." To what extent can arts be reduced to formulas?