[IFETS-Discuss] postmodern?

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Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] postmodern?
eliot@cs.umass.edu
Date: Sat 03 Jun 2000 - 20:26:13 MEST 

From: eliot@cs.umass.edu
Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] postmodern?
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2000 11:26:13 -0700

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>> "Postmodernism tends to champion the relative and be very suspicious of
>> anything that smacks of "truth" or any absolute." - Bob Leamnson

> My humble view of the postmodernists is that they are basically, but not
> exclusively, Skeptics, sin qua Sextus Empiricus. -Muhammad Betz

Or maybe pre-Socratic. Plato's dialogs are largely an exploration of the
different points of view people have. I think he was exquisitely aware of
need to consider people's beliefs partially in terms of their experience and
perspective. But, instead of elevating this to the level of a conversation
stopping argument against anyone who claims to know anything, he very
explicitly maintains that philosophy is "knowable" and "teachable". He does
not get stuck on the problems of relativity but views it as one of many
issues to be dealt with in the search for truth. Given these tools one of
his students invented the scientific method, which is, of course,
fundamentally intended to provide objective understanding. From there, the
issues raised skeptics should be viewed as secondary, even if they cannot be
logically refuted. There is no value in trying to organize understanding on
the principle that understanding is impossible.

-Christopher Eliot
Computer Science
UMass/Amherst

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