Template:Critical theory, modernism and the death of objective truth: Difference between revisions

{{Drop|A|t this point}} two self-refuting mythological creatures are cast into the ring: “atheists in foxholes”, and “postmodernists on aeroplanes”. Neither , according to the other, exists.

By the fact that he takes his argument no further, we expect Dawkins believes he has won it, [[quod erat demonstrandum]]. There are objective truths, everyone knows it, and this [[postmodernist]] blather to the contrary is all a ''posture''. Because ''aeroplanes''.

But Dawkins misreads ''consensus'' for ''truth'', and he mistakes ''observation'' for ''explanation''. The “truth” to which he appeals here is not “the veracity of modern aerodynamics” — we imagine the finer points of that were not worked out when Richard Pearse took his first flight, so that specificity of knowledge is not needed, and in any case even now few airline passengers ''have'' that kind of understanding — but the simple statement that “planes go up and come down reliably enough that I am prepared to get in one”.  

One can have any number of reasons for believing that, including “St. Christopher watches over travellers”, scientists are clever and they figured it out or just, “the probability of planes falling randomly out of the sky has declined markedly since the seventies, and there is less than a one-in-a million chance I’ll die on a passenger flight.”

In any case the belief we care about is that this ''particular'' plane won’t fall out of the sky, and — inductive fallacy again — no one actually knows.  

In fact a relativist does not needs faith in the accuracy of aerodynamics but only its ''regularity''. We do not board planes at 30,000 feet, but on the ground. An aeroplane would never get ''off'' the ground, and so would have no prospect of falling back onto it, unless some aerodynamic principle 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 hold a degree in advanced aeronautics, and might happen to think it provides an excellent model based on known data. She just holds that caveat that, you know, 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 we thought it did. Given we still can’t reconcile the physics of atoms with that of galaxies, and neither provide a great explanation of what we experience when we get in planes, we can’t really blame the relativist.

All the relativist asks is that we don’t overstate our case: that we downgrade unjustifiable statements of transcendent truth to pragmatic statements of provisional 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.