> ...I wonder if the classical, explicit Marxist
> discussion of these issues in Engels' _Anti-Duhring_ and Lenin's
> _Materialism and Empiro-Criticism_ is not conscious of the
> problems of the Enlightenment concept of truth; and don't they
> seek to cope with the problems with the notion of the dialectic of
> relative and absolute truth ? Engels says the truth is infinite
> and we are finite beings. Lenin uses the mathematical image of an
> asymptotic curve, ever approaching but never reaching absolute
> truth. In other words, Marxism has "always" been well aware of the
> problem being discussed here, and offers very helpful approaches
> to it. This approach allows us to recognize that the "truths" we
> have are limited, but that they are not entirely empty or useless.
> Total relativism puts us in a condition of a kind of necessarily ,
> profoundly ignorant paralysis.
I don't disagree that Marx and marxism have things to say about 'relative truth' -- there's 'ideology' after all. My insistence on there being no Truth was addressed to Rob's repeated invocation of it, rather than to Marx. However, clearly Marx does treat some things as universally true. Yoshie will surely be able to come up with a quote... And yes I think this is a problem; unhelpful.
Catherine