> 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.
I don't see why. I would have thought that denying the concept of absolute
truth could also be read as denying anyone a monopoly on being exclusively
right, and might inject a note of democratic caution into social
relationships. The concept of absolute truth could equally be denounced as
doing away with rational persuasion through allowing people to be completely
convinced that they are absolutely right and all others are absolutely
wrong. Which is certainly what Hitler thought, unless you wish to persuade
us that Hitler was a postmodernist.
I'm not necessarily arguing with your views about whether truth can be
deemed absolute or not, merely questioning whether its absence would be
quite as destructive as you seem to think. After all, according to your
argument regardless of whether absolute truth is tenable or not, one would
still have to believe in it for social reasons. Surely the case should be
made solely on the basis of whether the concept is philosophically tenable,
without mixing politics and philosophy (which as far as people who disagree
with him are concerned, Roger Scruton has always been rather disapproving
of).
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:01:03 BST