In a message dated 9/7/00 3:54:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Am I right in locating the core error in pomoism (as currently defended) in its assumption that claims are either "true" or "unjudgeable opinions"? Such a view excludes the possibility of criteria that would pass judgment on claims even in the absence of any knowledge that they are truly "true". The Putnam-type argument (which I accept) undermines teleological criteria (a claim is better to the extent it approaches the final truth) but not the sort of criteria most of us use to judge claims: consistency with evidence, logical coherence, consistency with other claims we accept, passing ethical tests (like Kant's), etc. These kinds of criteria give me grounds for rejecting GW Bush even though I doubt I possess "the truth" about government, economics, etc. >> Well, there isn't a single target taht we distrust pomo have been shooting at. However, since I am a believer in old-fashioned copper-plated truth-as-correspondance, I wouldn't say that the dichotomy you mention is a central pomo error. I would say that the rejection of truth and objective knowledge. I did suggest the Humean move, appropriated by Rorty, that there is a sense in which epistemological, semantic, and ontological questions don't matter for most purposes, because whatever we thgink or don't about such questions, we can bracket them when we ask, What's going on in East Timor? Is the Labor Theory of Value useful? And so forth. But this is secondary in my view. I think pomism advocates a false position, articulated in an incoherent manner, for bad reasons, when it advocates naive relativism of the sort urged by Nicole.. I don't think I have to say that I have the truth to think that it exists. Indeed, the reason I engage in inquiry, or a reason, is to find truths that I don't know. --jks
