Hi Jon:
You wrote:
> You and Elephant both pointed out the same thing. Is it and Absolute Truth
> that there is no Absolute Truth? But remember this is not only a tenet of
> postmodernism, it is also one of the basic tenets of Science itself. That's
> why I've said in so many posts in the past that Science is the search for
> something it says can't exist.
>
> I think you can deny the "idea" of Absolute Truth and still value temporary,
> high value intellectual Quality truths (such as the latest medical knowledge
> for treating the sick), thus leaving the door open for new evidence that
> might possibly alter or cause old definitions to be proven false. I don't
> think it's fair to say someone who rejects the idea of Absolute Truth is
> inherently dishonest, or doesn't value telling the truth.
>
> Perhaps it's just a problem with the limitations of language (or my own
> intellectual limitations) that confuses me on this issue sometimes. For
> example, I believe it's absolutely true that Quality exists, and that it's
> synonymous with Morality as Pirsig says, yet at the same time I deny Absolute
> Truth. Inherent contradictions abound in that view, it seems. It all confuses
> me sometimes.
>
> But I think it's unfair to characterize (not that you are doing this) all
> those who reject the idea of Absolute Truth as sneaky sophists who manipulate
> the nature of language for their own greedy gain or for the proliferation of
> depravity.
I have no problem with the tenant of science that there is no absolute
truth in the context it is put forth—against the dogma of church types
who will claim an absolute truth at the drop of a skullcap. The
theoretical “provisional” nature of science is a good thing, as Pirsig
points out, leaving the door open for DQ. But scientist will readily admit
to the absolute truths of mathematics and logic which they rely on in
their work.
Not so the postmodernists. They object to absolute truth, regardless.
For them truth is whatever the community (culture) says it is. One of
them, P.K. Feyerabend, even goes so far as to say that scientific laws
ought to be decided by democratic vote.
No scientist I know of (or for that matter any human being with a
modicum of sense) will deny the absolute truth of the Holocaust. Or of
deaths caused by AIDS. Or the danger of standing on the tracks in front
of an oncoming train. Life is lived in a sea of absolutes, beginning with
birth and ending with death.
Postmodernists say truth depends on “power relationships” and
“power struggles,” not on a honest effort to portray a reality
independent of one’s race, sex, religion or class. Once that foundation
of truth is denied, a free society based on the ideal of rational
persuasion crumbles and ad hominem attacks (such as Hitler used
against Jews) are all that remains. Therein lies the danger.
Let us not confuse the absolute truth that science denies vs. religion or
the many truths that Pirsig allows in his metaphysics with the absolute
truths of day-to-day living like the certainties of hunger without food,
lawlessness without police or stagnation without freedom.
My main problem with postmodernism, besides its dedication to
irrationalism, is its dictum of tolerance-above-all. Those who hold to
that ideal volunteer to unilateral moral disarmament, leaving the door
wide open to the Castros of the world.
Do you think this criticism is unfair?
Platt
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