Hi All, On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 9:09 AM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
> > I'm thinking about Nietzsche's attack on Truth with a capital "T". It's a > topic that should be titled something like "postmodern truth" or "what's a > truth to do in these postmodern times". Larry Hickman's book, Pragmatism as > Post-Postmodernism, struck me as a pretty good way to frame the issue. What > follows is a paraphrasing of a book reviewer's opening paragraph mixed with > other stolen thoughts. > As the book title suggests, Hickman makes a case that Dewey and other > pragmatists had anticipated solutions to some major problems that plague > postmodernism. Hickman characterizes postmodernism (with help from other > scholars) as a rejection of epistemological foundationalism, objectivity, > and metaphysical realism, as an affirmation of self-reflexiveness and > relativism, and as an attempt to have meaning without transcendent value > and action without absolute truth. Hickman concludes that Dewey's views > afford post-postmodern solutions to postmodern problems about objectivity > and the interminability of "self-referentiality, redescription, and > reinterpretation". > There are no clean and uncontested definitions of the terms but let's > frame the options along these lines anyway. Let's say that there are four > basic stages of truth; premodern, modern, postmodern and post-postmodern. > In this little story of truth, ancient and medieval thinkers sought a fixed > and eternal Truth about reality as it really is beyond appearances. This > kind of truth is tangled up in Forms, essences and divinities. Modern truth > was also about reality as it really is beyond appearances, but used > scientific and empirical methods to search for the Truth about Objective > reality, which was increasingly taken to be a natural, physical reality. > Postmodernism rejects those two kinds of Truth and some critics will even > say that postmodern thinkers like Nietzsche reject any kind of truth so > that postmodernism amounts to the worst kind of relativism. As I see it, > this leaves us with three bad options, plus the possibility of inventing a > blend of those options. > And then there is pragmatism. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference > between a postmodern relativism and neo-pragmatism but, if Hickman is > right, classical pragmatism had already found a way to reject Platonic > Truth and Objective Truth while still retaining a workable concept and > theory of truth. We don't need fixed and eternal truths anyway; we just > need a truth that's strong enough to kill lies, nonsense and bullshit. > Pragmatic truth is contextual and provisional and pluralistic but cannot > count as relativism in the bad sense because it insists on retaining > empirical standards. Despite the pragmatist's rejection the correspondence > theory of truth, there is still a demand that true ideas must "agree with > experience" and so truths still agree with reality in the sense that they > work in practice, actually function as instruments for some particular > purpose. That's all that "true" can ever really mean, they say. This may be > disappointing to those who expected Truth with a capital "T" but it does > provide earthly standard by which we can put truth claims to the test. You > try them out and see what happens. If you crash and burn, it's time to get > new truth. In this sense, pragmatic truths are never final resting places. > They are programs for more work, as James might put it, or hypotheses to be > tested in experience. This empirical element, I think, is what gets the > pragmatist out of trouble with respect to nihilism and relativism. This is > what makes it post-postmodern. > This is an interesting presentation. It would appear that the history presented is that of Truth, once objective, is now subjective. There are a couple of comments I would like to make on dmb's (Hickman's/Dewey's) concept. I would have to imagine that Hickman is claiming that what he is presenting about truth, is provisional. In fact, the provisionality of truth is provisional. This leaves plenty of room for such truth being absolute. If indeed, it is the testing of truth that brings it about, such testing is also provisional. We convert Truth, to expediency. This is, of course, a legal manner of conclusion, where Truth is discarded in favor of plausibility. Or, we are back in the '60's "If it feels true, it must be true!" Another interesting point which dmb presents is the idea that truth is supported by experience. What is not brought in, in his paragraphs, is the idea that experience is something we create. The environment impinges on our bodies, and the net result of this is experience. It is hard to fathom that "experience" is floating about waiting for somebody. If we consider experience to be a response to the environment, then we can postulate another form of Truth. By way of example, we consider Hickman's (alleged) opinions on Truth. To present these, Hickman is probably coming from the point of view of what he believes to be true (unless he is lying). Other's would consider Hickman's view as "opinion". This is, of course, the subject/object split. Hickman is coming from a place of "his truth" at the time he writes and publishes. This truth is not the result of evidence, but rather is a starting point (again unless Hickman is an incorrigible lier and knows it) . That this truth changes, does not change this starting point which is simply believing that he knows what he knows. From such Truth, we model the world and generate experiences based on this "view out". These experiences are continually growing as new experiences are created. So truth is a "starting point" from which we view the world in each instance of our existence. Even if we believe this all to be an illusion, this is still from the viewpoint of the "truth of illusionary misrepresentation". We can also believe that the idea that "everything is an illusion" to be itself an illusion, and then we once again believe in reality as it is. By way of analogy (which seems to be where I lose many), we take a sailboat ride. Our truth in this case is that everything is happening on a sailboat. Unless we are prone to constant questioning of this truth, we no longer question that our experience is derived from such sailboat and "that we are on a boat" becomes part of our "starting point" for generating experience. Without the sailboat, we would not generate the experience that we do (wind in the hair, sound of the water). Before we generate any experience, we must first find ourselves in context. This context is our Truth from which we continue to create experience. If we do delegate this contextual starting point as Truth, we find that such a thing is impossible to find (much like the Self). This is because everything stems from this "starting point", and it only looks outward. The sun cannot shine on itself. If indeed this place awareness is Truth, then we can once again make it objective. We could call it "the source of all experience" or Quality. One cannot define it since such definitions are based on this "Truth view", just like a house cannot define its architect. By this logic, we have made Truth synonymous with the NOW. The NOW is that moment which we are always existing in whether it be in memory or in planning, of just being. This Truth also becomes synonymous with Tao (thus equating Quality with Tao). The Tao is translated as "the Way". It would be the way in which we approach the world. It can also be translated as "the Method", which has the same meaning, since before we start to do something we come prepared with a method. Of course all these "definitions" depend on how one wants to use this word, Truth, in conversation. If this form of reasoning catches on, then we will have come full circle back to the days of Plato. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This is not to say that it hasn't been fun in between. Regards, Mark 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 > 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
