May I add a comment and a question to this one, from Platt's message:
> Ken W: If the constructivist stance is taken too far, it defeats itself. It
> says all worldviews are arbitrary, all truth is relative and merely culture-
> bound, THERE ARE NO UNIVERSAL TRUTHS. But that stance itself
> claims to be universally true. It is claiming everybodys truth is relative
> except mine, because mine is absolutely and universally true. I alone
> have the universal truth and all you poor schmucks are relative and
> culture-bound.
Is there any evidence that the constructivists claimed theirs was an universal
truth?
I think there is a trap in thinking that the lack of a universal (or absolute)
truth makes the concept of truth vanish, and thus leads to contradictions.
"Truth is relative" does not simply mean: anything can be truth. It states that
truth depends on context, not that it is arbitrary. Whether you equate being
dependent on context to be arbitrary much depends on what you mean by context,
and I think there are several options to consider about this.
Anyone more or less agrees to the following:
PLATT:
> That we are evolving to higher, more encompassing, more transcendental
> worldviews as Wilber predicts and Pirsig implies I have no doubt.
What is true now in this context will probably not be false in a more
encompassing worldview, but it may become only weakly true (true with caveats).
Cultures moving from different contexts may have different truths. Each may
evolve independently and get to more encompassing worldviews and hence extended
truths that contain the previous ones. However you put it, in the extended
worldview something will be true that wasn't, before. No?
There is still the possibility that the expansion of worldviews from different
contexts makes different cultures agree on a growing body of truths. No? Isn't
that what is happening on Earth all the time? If you express this concept in
your favorite philosophical jargon, that seems to reconcile relative truth and
rejection of *arbitrary* truth.
Cultures exchange truths with each other and thus expand their worldviews. The
same thing happens at a reduced scale when individuals exchange their truths.
I am supporting relativeness of truths, but do I have to insist that what *I*
say isn't a relative truth? I don't have to.
I think Pirsig's books contain several hints in this direction. In the story of
the brujo, his truth appeared as falsities to the culture from where he came.
Also, the worldview of the brujo was more encompassing. No?
(Who judges on it?):
Of course the problem arises as to how do you compare worldviews and truths from
different contexts, or even judge about what is an expansion (good) of a
worldview and what is not (involution?). The concept of Quality fits here, in my
opinion. Either in the sense that a new worldview is an expansion of the old if
it is better (but this concept doesn't work like this, I think, any suggestion?)
or that "better" is defined, in this context, by the concept of "containment" of
worldviews - the new one provides an interpretation of the old one and its
limits, while the old one has nothing to say about the new one, except that it
is "wrong". (These are very temptative - is anyone interested in discussing
them?)
(I wonder if hermeneutics have to do with that, but I don't want to introduce MH
here if you all hate him, I can't do without philosophers anyway and stick to
ideas).
Yours,
Andrea Sosio
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