From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 22:36:31 BST
Steve,
Steve asked:
Platt, do you disagree with the statement "truth is context dependent"?
Matt, can something be "absolutely true" within a given context?
Matt:
Nice. Trying to get Platt and I to square on some middle ground. Very
tricky of you ;-)
But, yes, something can be "absolutely true" within a given context. I
have absolutely no problem whatsoever with that statement. Whenever I've
used the word "absolute" in the past, I can always hear Platt giggling in
my head because he thinks I'm contradicting myself. But, as you are
bringing to light, I'm not. Within a traditionally defined context, the
statement "All bachelors are single" is absolutely true. Anglophone
philosophers used to call "All bachelors are single" an "analytic," as
opposed to "synthetic," statement because it depended solely on the
definitions of the words, rather than having to "look out into the world"
to be proven true or false. Quine helped blur the distinction between the
analytic and synthetic by pointing out that (to mix my Heidegger with my
Quine) you have to be a being-in-the-world for any sentence to make any
sense. You have to be in touch with the world, in a sense "look out into
the world," for even analytic sentences to be true.
Once you get rid of the assumption that there are true essences to words,
fixed, discoverable definitions, True-to-the-World contexts, you get rid of
the philosophical notion of Absolute Truth, because our imaginations can
always come up with contexts in which an "absolute truth" is made
false. But, while on the one hand getting rid of Absolute Truth, you don't
get rid of something being absolutely true. Despite Platt's protestations,
post-moderns never said they got rid of truth and falsity. To continue to
say that we do is to rely on a caricature, a strawman, that has been proven
false time and time again here.
Matt
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