Re: positivism (was Re: "rise of china" and wst)

On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 wwagar@binghamton.edu wrote:

> 
> Boris--
> 
>       Since I do not believe that "truth" is accessible, I don't accept
> the Kantian phenomenal-noumenal distinction, and I cannot see the denial
> of truth claims as a truth claim.

The point isn't the Kantian distinction (I used his terminology since we
were talking about phenomena), but the separation of knowledge (in your
sense) from truth, which is what makes positivist claims possible.  I just
made the distinction using Marxian terms (do you agree with his
statement?); I could just as easily have done it with Weberian ones.
Secondly, suppose someone tells you that their perception of reality is
grounded on divine truth (as revealed in a particular text, experience,
whatever).  Since you don't believe in truth, on what other basis do you
deny the validity of their experience (and wouldn't a denial take us back
to the law of 3 stages?)?

>  I identify not with Popper but with the
> late A.J. Ayer.

I must admit to not being familiar with Ayer's work, but a cursory glance
at the _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ (Macmillan:1967) does little to change
what I've said.  Quoting now from the "Ayer" article by D. J. O'Connor:

He adopts Hume's division of genuine statements into logical and
empirical, together with a principle of verification which requires that
an empirical statement shall not be counted as meaningful unless some
observation is relevant to its truth or falsity.  This starting point has
drastic and far-reaching results.  Metaphysical statements, since they
purport to express neither logical truths nor empirical hypotheses, must
accordinlgy be reckoned without meaning.  Theology is a special case of
metaphysics; affirmations of divine existence are not even false, they are
without sense.  For the same reason, value statements in ethics or
aesthetics fail to attain the status of genuine statements and are exposed
as expressions of of emotion with imperative overtones.  The a priori
statements of logic and mathematics are empty of factual content and are
true in virtue of the conventions that govern the use of the words that
compose them.  The tasks left for philosophy after this withdrawal from
its traditional boundaries are those of solving by clarification the
problems left untouched by the advance of the sciences. (vol 1, p.230)

According to this account, Ayer indeed draws distinctions between logical
and empirical truth, and adjudges other areas traditionally under the
purview of philosophy as either failing to meet his criteria of truth, or
ruling them out of bounds altogether.  In other words, the distinction
from Comtean positivism is not significant with regard to this discussion.
How one founds an ethical theory on this basis is beyond me (Graham
McDonald, author of the Ayer entry in the newer Routledge _Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, alleges that "Ayer was puzzled as to whether we were morally
responsible for our actions or not" (v.1, p.617).

> So I base no value claims on sensory data or on some
> alleged noumenal realm.  What is "good" is whatever people happen to
> believe is good.

And after this I'm the postmodernist?

>  My hope for humankind is that in due course a consensus
> will evolve on the matter of goodness, a consensus based on nothing more
> than a will to agree, and a consensus, moreover, that will probably keep
> changing as human evolution continues.  

So what exactly is wrong with the
so-called dystopians (those whose utopias you happen to find distasteful),
especially if they come up with a way to create a consensus (by killing
off dissenters and engaging in bioengineering, e.g.?)  Won't they be
justified before History (as they consistently claim)?  How does one
adjudicate between utopias except on the basis of force?  Given the
irreducibly complex (and ultimately inexplicable) origin of values, what
hope is there for an evolution of consensus?

>       On a related matter:  when I used the word "prophecy" in my
> previous e-mail, I did mean "prediction," not a proclamation of the good
> or a condemnation of the bad.  So I see my book not as prediction, but
> as, without any claim to truth or divine inspiration, the imaging of what
> I believe to be good and bad futures for humankind, given what we know of
> human capacity and the environment of the solar system.  Earth, Inc. is a
> dystopia;  Red Earth is a utopia;  and the House of Earth is a better
> utopia.  Since I would define a "utopia" as a radically better
> organization of society than what now exists, not a "perfect" society,
> there can indeed be utopias and better utopias.
> 
>       I wonder if we're all that far apart?  I have never believed that
> postmodernist theory is anything more than a ratification in the most
> arcane possible language of three great early-to-mid-20th-century
> movements of thought:  atheistic existentialism, logical positivism, and
> historico-cultural relativism (= Historismus).

I offer no assessment of your characterization of postmodernism, since I
can't really claim much familiarity with its corpus.  In fact, the whole
issue is a red herring in this context:  if you notice, I have not once
cited a name belonging to the postmodern canon in my argument.  Instead, I
have cited world-systemists, Marx, Prigogine, and writers like Latour who
are very critical of postmodernism.  My understanding of positivism is
also shaped by writers like Eric Voegelin, who is very much identified
with pre- (rather than post-) positivist currents of thought.  I don't
think that the reduction of reality to text is superior to its reduction
to phenomena, and I don't think irony is a terribly good principle for the
organization of social life.

-- 
Boris Stremlin
bc70219@binghamton.edu