From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Aug 31 2002 - 00:36:24 MDT
Dan writes
> Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> > It used to be supposed that the world is just out there, on the other
> > side of a clear sensory window pane. Now we're sure that the experienced
> > world is itself a construct, a somewhat unstable patchwork of mental
> > models driven partly by what's outside, partly by genetically ordained
> > internal grammars, partly by the local cultural templates we imbibe from
> > childhood on (including the language we use to categorize and
> > communicate our grasp of the world). It's naive to suppose that culture
> > and language capture "just how things are", and hence to fear and hate
> > anyone whose inner maps conflict with our own, but still it takes quite
> > an effort to see that our worlds are built-up in accord with these
> > internal maps or theories. Education helps; it's easier to reach such
> > counter-intuitive insights with the aid of difficult books, and dialogue
> > with other people who've been down the same path.
>
> FWIW, I actually take issue with postmodernists who talk like this. I
> believe the best way of saying this is to point out that our claims
> (including claims about the world) are true because we built the language
> that way; thus we got to make up when to call a sentence "true" or "false"
> around the same time we made up sentences.
The reason that Calvin's or Damien's quote should be criticized
is that there *really is a real world out there*, just as the
quote admitted. Okay, so when we talk, we *talk* about what is
out there.
Of course "it's naive to suppose that culture and language" capture
everything about it, and indeed we all have our own filters and so
on. And nobody defends "hating and fearing" those who are different.
But the postmodernists don't stop there; they go too far. They
start talking as though they mean it when they say that the
world out there is constructed.
> We build the words, we build the language, and we build what it is for
> words in language to be "true." We only built the "world" if you think
> that the "world" is just "whatever it is that makes our sentences true."
> This is a clever definition, but not one anybody outside of their study
> actually uses.
Yes. But come now, don't concede to this "we build..." blah blah blah.
Languages and cultures *evolve*, and they evolve as does everything
else living to cope with the real world around them. If you are
any sort of realist, you intuitively understand this, and you
understand that this postmodernist solipsism is an overreaction.
> For example, in ordinary language, when I say "the real world" I talk
> "about" something "non-mental." Maybe we'll all change our minds about
> what we mean by those terms, but I rather doubt I'll do so in my
> practical day-to-day conversations, in the course of doing scientific
> work, or when discussing an interesting dream I had last night.
You "rather doubt" that we'll all change our minds about
what we mean by those terms?? There is NO WAY anyone is
going to change the sensible ways that all societies have
used realistic language for about the last 500,000 years
or so!
I'd love it if a postmodern academic went to get
his car fixed, and the mechanic shoved a lot of the crap
right back in his face, saying that the behavior of the
carburetor can be interpreted in several ways, all of
which necessarily reflect the values of the mechanic, and
his or her culture, and how our impositions of our own
preconceptions on the carburetor require further analysis
and that the carburetor needs to speak for itself, and how
the carburetor's *own* preconditions, sensibilities, and
intrinsic values (ignored by unenlightened auto-mechanics
who fall into the trap of privileging themselves *over*
the mere mechanical parts of a car and thus perpetuate
violence etc.), and how the *owner* of the carburetor
needs himself or herself to re-examine the assumptions
underlying the perception of failure on the *carburetor's*
part, which as part of the entire matrix of owner/car
relationship in *American* culture, not to mention the
relationships between customers and mechanics which itself
[text deleted]... inevitably biases any investigation, and
possibly even precludes an understanding that the fundamental
behavior of the carburetor is itself necessarily *constructed*
by the needs, mores, power structures operating in the mind
of the specific customer as well as the *class* of customers
viz. the consumers of society who..., so that a healthier
relationship all around might be obtained by a more
understanding and relaxed approach taking into account
the mutual dependency of... and so on, forever.
Serve 'em right.
Lee
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