Template:Critical theory, modernism and the death of objective truth: Difference between revisions
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One can have any number of reasons for believing that, including, “St. Christopher watches over all travellers”, “scientists are clever and they figured it out”, “it’s magic!” or just, “the probability of planes falling randomly out of the sky has declined markedly since the Seventies, and there is now less than a one-in-a million chance I’ll die on a passenger flight, I care not why.” | One can have any number of reasons for believing that, including, “St. Christopher watches over all travellers”, “scientists are clever and they figured it out”, “it’s magic!” or just, “the probability of planes falling randomly out of the sky has declined markedly since the Seventies, and there is now less than a one-in-a million chance I’ll die on a passenger flight, I care not why.” | ||
In any case the important belief here is, “this ''particular'' plane won’t fall out of the sky”, and — inductive fallacy again — no one actually knows whether that is true. It may, for reasons quite unrelated to aerodynamics. We are taking an awful lot of things, over and above aerodynamics, on trust. That the ground-crew remembered to put the petrol cap on. That there are no undiscovered stress fractures in the fuselage, no surface-to-air-missiles launched at the plane , the airline has not secretly changed the | In any case the important belief here is that ,“this ''particular'' plane won’t fall out of the sky”, and — inductive fallacy again — until it turns out not to have, no one actually knows whether that is true. It may, fall out of the sky for reasons quite unrelated to aerodynamics. We are taking an awful lot of things, over and above aerodynamics, on trust. That the ground-crew remembered to put the petrol cap on. That there are no undiscovered stress fractures in the fuselage, no surface-to-air-missiles launched at the plane , the airline has not secretly changed the aircraft’s flight path without telling the pilot — and so on. Experience tells us none of these things are a certainty. | ||
The fact, if we have to talk about facts, is this: millions of people get aboard giant compressed tubes and catapult themselves across the planet each year because they have blind trust that everything will be okay if they do, and not because of their considered opinions of the plane’s aerodynamic design. | The fact, if we have to talk about facts, is this: millions of people get aboard giant compressed tubes and catapult themselves across the planet each year because they have blind trust that everything will be okay if they do, and not because of their considered opinions of the plane’s aerodynamic design. | ||
In fact a relativist does not need faith in the | In fact a relativist does not need faith in the objective truth of aerodynamics but only its ''regularity''. We do not board planes at 30,000 feet, but on the ground. An aeroplane that could not fly would not get ''off'' the ground, and so would have have a hard time falling back onto it, unless some aerodynamic principle putting it there was at play. It does not matter what that aerodynamic principle is, as long as it keeps working until the flight is over. | ||
Our postmodernist might even be an aircraft engineer with a degree in advanced aeronautics, and might have good grounds to think it an excellent model based on known data. She just holds that opinion with a caveat: the conclusion is inductive, can't be proven, and is provisional. After all, the history of science is of astounding discoveries that reveal the universe does not work the way the cleverest scientists thought it did. | Our postmodernist might even be an aircraft engineer with a degree in advanced aeronautics, and might have good grounds to think it an excellent model based on known data. She just holds that opinion with a caveat: the conclusion is inductive, can't be proven, and is therefore | ||
by nature ''provisional''. After all, the history of science is of astounding discoveries that reveal the universe does not work the way the cleverest scientists hitherto thought it did. | |||
Given the brightest minds still can’t reconcile the physics of atoms with that of galaxies, and neither provides a great explanation of what we experience at a human scale when we get in planes, we can’t really blame the relativist for arching an eyebrow at Professor Dawkins. | Given the brightest minds still can’t reconcile the physics of atoms with that of galaxies, and neither provides a great explanation of what we experience at a human scale when we get in planes, we can’t really blame the relativist for arching an eyebrow at Professor Dawkins and his purported certainty. It seems rather a matter of ''faith''. | ||
So hand wavey appeals to planes, or desks, or throwing ourselves out the window, don’t advance the argument about ''truth''. | So hand wavey appeals to planes, or desks, or throwing ourselves out the window, don’t advance the argument about ''truth''. | ||
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It isn’t like we ''need'' it, after all. All the relativist asks is that when we talk about knowledge we don’t overstate our case: that we downgrade unjustifiable statements about ''forms'' to pragmatic statements of ''fitness''. Functionally, stopping with “it works as far as we know” is not a grea~t concession. JC is not aware of any university that has yet closed its physics department on account of completion of its mission. | It isn’t like we ''need'' it, after all. All the relativist asks is that when we talk about knowledge we don’t overstate our case: that we downgrade unjustifiable statements about ''forms'' to pragmatic statements of ''fitness''. Functionally, stopping with “it works as far as we know” is not a grea~t concession. JC is not aware of any university that has yet closed its physics department on account of completion of its mission. | ||
====Sociological quibbles==== | ====Sociological quibbles==== | ||
{{Drop|I|n any case}}, generalised observations about the typical behaviour of physical objects at the human scale of interaction are not the sorts of things postmodernists tend to disagree about. As Professor Dawkins observes, relativists ''do'' get on planes. Even if you could establish aerodynamics were true — as per the above, you can’t — it would not establish anything about the sorts of things post modernists ''do'' disagree about. | {{Drop|I|n any case}}, generalised observations about the typical behaviour of physical objects at the human scale of interaction are not the sorts of things postmodernists tend to disagree about. As Professor Dawkins observes, relativists ''do'' get on planes. Even if you could establish aerodynamics were true — as per the above, you can’t — it would not establish anything about the sorts of things post modernists ''do'' disagree about. | ||