From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Jun 09 2004 - 17:16:02 BST
Hi MSH:
ph:
> You realize I'm sure that everyone, including me, you, Chomsky,
> Limbaugh and the most self-described "objective" scientist cannot
> possible know or learn all the facts about anything, that of
> necessity facts are always selected by both cultural and presumptive
> filters. Being familiar with philosophy, you also realize that
> there's great debate about what consitutes "facts," i.e., truth.
>
> msh says:
> But reasonable people can and do agree on on a wide variety facts.
> And a fact is true, by definition, remember, so a statement like
> "true facts" is redundant. Debate about whether or not these "facts"
> really are "true" makes for an interesting grad school seminar, maybe, but
> have little value in the real world.
>
> I'm always tickled when I run into the "truth is relative" people.
> This may be "true" but NO ONE believes it, even the people who make
> the statement. They are, after all, trying to communicate some
> "truth."
I take it then you do not agree with Pirsig's view of "truth."
"But if Quality or excellence is seen as the ultimate reality then it
becomes possible for more than one set of truths to exist. Then one
doesn’t seek the absolute "Truth." One seeks instead the highest quality
intellectual explanation of things with the knowledge that if the past is
any guide to the future this explanation must be taken provisionally; as
useful until something better comes along. One can then examine
intellectual realities the same way he examines paintings in an art
gallery, not to find which one is the "real" painting, but simply to enjoy
and keep those that are of value. There are many sets of intellectual
reality in existence and we can perceive some to have more quality than
others, but that we do so is, in part, the result of our history and
current patterns of values." (Lila, 8)
You also appear to ascribe to the notion of what "everybody says" must be
true (or the negative version, "no one believes it"). Besides asserting
an absolute truth, you seem oblivious to the Argumentum ad Populum
fallacy.
Oh well.
Platt
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