You are accusing me of using circular reasoning. Not once did I ever say
"nothing" is true. Granted, if I said nothing was true but intended that
very statement itself to be true, as if it is true there are no truths,
indeed I would have spoken a contradiction. I did not say that. I did
not imply that. You are reading your own stuff into what I said.
I am a great believer in truth. I just do not believe it is the same
truth all the time or in all situations. Truth is relative. Realism is
an attempt to say at least some truths are not relative. If a person
takes the time to strictly specify context, and if a person gives
repeated example within that same context, I admit things should not
change. But as I have said already, people assume consistent context
when in fact such is not always the case. This is an error in logic.
Realism is the logical fallacy of universal context, when in fact there
is no such thing.
Again you have failed to justify your criticism of what I said.
>From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune@mars.superlink.net>
>Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 08:37:00 -0700
>
>On Tuesday, August 28, 2001 9:17 PM David G. McDivitt dmcdivitt@yahoo.com
>wrote:
>> You have shown no explicit contradictions an anything I said.
>
>You made the asked us, in your Sunday, August 26, 2001 12:00 PM post, to:
>
>"Consider each fact we hold dear in terms of the sociological environment in
>place at the time that fact came into being. Consider whatever political and
>religious controversies. The point is, any arbitrary fact or piece of
>knowledge could have been constructed at that time, and what was constructed
>met the demand and dynamic nature of that environment. If constructed
>knowledge proves useful, can be built upon, or in some other way exhibits
>survivability, that knowledge remains. If not it goes away and is superseded
>by something else. The knowledge we have exhibits the exploratory and
>adaptive nature of mankind. We manufacture knowledge to meet our needs and
>wants rather than discover it."
>
>There are several claims made in this quote. Let's separate them.
>
>One is that "any arbitrary fact or piece of knowledge could have been
>constructed at that time..."
>
>Another is "what was constructed met the demand and dynamic nature of that
>environment."
>
>Following all this is "We manufacture knowledge to meet our needs and wants
>rather than discover it."
>
>Now this last claims is an time of knowledge, right?
>
>Is it true? If it is true, then it must apply to itself, right? If so,
>then it must be manufactured and not discovered. Yet knowledge that is
>manufactured is really not knowledge at all. Instead, it merely suits some
>other purpose.
>
>Or do you mean your statement to apply to only some subset of knowledge? In
>that case, then we could focus on the subset that it does not apply to. In
>fact, if it only applies to a subset, then the claim is much less bold and
>becomes a truism. (Just like "Some of what you believe right now is false."
>Does this statement mean anything goes or that everything you believe is
>false? Or that there's no way of separating truth from falsehood -- however
>rough or fallible?
>
>If it is false, then your whole rant is false.
>
>But even more to the point, how would you know it is true? You would need
>to know something about reality and something about knowledge of reality?
>Why would you need to know? To even make sense of the statement, you have
>to be able to compare a given item of knowledge to reality and show that a)
>it enhance survival or is otherwise useful and b) that it does not
>necessarily match reality. Usefulness is a fact, too, as is
>"survivability." In order to know if something is useful, one must have
>some knowledge of the things it's useful for.
>
>All these claims commit the genetic fallacy -- or what Rand called the
>fallacy of the stolen concept. (You don't have to accept her other views to
>accept this fallacy as a true fallacy in reasoning.) This means, simply
>put, an idea which denies that on which it logically depends.
>
>> That a
>> person uses semantics to criticise semantics is in no way invalid. What
>> do you suggest I use?
>
>I suggest you clean up your logic.
>
>> I ask you again to justify your criticism.
>
>Again, I have. That Lee Corbin number my criticisms seems to show someone
>else got it too. (It would also be nice if you followed his formating
>suggestions. It would make it easier for others to read your posts.)
>
>Cheers!
-- http://www.geocities.com/dmcdivitt_________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
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