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Template:Critical theory, modernism and the death of objective truth: Difference between revisions
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See?<ref>Translated from Persian into English: “the cat sat on the mat.”</ref> | See?<ref>Translated from Persian into English: “the cat sat on the mat.”</ref> | ||
Truths are propositions. Truths, therefore are a function of the language they are articulated in. A truth cannot “transcend” its language. It doesn’t make sense.<ref>This is not even to take the point that, thanks to the [[Goedel|indeterminacy of closed logical sets]], no statement in a natural language | Truths are propositions. Truths, therefore are a function of the language they are articulated in. A truth cannot “transcend” its language. It doesn’t make sense.<ref>This is not even to take the point that, thanks to the [[Goedel|indeterminacy of closed logical sets]], no statement in a natural language can possibly have a unique, exclusive meaning.</ref> There is the further difficulty that “language” itself is an indeterminate, incomplete, unbounded thing; no two individuals share exactly the same vocabulary, let alone the same cultural experiences to map to that vocabulary, let alone the same metaphorical schemes. It is what {{author|James P. Carse}} would describe as “dramatic” and not “theatrical”.<ref>In his {{br|Finite and Infinite Games}}.</ref> This makes the business of acquiring and communicating in a language — where meaning does not reside in the textual markes, but in the indeterminate cultural milieu in which the communication occurred — all the more mysterious. That we call it “communication”; that we infer from that a lossless transmission of information from one mind, is a deep well of mortal frustration. | ||
This is its debt to [[post-modernism]], and it is a proposition that contemporary rationalists find hard to accept, whether hailing from the right — see {{author|Douglas Murray}}’s {{br|The Madness of Crowds}} for an articulate example — or the left — see {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s patient and detailed examination in {{br|Cynical Theories}}. | This is its debt to [[post-modernism]], and it is a proposition that contemporary rationalists find hard to accept, whether hailing from the right — see {{author|Douglas Murray}}’s {{br|The Madness of Crowds}} for an articulate example — or the left — see {{author|Helen Pluckrose}}’s patient and detailed examination in {{br|Cynical Theories}}. | ||
The problem, all seem to agree, is this [[post-modern]] rejection of ''[[truth]]''. And it isn’t by any means limited to the critical theorists: it lives in Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts”, in Elon Musk’s [[ | The problem, all seem to agree, is this [[post-modern]] rejection of ''[[truth]]''. And it isn’t by any means limited to the critical theorists: it lives in Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts”, in Elon Musk’s [[Twitter]] feed, and the generally relaxed attitude to rigorous fact-checking of the populist right. | ||
At the same time we lament the death of “[[authenticity]]” — is it the same thing as truth? Is it what we ''mean'' by “truth”? — and with it, the terminal defection of ''logic'' from the mechanical operation of the world. | At the same time we lament the death of “[[authenticity]]” — is it the same thing as truth? Is it what we ''mean'' by “truth”? — and with it, the terminal defection of ''logic'' from the mechanical operation of the world. | ||