Subject: objective truth
From: Nick Kearney (nickkearney@retemail.es)
Date: Sun 16 Apr 2000 - 03:18:53 MEST
Date: Sun, 16 Apr 2000 03:18:53 +0200 From: Nick Kearney <nickkearney@retemail.es> Subject: objective truth
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Hello,
Crispin Weston writes: "A rather more straightforward argument for the
existence of objective truth is the extraordinary consistency that the
world appears to exhibit and which allows experts of all kinds to make
predictions about how it will behave.[] I have argued the point
exhaustively on this list, without receiving coherent answers to my
questions from the post-modernists."
The experts do appear to be getting better at making predictions over the
years(!), but they remain predictions. It may be that that Unified Theory
of Everything is just around the corner, and we´ll be able to walk, the
Grail held aloft, into a paradise of perfect truth.
Then again maybe it's more like Xeno´s frog, closer all the time but always
a hop away.
Whatever, at the moment, though there may be evidence, as Crispin
maintains, it isnt conclusive evidence, we still require a hop of faith to
believe in objective truth!
The problem with the idea of objective truth is that it isn't very helpful,
it can make people think that there is such a thing as an endlessly right
answer,(and try to impose that answer on others) and it can stifle doubt,
exploration, and debate. I think its more useful for students to think of
themselves as learning the discourse of a particular community, with all
the concomitant caveats regarding the provisionality of that discourse,
than for them to believe they are ingesting nuggets of unalterable
knowledge on the road to truth. The former leads to autonomy, the latter to
dependence.
Nick Kearney
Director,Florida Idiomas
Florida Centre de Formació
Catarroja, Valencia,
Spain
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