Good mornin' Mary, I've got my rightful window open in front of me, leaning out of it, drinking my coffee. Let's chat.
I noticed you objected to: "If truth is truth even beyond the limits of our grasp and our approximation, it *exists*.And that settles it." Mary: > That settles it? > John: Well, I'm sure there are questions. There always are. That's the idea, in a way, that it is an absolute existant, but not as an object, but as a process. I'm sure it's somewhat confusing because I have to snip a deal out for brevity's sake and because I'm trying to make some clear points and Ellul, who is an elegant logician, covers his bases pretty well which can be very confusing. At least I thought so the first time I read it. Trying to keep up with this group has sharpened my understanding and this time through it's making a lot more sense to me. > There is an absolute truth out there. We cannot see it, but we should > ignore that problem and rely solely on our senses. Oh my no-no-no. Ellul makes it very clear throughout that we should never rely on one or the other, or eliminate either. His main point is the danger in conflating the two. Defining truth by the real, for instance. Or as some would call it, "radical empiricism". > When my sense experience > disagrees with yours, we should not say that truth is relative - meaning I > guess that we should stick stubbornly to our own version of the truth and > discount everyone else's? > > We should never discount everyone else's anything, but a big part of this idea is that we don't have that problem with the real. We pretty much agree when we are standing together and looking at a sunset, on the colors and view before us. On the feel of the wind, which we can confirm in our vision of the other's hair blowing as well as our own. So we don't disagree on sensory experience. Even though we "know" our sensory experience is based on an arbitrary illusion. What we continually disagree upon, is the truth of our interpretations of our sensory experience, and their meaning. Well... not continually. Sometimes we agree. Sometimes we both recognize something as true. > > Truth is the absolute or eternal. We are not able even to approach its > > outskirts. > > Meaning we should stick to our lie because it's our lie, but we don't have > to grant any accommodation to the next person's. > > Well I think Ellul did make that point pretty clear when he demonstrated that the realm of obdurate truth, is entered only through the fragile word. That we can never be that rigid, we must constantly accommodate the next person's version of the true. Deal with it, that is. A lot of things I have no idea if they are true or not, until somebody agrees with me. I mean, it seems true, but how do I really know? > Pretty messed up dude. Wonder what he thinks about compliments? > > That's my story and I'm gonna stick to it, > Mary > > Ah, now I ask myself, what do you mean by that? And I reflect on the answer that seems right to me, that you're not actually all that interested in Ellul's attitude toward compliments. Is this true? Its wprth deeper reflection, certainly. For the giving and receiving of compliments is an ancient social tradition, going back to the beginning as far as we can see, of every tribe, culture, nation and race I can think of. But what does it mean today? And more specifically, what does it mean to me today? I'd say, besides the superficial reaction of one's response to something that one likes, it's also a sort of "call and response" game that requires a proper return of a compliment, or a reaction of some kind, signifying the will to continue to play - to have relationship. But my problem, as you might have just noticed, is that I tend to intellectualize too much and like Marsha so astutely points out, intellectualizing social patterns just kills 'em dead. One reason nerds usually sit on the sidelines at school dances. Thanks for the chat Mary, It's been fun. I gotta go. John Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
