Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 21:16:27 +0100
From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: truth again


Tobin Nellhaus <nellhaus-AT-gis.net> writes
> I'm sure Mervyn is
>correct that alethia is (was?) not simply a synonym for "truth," but the
>deed has been done--the two are now clearly associated within CR--

Why so, when the text which announced and elaborated the concept (DPF)
makes it abundantly clear that 'alethia' is a species of the genus
'truth', such that the adjective 'alethic' can be used meaningfully to
qualify 'truth' in the concept of 'alethic truth'? It is a synonym, not
of 'truth' as such, but (within the dialectic of science) of 'real
reason' or 'natural necessity'. Is it really impossible to revert to or
adopt this meaning? It is, at any rate, the meaning I intended in
suggesting the title 'Alethia'! It does not mean any old 'truth' - it
has a very specific meaning which can be fully grasped only by locating
it within the overall system of DCR concepts, a task to which I think
the discussants could now profitably devote more attention [sic]. How
does it relate, e.g., to the constellational identity of judgemental
rationality within epistemic relativism within ontological realism - and
what does this mean? I have been somewhat surprised (but I am not
singling you out here, Tobin) at the extent to which people have been
prepared to discuss their own pet theories etc - sometimes almost
anything, it seems, but Bhaskar's concept of alethia! He was the guy who
invented it, after all, and further claimed it as one of two great
discoveries made in DPF. First (for DCR's sake! and since 'alethia' is
your chosen topic) grasp the Bhaskarian theory of truth in all it's
complexity, and *then* attack it at its strongest point (an example
Bhaskar himself tries to set). As it is, many people, it seems to me,
have been going in pretty blind.
-- 
Mervyn Hartwig
mh-AT-jaspere.demon.co.uk


     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---