Hello Platt,
> Yes. Dogma can be dangerous. On the other hand, certain “absolute”
> principles like freedom of political expression are necessary in a
> democratic society.
Could you clarify 'absolute' in that context? It's clearly not the same
'absolute' as 'I am absolutely certain that it is snowing in connecticut at
present.' Freedom of political expression has hardly always been practiced
in democratic societies.
> 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.
I simply cannot agree that that has anything to do with the figures you
allude to have anything to do with this. The characteristic of those types
is that their beliefs were better than anyone else's and that they had
access to absolute truths denied to others. Whereas:
> The reason postmodernism is more of threat than Ayn Rand is that the
> former has permeated the humanities in most every U.S. college.
> Rand is personna non grata in academe; you won’t find a course
> devoted to her philosophy in any major liberal arts college. But cultural
> studies, feminist studies, gay studies, African studies—all of which
> cater to the postmodernist dogma of truth dependent on power—are
> everywhere. As such I consider it a far greater danger.
I would agree that the idea that truth is determined by power is potentially
a fascist one. But one does not need philosophy to assert that this has
happened. History alone teaches us that the Nazis wielded power and used
what they appropriated as truth as a means to power. Part of this was the
oppression of some of the groups you adumbrate above. Conversely, the
principal idea about the studies you describe is that in a democratic
society there can be contesting ideologies and that the beliefs of each
individual are equally valid. I concur that this clearly lacks any framework
for determining the value of each respective ideology, but my impression has
always been that this resulted in a reluctance to engage with those
questions, leading to a suspension of judgement, rather than a desire to
impose beliefs on one another. Just because that is philosophically
possible, dos not make it so.
> 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.
That might be reasonable, yes, but I would still take the view that the
latter is a speculative problem, whereas the former has been endemic
throughout history. If you really are asking me to believe that liberal arts
students are a danger to the fabric of society, you really must expect me to
be sceptical - and if you wish to assert this on the basis of some form of
authoritarianism against the perceived 'immorality' of the behaviour of
others, than I am not sure we can agree at all.
> 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.
How do you view Elephant's mediating idea that truth can be sub-divided into
relative and absolute categories?
> 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.
I would agree with (and simply wanted to clarify whether you would agree
with Scruton and his attack on allowing marx and Foucault to be taught
alongside Hegel and Kant) that, although I am still unpersuaded as to how
helpful it is in that context.
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