truth

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ajit writes:>Where in the book of "rational thought" is it written that
James Devine determines the terms of the debates?<

Nowhere; if you don't want to discuss this stuff, you don't have to.
In fact, I didn't know that you were debating. Restating your
argument seems more along the line of the old Monty Python routine
where I'm the one who says "I paid for an argument and all I got was
a contradiction!"

(Frankly, I never see myself as involved with a discussion with only
one individual. I'm talking to the whole of pen-l, including myself.
On the latter, I'm trying to clarify my thoughts.)

>You have implicitly made a claim to somekind of "truth" without spelling
it out, i.e. you have made an assertion that there is something called
truth and "rational" thought must refer to such truth in its discourse.
Now, the burden is on you to establish this position. Once you do that,
only then you can ask me to expose its arbitrariness.<

"What is truth?," the jesting Pilate said.

Doug notes that it makes little sense to ask me to prove the
existence of "truth" and "rational thought" unless you actually
believe in them. But here goes.

I assume that reality exists independent of my perception of it,
even if I perceive it incorrectly and incompletely. (This is only an
unprovable _assumption_, since you might be a product of my fevered
imagination. But it's an assumption which we have to make if we want
anything to make sense.) Given that assumption, a greater _approach_
to the truth would involve having a subjective picture of that
reality that fits the objective reality more accurately and
completely.

As I said, there is no absolute truth that we can know. We can only
approach it, attain relative truth. I'm glad that Lenin agrees.

BTW, I notice that Shawgi Tell opposes agnosticism. I for one
embrace agnosticism (as opposed to religion, which includes atheism,
the faith that there are no gods). In fact, I think agnosticism --
skepticism -- is
the only _scientific_ attitude. We _don't_ know the objective truth.
All we really have is "working hypotheses" which can be rejected
when better working hypotheses come along.

But the fact that there may be better working hypotheses indicates
the importance of _relative truth_ and of truth criteria in the
first place.

I had written >>what do you mean by "arbitrary"? The most fitting
definitions in my dictionary have this word meaning "based on or determined
by individual preference or convenience rather than necessity or the
intrinsic nature of something" ... If you are asserting that assertions of
truth necessarily have subjective components, I agree.<<

>So you give the game up? By 'arbitrary' I mean propositions which are not
justified by 'reason'. They are posited, presupposed.<

This is the standard yes/no (dichotomous) form of thinking that is
quite fallacious.

You seem to have said that "all truth is totally subjective &
arbitrary" (yes). You interpret my statements as "giv[ing] the game
up," accepting your "yes" interpretation rather than defending the
"no" position you assumed I held (which I guess would be a belief
that one can attain total objectivity and access to absolute truth).
But I was pushing the "maybe" position -- or rather the complex and
perhaps difficult-to-understand position that the reality is a
mixture of "yes" and "no."

>Rest of your post is an exercise in selfcontradiction. And I'm not in a
mood to take pleasure in pointing them out. My general sense is that you
are confusing the idea of empirical 'facts' with 'truth'. In your case
there would be as many truths as empirical facts, and your position would
degenerate into most absurd empiricism of all.<

I am not engaged in that empiricist confusion (see next paragraph).
It would be useful if you made an effort to read what I wrote. (For
another author with similar views, see the methodological section of
the introduction to the GRUNDRISSE.  However, I don't like to quote
authority, so I left him aside.)

As is well known, empirical "facts" are totally infused with theory
(as when Keynesian theory defines national income & product accounts
that define the macroeconomic "facts"). However, that does NOT mean
that we can reject efforts to confront our subjective theories with
the test of practice or the test of efforts to measure the world
outside our skulls. (I also point to other tests, like those of
logical consistency or methodological coherence.)


in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine   jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.