A great deal of my thought surrounding the nature of (R)eligious, (S)cientific and (P)ragmatic (or pre-modern, modern and post-modern) approaches to truth is based in the premise that rule-following is the only path to truth.  Empirical observation, logical deduction and everything in between only get us anywhere inasmuch as they are normatively constrained by rules of various kinds.  In this post I would like to briefly unpack this position in terms of a familiar metaphor.

In my metaphor, the earth will correspond roughly to the end that “we” most seek, the ultimate destination to our journey, our final cause.  The sun will more or less represent our explanations, theories, descriptions and stories.  It is rather tempting to call these two realms “value” and “fact”, respectively.  There are two reasons why I will largely resist this temptation.  First, we will see that the fact/value distinction is itself an invention of the modern mind which simply did not exist for the pre-modern and has come to be rejected by the post-modern.  Second, labeling one side with “fact” suggests that the other side might be “non-factual” or even “fictitious”, which is to bias the question the question of truth and falsehood from the very start.  Indeed, in my metaphor, truth is not an object like the earth or sun, but is instead the characteristic or quality which an object might have of being fixed and immovable, the object around which all other objects pivot.

Let us now characterize the pre-modern mind set in these astronomical terms.  The pre-modern mind saw the earth as being the fixed, immovable point around which the sun rotated.  In other words, the journey which we are on is the true journey, the end which we most seek is the true end and our cause is the true cause.  Around these things our explanations, theories and stories are free to pivot in the most ptolemaic of ways.  In other words, the inconsistencies, contradictions, violations of parsimony, etc. within the explanations and theories of the pre-modern mind simply are not signs of falsehood since truth lies elsewhere.

The rise of the modern mind with the Enlightenment can thus be described in Copernican terms.  The sun came to be the fixed point around which the earth, being just one among many other planets, was free to pivot.  Less metaphorically, our system of “values” came to be seen as just one among many possible systems each of which was free to pivot around the “facts” which were taken to be non-negotiable.  Thus, truth came to be seen as fixed and absolute depictions of the world in contrast to variable and non-depictive values.

The post-modern mind can be compared to the realization that neither the sun nor any of its planets are absolutely “fixed”.  To be sure, some of these objects can usefully be treated as if they were fixed within many contexts and for many purposes but the immutability of any such object is never absolute or universal.  This is not to say that the nature of and relationship between these objects is an unconstrained free-for-all, but there must always be some degree of arbitrariness in such matters.  Accordingly, the post-modern mind rejects the fact/value distinction and embraces a more historicist and contextualized notion of truth.

In conclusion, I would like to briefly reframe the metaphor in terms of rule-following.  An object just is a set of rules which are supposed to be followed.  In the pre-modern mind, the most important rules are those having to do with otherworldly destination or person in which authority is thought to reside.  In the modern mind, the most important and least negotiable and fixed of rules are those concerning the law of non-contradiction and the importance of third-person observation.  In the post-modern mind, the rule that no rule is to be taken as absolute and non-negotiable is paradoxically taken to be absolute and non-negotiable.  The difference between these various positions, then, lies in their assigning different weights (or masses) to these various rules (astronomical objects).  It is my belief and hope that framing many the differences found within the bloggernacle in this way can facilitate clearer communication and great compassion.