Hi Richard:
> > 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.
Yes. Dogma can be dangerous. On the other hand, certain “absolute”
principles like freedom of political expression are necessary in a
democratic society. But the main point is that for a society to function at
all, the absolute truth of a reality that exists independently of one’s
individual wishes must be acknowledged. Otherwise, my beliefs are
as good as yours, anything goes, and your elimination for thinking
otherwise becomes a matter of no never mind for me. Which paves the
way for rule by force and open sesame to Hitler/Stalin/Castro types.
Perhaps we can agree that absolutes are a double edged-sword and
that today we find ourselves trapped between fundamentalists who
believe they have “the truth” and postmodernists who refuse to pin it
down.
> 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).
So long as philosophy remains rational, the statement “there are no
absolutes” is untenable. As soon as you make that assertion you erect
a self-contradiction from which there’s no escape without invoking
mysticism. Even the scientist who exclaims “It’s true that truth is
provisional” finds himself in a logical black hole.
As for divorcing philosophy from politics, it’s impossible. Politics is
about competing philosophies, except it’s called competing
ideologies. At the root of ideology a metaphysics lurks.
Platt
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