↪Banno Lawson seems to think that the way we divide the world up is somehow arbitrary and entirely dependent on us. I think that kind of postmodern thinking is absurd.
In any case, since we all (or most of us) agree about how we do divide the world up (whatever the explanation for that might be) then of course there are truths relative to that common division. — Janus
English philosopher Hilary Lawson makes the point that:
... metaphysical frameworks, such as idealism and panpsychism, which were derided as baseless nonsense by the positivists of the past, are back in new forms. But such claims cannot be taken as a true description of an ultimate reality for there is no credible realist theory of language that would make sense of such claims.
I'm not looking for a defence of realism, I'm more interested in the implications of this matter - do we need a theory of language that explains how any realist claim is possible in order to accept those claims?
If we do not employ a realist account of language (as per postmodern thinkers), what is it we can meaningfully say about this notion of 'reality' we are so fond of describing and seems to be a substitute for god? — Tom Storm
What do we mean by reality? There is no one answer to this question, there are just answers that fit within the context of a particular language-game. If you're an idealist or realist depends on what language-game you believe best describes reality, or best maps reality. If you're religious, then you accept those views of reality as interpreted by a certain view of metaphysics. If you're not religious you'll latch onto views that have another view of metaphysics. If you hold to a third view, as I do, then you'll hold to another view of metaphysics. — Sam26
Do they believe the way we divide up the world is arbitrary and entirely dependent on us? Well, they believe that there are better and worse, more or less valid ways to carve up the world, but the arbiter of validity is itself a construction. Put differently, the world speaks back to us in the language in which we couch our questions, so truth is the product of a ceaseless conversation between personal and interpersonal construction , and events. — Joshs
It is denying that knowing is direct correspondence , representing or mirroring between knower and world. Scientific and other forms of knowing, far from being the epistemological representing of a reality independent of the knower, is the evolving construction of a niche. We are worldmakers rather than world-mirrorers, whose constructions are performances that pragmatically intervene in the world that we co-invent , changing it in ways that then talk back to us in a language responsive to how we have formulated our questions. — Joshs
What W. doesn't reject is the notion that language can reach beyond the world, into the world of metaphysics. — Sam26
Do they believe the way we divide up the world is arbitrary and entirely dependent on us? Well, they believe that there are better and worse, more or less valid ways to carve up the world, but the arbiter of validity is itself a construction. — Joshs
Put differently, the world speaks back to us in the language in which we couch our questions, so truth is the product of a ceaseless conversation between personal and interpersonal construction, and events.
Not a conversation between subjects and a recalcitrant, independent reality, but a reciprocation in which the subjective and the objective poles are inextricably responsive to, and mutually dependent on each other.
We may agree about how we divide up the world within the bounds of a particular cultural episteme, but epistemes change historically, neither arbitrarily nor rationally, and with them our truths.
It's funny how truth only seems to take something closer to solid form when death is the accompaniment. — Tom Storm
"Apple" has not only hundreds of other names but hundreds of descriptors and their respective meanings - from the literal, to the pragmatic/functional to the symbolic/metaphorical and figurative. — Benj96
But still there are countless truths that deal with the natural constraints of a physical world: I can't walk through or see through walls, I can't fly, I can't even entertain two thoughts simultaneously, I cannot increase or decrease my size, weight or strength instantly, I can't know things I haven't learned, I can't change my appearance without resorting to disguise or plastic surgery...the list is huge... — Janus
If the postmodernist says all is text, and we construct the world through and through, they go far too far, in my opinion. — Janus
we know that we all (most of us) perceive the same things, at the same times in the same places, which suggests that there is something about the structures of the world that give rise to that situation. — Janus
↪Joshs what, in all that, renders up anti realism? Why are there no true statements? — Banno
If the subject were a still life with flowers, vases, glasses and fruit, for example, and the instruction to represent every item, I have no doubt that most people would do that, which shows that people see the same things. — Janus
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