Re: Universality as warrant for relative truth value

jason <jasonkstevens@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

More recently I've abandoned the idea of truth all together and, like
consciousness, I don't really believe in it anymore.

This is a philosphical position that many have taken. There are
problems that I perceive in such a position. One that happens to
concern me at the moment is that knowledge is a precondition of
action. I suspect you might agree with this, but then what is the
function or status of the knowledge we have?

For a discussion along these lines, there is Roy Bhaskar, Scientific
Realism & Human Emancipation (London 1986).

Thanks for the reference but I don't really believe in consciousness.

Interesting statement. Would you mind telling me just what you mean and
why?

I believe that to explain human behavior, we don't need terms like
"consciousness", "awareness", "experience", "qualia", "something that
it is like to human", etc. A full picture can be expressed, at least
in principle, without the need to hand-wave at some "thing" that's
really quite ineffable. I don't think there is this hard problem of
consciousness. I think we've created the problem with the terms we
use and our assumptions they carry.

A tactic is to reduce our terms for unobservables by seeing if we can
do without them. Can we the idea that uses such terms by removing them?
That can be done, to some extent, but there's a heavy price, one of
which is explanation. I suspect that if you throw out such terms, you
also throw out explanation. Well, someone might reply, why should we be
troubled by that, to which there are some obvious answers.

Same with "truth" and "knowledge". I don't think it exists outside of
human discourse. I don't think there are any propositions or ideas in
our head that correspond to the world. The terms are handy, but I
think we could live quite happily without their metaphysical
assumptions.

I assume you are using the word "correspondence" here in a very loose
sense. Well, what compels us to engage the world, truthful knowledge in
hand? What social class members possess the means for their own
development and so do not have to engage the world? What portion of the
world's population are not forced to make bare survival their primary
and even sole concern? If we live in a developed economy, to what extent
is that advantage the result of truthful knowledge embedded in means of
production and the labor of so many who create new value in their
relation to nature in labor? How can we be equipped to change this world
for a better one without a truthful understanding of what makes society
tick? How can we make moral judgements or fashion a moral behavor
without some truthful understanding of the basis for it? The list goes
on. My point is that if we abandon the pursuit of truthful knowledge,
that may be logical in philosophical terms, but it seems to me hardly
worth the enormous price that must be paid.

--

Haines Brown, KB1GRM



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