On Fri, 19 May 2000 17:25:09 EDT, foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Joe Brennan wrote (in part):
further, isn't the statement, "there is no truth" itself a
contradiction of the premise it puts forth, that is, that it masquerades as
a true statement?
just curious...
joe brennan...
[end brennan]
The statement 'there is no truth' may be a contradiction of the premise it
puts forth, but so are so many other statements that we would want to be
able to use to express a 'truth' that is not captured in merely logical
constructions. Let me just mention the cliche, "So near yet so far away."
Logically, how can something be both near but, at the same time, far away?
It makes 'no sense.' It is 'vacuous nonsense.' Because logically one
particular object cannot be, at the same time 'near' and at the same time
'far away.' Either the object is near or it is far away. It cannot be both
at the same time. But so much the worse for logic, then, because all sorts
of things are 'so near yet so far away' at the same time, precisely because
they manifest themselves in a variety of spheres, of clearings, of
phenomenological contexts, that are not reducible to one another.
Thus, from the fact that the statement 'there is no truth' contradicts the
premise it puts forth, it by no means follows that the statement in question
has no truth value.
-- John Ransom
> In a message dated 05/19/2000 5:11:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> ahaig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>
> <<
> Such a reading, however, comes from a misinterpretation of what the
> statement "there is no truth" means. Rather than saying that "Truth"
does
> not exist, it points out that "Truth" does not exist independent of its
> construction in terms of knowledge.
> >>
>
> maybe, but how would one know? isn't the problem the same in any event
--
> that is, whether or not "truth" exists beyond the human capacity to
recognize
> its structures, if in fact it's knowable in structures? doesn't this
suggest
> that the statement "there is no truth" exists in the same ambiguity as
"there
> is truth"? further, isn't the statement, "there is no truth" itself a
> contradiction of the premise it puts forth, that is, that it masquerades
as a
> true statement?
>
> just curious...
>
> joe brennan...
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