Guardians of the Possibility that Claims Can Be False

Abstract

It is difficult to be a philosopher in this postmodern era. This is so because philosophers, who heretofore have been the archetype of persons eager to engage in reasoned discourse, regardless of their differences, suddenly seem unable to talk to each other, primarily due to claim by postmoderns that non-postmoderns are naïve in their blindness to the fact that truth the claims cannot be true in any objective sense, and that claims to objectivity have been used maliciously throughout the ages to wield oppression. After exploring some of the seductive arguments of the post-modern position, and suggesting a re-working of the non-post-modern position, this paper will conclude that philosophical educators carry a heavy responsibility for limiting the real-life damage that has been produced by this philosophical truth-storm by siding firmly with its less contentious opposite by becoming guardians of the possibility that claims can be false.

Complexity, Dialogue, and Democracy: The Educational Implications

“…To say that democracy requires that we dialogue across difference may mean, to some, that individuals learn to consider points of view other than their own and have the capacity to rise above their own egoistic interests and objectively judge which of competing claims are best for the society in which they live. Another way of putting this point would be to say that such individuals are attempting to reason with others towards truth claims, or to search for ever "truthier" answers (Gardner, 1999(Gardner, , 2009(Gardner, , 2020 1 -something that is independent of the wishes of any reasoner. In Stephen Darwall's words (2006), each individual is trying to assume a "second-person standpoint."…”

“…The concept of "truth," of course, is not itself uncontentious. However, if we adopt the view that truth can be approached through a process of falsification (Peirce 1955;Popper 1985;Gardner 1999;Gardner 2009;Gardner 2020), since falsification is only efficient if the original set of truth-contenders is maximized (i.e., the best solution is the least worst of all contenders), we arrive at the conclusion that the degree of confidence in the product of a truth-seeking process ought to be proportional to both the original set, as well as the rigor of the process. And since the set cannot be infinite, and since humans have mortal minds, confidence in the product of any truth-seeking process can never be absolute.…”