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Metaphysics without 'Truth'

 
 
Reply Sat 26 Sep, 2009 04:52 pm
Nietzsche said that metaphysical investigation had been obsessed with the notion of truth since the time of Socrates.
Can anyone name me some metaphysical approaches that don't focus on the concept of 'truth' in the same manner that the western cannon does?
pq
 
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Reply Sat 26 Sep, 2009 05:12 pm
It's not really my field, but is aesthetics considered to be part of metaphysics? It's an area where truth is different to different people, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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Reply Sun 27 Sep, 2009 01:04 am
Your question prompted me to google "metaphysics" which came up with several contemporary offshoots such as "fractal metaphysics" and "process metaphysics". Both of these reject static set theory and conventional logic which involve a "truth" concept.

I think it is useful to make a distinction between "absolute truth" and "relative truth" when discussing this issue. The former tends towards religion and dogma, whist the latter tends towards functionalism and pragmatism. IMO some scientists ascribe "physical laws" to the wrong category, hence the term "naive realism" to which they riposte with "metaphysical speculation".

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Reply Sun 27 Sep, 2009 03:49 pm
Thank you Fresco.

I got a lot about (and get) process metaphysics.
Fractal metaphysics seems to lack a succinct definition on the internet.

I agree about the distinction between the notions of absolute/relative truth. Certainly in the public sphere I would say that 'scientific truths' are taken as absolute, and truth is taken as a real 'objective' concept outside of the scientific realm.
Can you think of a society or a culture which has had a different attitude or notion of truth?
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Reply Sun 27 Sep, 2009 04:27 pm
Nietzsche questioned the value of "truth" as an a priori. ( I don't know whether he qustioned the concept of "facts" ) The only angle I can think of which agrees with this concept is a Machiavellian position (epitomized in Orwell's "1984... Ministry of Truth"). The mere questioning of "truth" in the "Pontius Pilate" sense is off topic, as is the Eastern concept that "all is illusion". Both of these still require "truth" to kick against.
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