Date: Tue, 7 Jul 1998 07:55:34 -0800
Subject: Re: PKF: Slide time - Third Way


Are we sure that there is no Third Way between Relativism and Objectivism?

FROM MY EARLIER NOTE:
To grasp this situation [i.e. paradox] is central to understanding
Feyerabend, and Lakatos
as well, and their dynamic relation.  Feyerabend played the role of the
anarchist, while Lakatos played the role of the facist.  But each
understood that they needed the other.  They respected each other and each
other's position.  In the "parliamentary sense" they treated each other as
the "loyal opposition".  But loyal to what?  Something higher.

. . . .  something higher, not articlated (or currently articulatable) in
either position.

Reconsider the notion that two politically opposed perspectives - the
extreme left and right if you like - could actually respect each other's
position and work positively with the opposition.

This is what someone expressed to me as "the parliamentary ideal."  It is
compatible with virtually any position GIVEN that the proponents of said
position accept that they don't have all the answers - i.e. that they are
still in a learning (about life) mode.  (It might be noted that this is
quite compatible (but not identical) with the Blind Men and the Elephant.

To be in a true learning mode means that my position is open to
"qualitative development".  I am inclined to call this Popperian
development as distinct from positivist representations of learning.  An
important component of this is that what I have to learn is probably best
articulated by my opposition.  Indeed, it is one's opposition that is
usually the best at pointing out (in their terms) what is wrong with my
position.  --  Unfortunately, these criticism (being Popperian) can not be
translated into my current understanding of the world because they are
incommensurable with my position (paradigm).  I experience these criticisms
in (at least) two ways: nonsense (viz. I hear you but what you are saying
doesn't make sense in my view of the world) and (maybe) common sensically
(viz. because our real persona (ala Plato's Meno) somehow knows more than
it can say, we see that the criticism makes sense).

Sometimes when one hears the criticism (common sensically), it is so clear
that one loses track of the original insight and converts.   And this goes
both (multiple) directions.

However, the opposite reaction (to conversion) is retrenchment.  "It sounds
something like this: "Well, our position may not make complete sense at the
moment but I know what I know, and I can also see that their position
doesn't make sense.  So the only reasonable thing to do is to remain in my
current position and defend that little bit of truth that I am sure of."
(Shoe fit anyone?)

This is a fairly good articulation of the story coming from each of the
blind men examining the leephant:  each is clear that he has a piece of the
truth;  and the experiencers of the other (being qualitatively diferent
don't translate into his.  So what is he to do?  I might add that I think
the moral of the parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant is that each
blindman is initially trying extrapolate (qualitatively) - seeing his truth
as representative of the whole universe, yet the universe is more
qualitatively diverse - yet still has a whole (the elephant - perhaps still
evolving).

In the modern jargon, the Blindmen represent different paradigms.  And
being different are (by definition of what we mean by different viz.
qualitatively different) they don't translate one into the other; they are
incommensurable; there is no algorithm mapping one to the other; no
reduction; no common qualitative denominator.

SORRY TO GO SO LONG FOLKS.

Let me simply conclude why the formal hypothesis that there is a Third Way.

Terry Bristol


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