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From: David Yeo <dyeo@oise.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: Heisenberg: was he blind? 
In-Reply-To: <5eabmg$esq@ux.cs.niu.edu> 
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Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 22:04:36 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.psychology.theory:6267 comp.ai.philosophy:52147 comp.ai:44295

On 17 Feb 1997, Neil Rickert wrote:

> In <Pine.SOL.3.91.970216090946.11829B-100000@tortoise> David Yeo <dyeo@oise.utoronto.ca> writes:
> >I think that the isolated truths held by each camp are most appropriately
> >viewed as a temporary divergence from the truth to which all camps (except
> >those rooted in dogma) will, in theory, EVENTUALLY gravitate.  To answer
> >your question, in their divergent state neither camp embodies the truth,
> >although each may contain portions of a truth to which they are evolving. 
> 
> I think it is a quasi-religious ideology, to hold that all camps will
> eventually gravitate to the same conclusion.  Since we have no time
> machines that would allow us to investigate the future, there could
> be no evidence to support such a claim.

Perhaps ... but it is no less quasi-religious to hold that the camps will 
NOT eventually gravitate to the same conclusion.  

> 
> >> I think this view is a prescription for relativism.
> 
> >True ... but it's a TRANSIENT relativism.  Moreover, you say this as if it
> >(i.e. relativism) is a bad thing.
> 
> Relativism, as it is usually described, is a bad thing.  Relativists
> talk about the social construction of reality.  On the extremes, we
> hear claims that science is a matter of power relationships, and
> white males have the power.
> 
> Personally, I think this is all bound up with bad ideas about
> 'truth'.  We typically apply 'true' to statements made in a
> language.  What I am suggesting, is that whether a statement is
> 'true' depends only partly on reality, and depends partly on the
> system of concepts used by the language.  It is usually assumed that

I'm a little confused (no ad hominems please), isn't this notion "that
whether a statement is 'true' depends on the system of concepts used by
the language" a verbatim definition of relativism?  Or is "the system of
concepts used by a language" not a "social construction of reality"? 

> language statements express 'propositions' which have a truth value
> independent of the system of concepts.  But I can't find any evidence
> to support that claim, and I think that there are no such things as
> propositions (in that sense of the word).

I tend to agree. 

Cheers,

- David Yeo (Applied Cognitive Science, University of Toronto)
