Wojtek the Late Modern Skeptic (was Re: What Workers Think & Objectivity)

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 03:41 PM 2/18/00 -0500, Yoshie wrote:
>There is no transcendental meaning to the word "bigot."  We have only
>historically defined meanings of this or any other word, changed through
>the course of struggles.  So, calling someone a "bigot" doesn't at all
>imply an "omniscient knowledge of what that person means."  You only need
>to be part of history to take part in the meaning-making.  What is rational
>is actual and what is actual is rational, as Hegel said; omniscience
>doesn't exist in the actual -- it's only a fancy of theologians.  Radical
>relativists are the only believers -- aside from theologians -- in setting
>the bar of effective knowledge so high.  That is because only by setting
>the impossible standard to meet can they reduce all knowledges to "equal
>failures," so to speak.  Here, your rhetoric is reminiscent of Kenneth
>Mackendrick's: "Ethics isn't about 'doing the right thing.'  It's about
>*failure* to do the right thing, because the right thing in the wrong world
>is impossible."  We are not interested in "perfect" knowledge, "perfect"
>morality, etc.; we, however, still want to do *better*, don't we?

Yoshie you got it all wrong.  I am not a closet idealist - as your comments
seem to imply - I am a philosophical nominalist.  That is, utternaces that
do not have empirical meanings are mere projections of human emotions and
attitudes.  Moreover, empirical meaning can be deciphered only a
posteriori, by reference to specific experiences (since being determines
consciousness), not a priori - by e.g. be reference to a presumed shared
experience a.k.a "history."  "History" is not a narrative (that's
mythology), but the accumulation of specific experiences.  We do not share
same experiences, hence we do not really know what others are saying if we
do not know the experiential basis (or lack of it) of these utterances.
See also my reply to Justin in this thread. 

wojtek