Friday, September 08, 2006
If we live in a real world, if there are cause and effect relationships which when working with known parameters render outcomes that are predictable; then why not stick with the pattern? Why try to force a relativitist view on a reality that won't accept it?
Process this through a preferential truth position. 3 men are sitting on a beach watching and commenting on the young ladies around them. In the distance they notice a girl approaching that appears to be the proverbial 10! They share comments about her that I will not attempt to share here, but as she draws closer one of the guys notes there is something familiar about the way she walks. He is looking at his daughter as his friends continue to make crude comments.
He no longer thinks this is fun. He is disgusted with himself and angry with his friends.
Why? What changed? This is relativism at its best. What is OK for his friends is not OK for him, one man's truth and all that. Only in this case it was OK for him until the reality changed.
But then, are not all of the ladies on the beach someone's daughter?
Process this through a preferential truth position. 3 men are sitting on a beach watching and commenting on the young ladies around them. In the distance they notice a girl approaching that appears to be the proverbial 10! They share comments about her that I will not attempt to share here, but as she draws closer one of the guys notes there is something familiar about the way she walks. He is looking at his daughter as his friends continue to make crude comments.
He no longer thinks this is fun. He is disgusted with himself and angry with his friends.
Why? What changed? This is relativism at its best. What is OK for his friends is not OK for him, one man's truth and all that. Only in this case it was OK for him until the reality changed.
But then, are not all of the ladies on the beach someone's daughter?
Preferential truth, that desire to define the world in a way that best suits my needs, can seem to make life easy, but there is a catch. Sooner, not later, it runs up against someone else's preferential truth. That may not be so bad if I am bigger, tougher and smarter than everyone else. Unless they gang up on me then....Ouch!
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
What do you say about someone laying out by the pool acting as if they are sunbathing when its raining? "Hey man, if it works for you go for it." The issue is that it does not work for me. I am still getting rained on. If personalize truth does not work in this example how do I know if it ever works? You might try to limit relativitism to moral issues, but the same applies. I can not know if what I want to be true is in fact true.
Preferential truth (let us call it what it really is) may help me justify my actions and give my "want to" gland free run of my mind, but it will not alter reality.
Preferential truth (let us call it what it really is) may help me justify my actions and give my "want to" gland free run of my mind, but it will not alter reality.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Truth is what I say it is! Really, there are no absolutes and reality bends to my every whim. It looks like it is raining outside, but I don't believe it. I say it is sunny out there; therefore, it is not raining and I am going to go catch some rays. This is great, I should have switched to a post-modernist view of the world a long time ago.
Sounds pretty silly doesn't it. Then why is that exactly what so many people claim to believe? The problem of objective truth is still out there haunting the edges of human philosophy.
Sounds pretty silly doesn't it. Then why is that exactly what so many people claim to believe? The problem of objective truth is still out there haunting the edges of human philosophy.
