> Since we cannot judge among views because all our views are relative
> to our own time, place and ourselves, we have no neutral ground or
> Archimedean standpoint from which to judge among views. Since we have
> no neutral Archimedean standpoint, we cannot make definitive judgments
> about which views are wrong - but only about which views are *wrong
> for us*, and *right for us."
By George, he's got it!
Not only is there no such ground that we can find: if it were found,
we are not the absolute beings to go stand on it. The search for
absolute truths is doomed both by the lack of a more absolute
standard by which we could recognise an absolute truth, and by our
own conditionality as knowers.
> Here's another one of those self-undermining statements. If this
> statement ["The truths we can communicate and apprehend are relative
> to particular fields and contexts." ] is true, it is true only in its
> particular context and ...
Precisely.
Because postmodern society is structurally different to a tribal,
feudal or even modern society, the way we see truths is different --
not just abstractly, when doing philosophy or theology, but also
practically in everyday life. A person of the medieval or classical
age might in practice apply different logics and hold different
truths in church and when doing politics, but I doubt they would have
accepted it as normal, if they saw it at all. What marks
postmodernity is both the far greater extent of differentiation
between more different fields and contexts, and the willingness to
accept this as normal and inevitable, in everyday life. Part of that
is letting go of the illusion that one has any absolute truths
Sen
Sen McGlinn
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When, however, thou dost contemplate the innermost essence of things,
and the individuality of each,
thou wilt behold the signs of thy Lord's mercy . . ."
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