Modern philosophy and relativism.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: I wish to take issue with John Dawson's targeting of modern philosophies in his article "Is Truth History?" (March 2006). Dawson suggests that, at least since the Enlightenment, philosophers have been subjecting the distinction between epistemology and metaphysics (that is, between what is known and what exists) to "sustained attack".

It is certainly true that the relationship between epistemology and metaphysics has been a recurrent concern of modern philosophy. However, Dawson seems to think that because certain philosophers have put forward principled and often highly sophisticated accounts of this inter-relationship, frequently calling into question the bright-line distinction Dawson evidently favours, the general theme an observer could reasonably walk away with is that perhaps some sort of relaxed relativism-about-truth is justified.

In fact, very few of even the philosophers Dawson caricatures (and champions of common sense like John Locke or J.S. Mill somehow missed mention!) would accept anything of the sort. A casual reader of Dawson's article might be surprised to learn that Kant's idealism, logical positivism, and early pragmatism all grew out of a specific concern with the justification of scientific claims. Indeed, the tenets of logical positivism would place incredible bounds on historians' requirements for hard evidence. Nor does even the extreme idealism of Berkeley--"to be is to be observed"--countenance an "anything goes" mentality to either evidence or truth.

Overall, Enlightenment philosophy reflected a pre-eminent respect for the claims of rationality--in particular as they might be opposed to the claims of faith. To draw the conclusion, as Dawson does, of thoroughgoing laissez-faire volunteerism of belief from this congeries of philosophies could only be justified by, well, some sort of thoroughgoing laissez-faire volunteerism of belief on Dawson's part. So perhaps, contrary to his own assertions, Dawson thinks it's okay to misrepresent the past a little, so long as you've got an important political point to make.

Alternatively Dawson's fear may be more that these philosophies can be used as weapons of inculcation to such relativism in the hands of agenda-driven academics. Perhaps this is true. But one wonders what Dawson thinks is actually taught in modern university courses in Logic, Critical Thinking, and Epistemology. Or, for that matter, in Ethics and Political ...