From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri Apr 04 2003 - 22:50:06 BST
Hey Rick, All:
> > RICK:
> > > Agreed. There is no "final truth".
>
> PLATT
> > Is that your and Pirsig's final truth?
>
> RICK
> No. It's not a 'final truth'. It's an observation.
An observation that, as stated, refutes itself.
> One which you
> could easily refute by citing just one 'final truth' which we'd all agree
> with.
Refute by an ad populum fallacy? No thanks. Is Rorty"s 'intersubjective
agreement" now your standard of truth? Say it isn't so.
But, just for fun, how about this? "Truth exists." Anyone disagree?
> But more to the point, in the MoQ 'truth' is based on the properties of
> intellectual patterns (ie. their logical consistency, agreement with
> experience and economy of explanation). What could 'final truth' even mean
> in this context?
Final truth in that context means "truth is based on the properties . . . ."
> Is it really coherent to say some given assertion is the
> 'final logical consistency', the 'final agreement with experience' or the
> 'final economical explanation'? It sounds like nonsense to me.
Me too.
> However,
> it is coherent to think of an assertion as the 'most logically consistent',
> the 'most in agreement with experience' or the 'most economical in
> explanation'. The catch is that when you change from 'final' to 'most' you
> have to leave room for the possibility of your explanation eventually being
> trumped by one in which those qualities are even stronger.
Is that a final truth? Or one to be trumped later?
Platt
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Apr 04 2003 - 22:51:05 BST