----- Original Message -----
From: "Platt Holden" <pholden@sc.rr.com>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2002 5:31 AM
Joe:
Platt, I agree with you numbers of people agreeing mean nothing to whether
something is true. 'You can fool all of the people some of the time.' I am
not familiar with the path evolution takes when society moves to intellect.
Maybe trust over time leads to certainty. P.C. seems but a moment in
society. I do not trust the moral levels I am certain of them. I agree
with Elliott, metaphor rocks. I offer my credentials for discussing
metaphysics from my debauched plumbing sense: "I fall like a pre-fart
sensing a vibration in the shit-hole."
> Hi John:
>
> > Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, an Oxford historian, in his recent book
'Truth -
> > A History and a Guide for the Perplexed', writes
>
> I've read the book.
>
> > Philosophers have adopted three approaches to rescuing truth, namely
> > correspondence, coherence and consensus. Fernandez-Armesto examines the
> > varied outcomes of each, including Rorty's, and dismisses them. He is
left
> > with Habermas, who "has come to value 'unconstrained
consensus-formation'
> > ... he prefers to be guided towards truth through collaboration and
> > communication ... his greatest enemy is the self; so he directs his
> > readers towards reverence for society; his greatest bugbear is
'subjective
> > reasoning', which alienates us and drives us into the hell of Huis Clos;
so
> > he advances 'communicative reasoning'. The search for truth is a
collective
> > enterprise, in which we learn from each other ... it has merits which so
> > far have been insufficiently praised: it is humane, undogmatic, solidly
> > rooted in tradition, optimistic, and in effect, good for the individual
who
> > practices it and the society which benefits from it." (p 222)
Platt:
> In the margin next to where this conclusion was proposed I jotted, "No!.
> P.C." I interpreted the idea of "communicative reasoning" to be the
> social level attempting to swallow the intellectual level. But, an
> interesting book, highly recommended to all who seek to understand
> how we confirm our assumptions.
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