Hi Platt,
> As I’ve said, we live in a sea of absolutes. There are absolutes of
> environment like “It’s raining.” There are absolutes of law like “I’m
> married.” There are absolutes in math like 2+2=4. There are absolute
> scientific principles like “Entropy.” There are absolute democratic
> principles like “Equality.”
I'm not entirely sure how you manage the jump from entropy to equality
there. We might agree that 'most western societies are democratic'
(according to one's precise definition of 'democratic' of course) but you
earlier spoke of the absolute necessity of democracy (IIRC), which seems
much more difficult to be absolute about. After all it would seem perfectly
legitimate to observe that the leadership certain states face an absolute
necessity *not* to be democratic, for example, China may gradually evolve
into a democratic country, but if it had started to do so before economic
reforms it could very well have faced a future of uncertainty and unrest,
not unlike Russia, which moved to democracy before economic reform and is
struggling so badly now. As far as your earlier example is concerned, I'm
fairly sure that democratic Athens did not regard equality as a necessary
condition with a democracy.
> Precisely my point. If I believe in an absolute truth and you don’t, then
> you have no reason to oppose and try to defeat me if I gain the power to
> impose my truth on you.
Yes you do - the reason is that if you wish to maintain the belief in the
absence of an absolute truth in the face of an absolute truth. This isn't
philosophically consistent of course, but if we wish to keep on
intermingling politics and philosophy then that is simply to be expected.
> Are you absolutely certain that what you say the Nazis did is
> historically true? (-:
Absolutely :-) I never claimed not to believe in some form of absolute
truth. It's merely the idea of being railroaded into it on grounds on
political grounds that I have reservations about. As I said, on your
reckoning, even if absolute truth didn't exist, the idea would still have to
have lip-service paid to it.
> Reluctance to engage in questions of ideology paves the way for those
> with fanatic ideologies to take over. Make no mistake about it: believing
> that “the beliefs of each individual are equally valid” is a fanatic
> ideology, now being taught on campuses across the country. This
> ideology leaves a power vacuum which will be filled by--you guessed
> it—intellectuals,
Hang on - intellectuals across the country are creating a postmodern vacuum
which will be filled by... exactly the same intellectuals ?
> I don’t understand what you mean beginning with “and if you wish . . .”
> As for those liberal arts students, do you think they will be
> willing to risk their lives to defend democracy?
In principle, yes, because if truth is determined only by power
relationships, the only form of political structure which would allow them
to maintain their relativist principles would be a democratic one. From I
understand the idea of contest of ideas is quite central to postmondernism
and that is only possible within a democracy. In practice, of course,
intellectuals have always been notoriously reluctant to risk themselves in
war...
Again, I don't claim this to be philosophically consistent but I suspect
that that would nonetheles be the result.
> How do you view Elephant's mediating idea that truth can be sub-
> divided into relative and absolute categories?
>
> Sorry, I must have missed that. Can you or Elephant elucidate?
It would be presumptuous for me to elucidate on his behalf, but I can
certainly reprint the post that I took as referring to that*. It was on the
subject of Plato:
Yes. The distance which separates him from saying that truth doesn't exist,
and thereby saves him from Scruton's 'paradox', is bound up in this
distinction between synthetic and analytic which I have tried to clarify.
Confusion arises because people have fixed ideas about what constitutes
'truth', and think that when someone denies this fixed idea they must be
denying the existence of truth. That ain't so. It is possible to find
things which better deserve the name 'truth' than the thing you once
attributted it to. We all have to be open to this kind of possibility all
the time - that's philosophy for you.
*although it reads analytic and synthetic - I may have gotten my wires
crossed with a discussion on another forum, wherein Derrida's critique of
logocentrism was compared to the idea in certain strands of buddhism that
truth was either absolute or relative, as described by Elephant below:
> In Mahayana Buddhism the distinction is drawn between two 'levels' of
truth or
> reality. There is first the level, of Samsara, of ordinary reality within
> which we make all the distinctions we do make, including those between
what,
> in an ordinary way, is real and what is not (for example, the distinction
> between mirages and real pools of water). And then there is the level of
> 'ultimate reality', about which little can be said except that the view
from
> 'ultimate reality' is an 'enlightened' view, a way of seeing and being in
> which there is freedom from Dukkha.
> The notion of this 'ultimate reality' can seem very elusive, abstract,
> philosophical; and its philosophical elucidation has indeed taxed the
brains
> of the greatest Buddhist thinkers from Nagarjuna onwards. But it is not
just a
> philosopher's notion; it is central to the experience of the Buddhist
path.
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