Jim Farmelant
On Sun, 07 Feb 1999 16:03:55 -0800 "Henry C.K. Liu" <hliu at mindspring.com>
writes:
>Soros' sorrowful half truths.
>
>Th pathetic aspect of a capitalistic culture is its tendency to equate
>wealth
>with wisdom.
>In Chinese culture, a rich man is automatically disqualified as a wise
>intellectual. Preoccupation with counting money is considereed an
>insurmountable obstacle to the task of finding truth.
>
>Henry
>
>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> George Soros writes:
>>
>> "What reflexivity and self-reference have in common is the element
>of
>> indeterminacy. Logical positivism outlawed self-referent statements
>as
>> meaningless, but by introducing the concept of reflexivity I am
>setting
>> logical positivism on its head. Far from being meaningless, I claim
>that
>> statements whose truth value is indeterminate are even more
>significant
>> than statements whose truth value is known. The latter constitute
>> knowledge: They help us understand the world as it is. But the
>former,
>> expressions of our inherently imperfect understanding, help to shape
>the
>> world in which we live.
>>
>> At the time I reached this conclusion, I considered it a great
>insight. Now
>> that natural science no longer insists on a deterministic
>interpretation of
>> all phenomena and logical positivism has faded into the background,
>I feel
>> as if I were beating a dead horse. Indeed, intellectual fashion has
>turned
>> to the opposite extreme: The deconstruction of reality into the
>subjective
>> views and prejudices of the participants has become all the rage.
>The very
>> basis on which differing views can be judged, namely the truth, is
>being
>> questioned. I consider this other extreme equally misguided.
>Reflexivity
>> should lead to a reassessment, not a total rejection, of our concept
>of
>> truth."
>>
>> Doug
>
>
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