Dear Gilberto,
You write,
"Sure. Personally I think skepticism is a natural default position and
in some ways it is really compelling. We don't really know *for sure*
that our various opinions about the world are true. As Descarte's
suggested, maybe there is a demon which is causing us to hallucinate
that we are who we think we are. Or in more contemporary times we can
suggest: Maybe we are all stuck in the Matrix? But for the most part,
taking a definitive position about ourselves or the world will require
a leap of faith."
Skepticism is not the "natural default position" - "animal faith" (in
Sanatyana's happy phrase) has that honor. When we see a truck coming at us,
we don't examine, think, and least of all doubt its reality - we jump having
assumed it's real - and when our child's with us we jump twice as fast.
"Animal faith" assumes the world and things in it are real.
Obviously you have forgotten the rest of the story about Descartes' demon,
namely, the one thing that the demon could not fool us about was our own
existence, since in order to be fooled, we must exist. Even if we are stuck
in the Matrix, we still have to be, i.e. exist, in order to be stuck in it.
We may not exist in the mode in which we think we exist, but our existence
itself as something is beyond logical question.
Another absolute is 'being', the one thing that all existing entities -
regardless of their mode of existence - have in common.
Even your statement "But for the most part,taking a definitive position
about ourselves or the world will require a leap of faith" is
self-contradictory to your position. Given your view, how can you be certain
that such a leap of faith is required to take a "definitive position about
ourselves or the world"? How do you know there even is a world? Here again,
you run into the self-refutational problem that has dogged scepticism and
relativism from the earliest times in philosophy.
Here are some things we know for sure about the world: (1) Ayatollah
Khomeini was not a duckbilled platypus - (which deals with the whole issue
of identity, nature and difference); (2) the sun appears to rise in the east
at dawn. (3) There is no current king or queen of France but there is a
current queen of England (and Canada);(4) The interior angles of a triangle
on a plane add up to 180 degrees.
RE the demonstrations of the self-refutational and self-undermining problems
of scepticism and relativism you write,
"I think the above is a very interesting word game but ultimately it
doesn't prove what you want it to prove. For example, it is not clear
that one should be able to apply Aristotelian logic to statements
which are relatively true or relatively false."
These are not "word-game[s]": obviously you have overlooked or are
unfamiliar with the logical problems involved with implicitly or explicitly
self-referential statements.
The statement 'There is no such thing as absolute truth' is a absolute claim
and is not "relatively true or relatively false." It refutes itself, i.e.
proves itself false on its own terms.
You write,
"Also, in your first example it seems as if you are saying that a
categorical statement which has counter-examples is relatively true
which doesn't make sense to me (I would just call those false)."
I'm not saying they are "relatively true" but that they are false - which is
why the term 'self-refuting' and variations thereof was used.
RE:
> In regards to scepticism we get similar situations. Take the statement
that
> 'The truth is unknowable to man.' How can we know if this statement is
true
> since 'The truth is unknowable to man'?
You write
"I would also say in this case, it takes more than a word-game to
refute skepticism as such. I think typically what one can do is
consider the various potential sources of knowledge (senses, memory,
"intuition", logic, etc.) and look at whether they can provide
certainty. If these various sources are found wanting, then it would
make sense to say skepticism is correct."
Again, you seem unaware of the logical problems of implicitly or explicitly
self-referential statements. This is not a word-game but the demonstrating
of the self-contradictory nature of the statement.
If scepticism is correct, how can you know for sure that "these sources are
wanting" and reach a conclusion about the correctness of scepticism?
RE " Taken at face value, deconstruction makes communication impossible
> since the consistent application of deconstruction subverts all
> attempts to make meaningful statements."
You write,
"Now I'm not sure how to parse what you are saying. I thought your
point was "If deconstructionism is true, then communication is
impossible. But since people obviously communicate, then
deconstructionism must be false". Is that what you are saying? If not,
then what was your point with the above statement?"
You got it.
You write,
"If so, then the point of the Japanese restaurant example was to show
how even if communication might be problematic, we still manage to get
by. So "communicate" is not a matter of either/or."
My answer to the restaurant story showed that our words and actions only
communicate if at some point we decide to stop deconstructing - otherwise we
could go on forever . . . a cosmic shaggy dog . . .
This however leads to problem for deconstructionism: to communicate, you
have to stop using the method! That should tell us there is something
fundamentally screwball about deconstructionism as a theory.
RE:"Your solution (in the Japanese restaurant) doesn't
> work, as I showed since on deconstructionist principles you don't even
know
> what you want there: any statement of meaning or intention subverts
itself.
So what are you trying to say? You are sounding like you believe in
deconstructionism, now."
No I'm not "believ[ing] in deconstructionism now"- rather, I'm taking the
deconstructionist premise at face value, granting it for the sake of
argument, and then showing it leads to incredible difficulties and absurd
results.
You write,
> The "rare outcomes" you mention don't show that communication is possible
on
> deconstructionist terms but rather that at some point people arbitrarily
> stop the process of self-subversion and designate a certain meaning as
> final.
I'm not trying to show that communication "on deconstructionist terms"
is possible. I was trying to reconcile the very clear and obvious
empirical fact that people actually do manage to communicate, with
deconstructionist claims that texts are subject to multiple
interpretations.
You misunderstand deconstructionism. The idea that texts may have multiple
interpretations is old - ancient in fact - and if that was what
deconstruction had meant no one would have given it a second glance.;
Multi-valent words and multiple meanings have been discussed throughout the
long history of literary criticism and philosophy centuries before Derrida &
Co.
Deconstruction's claim is that every text undermines and/or refutes its own
ostensible meaning - and therefore does not necessarily mean what it seems
to say. What it really means is impossible to say since deconstruction can
go on forever. We decide on 'the meaning' of a text only by arbitrarily
stopping the deconstruction/subverting process.
Best wishes,
Ian Kluge
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