[MD] Truth and Language

[X Acto]

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Ron:
Pirsig describes it as the act of deductive inference, the manipulation of abstract symbols that have no
reference to expereince. Language may be inductive as abstract symbols which DO correspond
to expereince.

See my philosophy studies has now brought me to Derrida and Davidson and their philosophising around truth and language. Some of you may remember that I have talked about Truth as the core value of the intellectual level, and the quest for truth as defining of the intellectual level - yes? Well, as we all know, no one really knows what truth is, philosophers and scientists and mystics and a whole lot of other people have been looking for truth through the centuries - and as much as they have been looking for truth they have been looking for what Truth _IS_ but, well, it hasn't been going all that well has it?

Ron:
That is because classical definitions of truth is collaborative, it is built upon the universal understanding of terms and their syllogism.

Anyway. Derrida's thoughts about language, as I understand it, is in contrast to the positivists and other since he says that language doesn't necessarily represent anything in the objective world, like Russell said for example (words representing sense-data, and thus being able to carry truth and building logic) but if something is true or not is determined by how it corresponds to the structure of the language. Inner coherence and all that. According to him, language isn't determined or given meaning by intersubjectivism, but has meaning in itself because of it's nature. Well, anyway-

Davidson in turn says that there is three types of knowledge, knowledge of the "I", of "the world" and knowledge of others (others minds I suppose). According to Davidson, these three areas of knowledge cannot independent of one another give rise to knowledge. You know, if you take Descartes "cogito" for example, Davidson would argue that the only way that becomes True is if there is other people that can verify it by putting it into context with what they have agreed that they know about the world.

(This is probably a very unfair presentation of Davidson's philosophy, partly that's because I am translating spontaneously from Swedish, and partly it's because I'm not all that good.)

Communication and interpretation is the basis of Truth, and if you put Derrida and Davidson together - even thoug one of them says that language is decided intersubjectively  and the other that this is not the case, if we look at the big picture in relation to Pirsigs statement about language (actually it was symbol manipulation, right? never mind) as the intellectual level, it makes sense if you look at it like this:

Humans create a language, and that language then becomes larger than the sum of it's parts (the humans) and it's nature decides one very crucial thing: what truth is. Thus truth doesn't exist for any being that doesn't have a developed language, because it is only with advanced communication and interpretation among individuals that the concept of truth can arise: and without the concept of Truth there can be no intellectual level in the MOQ.


This is all very sloppy, but are any of you following me here? What have I missed?

Ron:
MoQ posits truth as expereince. Therefore pre-lingual societies DID have notions of truth
yet they did not have a universal concept of truth. Universal abstractions are the origins
of the intellectual level but those abstractions are defined by the society they emerge from.
Therefore truth as we know it, is socially defined.
It is therefore of interest to note that the first natural "scientists" were the "holy" ones
of a tribe, the shaman offering abstract explainations grounded in inductive expereinces
and relations in the form of myth.
Why, the father of western thought, Parmenides  practiced Iatromantis, a form
of Greek shamanism. We could say that we still adhere to the myths of Aristotles explainations
with the myth of universal forms.




Regards

chris 
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Chris:
Comrades! I Think I may understand the whole language as the intellectual level now.