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> While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of object

> While you claim to oppose the postmodern idea that there is no truth, you’ve ceded the premise to the postmodernists by framing truth in their terms of objectivity and subjectivity I do not. What I am saying is that knowledge—if such a thing exists at all and is worthy of defense by humans—can be addressed in a rational, objective way. Lots of things are approximations, but we do not deny the existence of categories as useful phenomena or an epistemological tool. To paraphrase a famous exchange of ideas, GB Shaw: "All chairs are quite different" vs. Chesterton: "Well how do you then call them all chairs?" The postmodernist sleight of hand is to say that perhaps because there are differing contexts that there is not a universal tendency; such a commonality is either non-existent or should be disregarded. They would not categorically discard visceral human experiences that lead to say "thirst" or "hunger" or "anger", but they will claim that there are not common phenomena that engender "awe" or "wonder" or "intrigue". I disagree with that statement. That humans can reliably classify things that are "beautiful" across cultures (and have done so for millenia, even when they hate each others' cultures), shows there is a common tendency towards taste. When thirsty, many people drink water, but the postmodernist looks at the few drinking Brawndo and has to deny the generalization that water quenches thirst but of thirst entirely.

CyberRabbi 5y ago
> They would not categorically discard visceral human experiences that lead to say "thirst" or "hunger" or "anger" Of course they wouldn’t. It would be too difficult for the average person to buy and they don’t need to especially since it isn’t really their goal to dismantle truth completely, their goal is to dismantle the values we hold as a society so that in the vacuum they may impose new values upon us. They do that under the guise of questioning truth. This is why I said that when you embrace their objective/subjective categories you are helping their cause. Once those categories are established and accepted by society it is simply their job to argue that the values they do not like are subjective and arbitrary, then people who have accepted the subjective/objective dichotomy will do the rest.

CyberRabbi 5y ago

> They would not categorically discard visceral human experiences that lead to say "thirst" or "hunger" or "anger" Of course they wouldn’t. It would be too difficult for the average person to buy and they don’t need to especially since it isn’t really their goal to dismantle truth completely, their goal is to dismantle the values we hold as a society so that in the vacuum they may impose new values upon us. They do that under the guise of questioning truth. This is why I said that when you embrace their objective/subjective categories you are helping their cause. Once those categories are established and accepted by society it is simply their job to argue that the values they do not like are subjective and arbitrary, then people who have accepted the subjective/objective dichotomy will do the rest.