Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: October 6, 2004
Latest Update: October 6, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

Truth and Constitutive Theory

My interpretation of constitutive theory is that everything is interconnected. The way I came up with all these different varieties of truth was by thinking of truth in different social contexts. Try it. It's enlightening. And I hope that it will remind us all that we need a little humility when it comes to being certain that we "know" the truth.

• Campaign truth:

  Earlier today I posted a message from the Democratic National Committee Site on the transform listserv, asking all to go to a whole list of links of after-debate polls. I was a little surprised when it came up on my email, but, hey, I'm getting used to the weird around here.

  I assured you that the Republicans would be doing the same thing. Well, then I took a break and looked at my New York Times. Page A 18, of the National section: Spinning Out Clear Winner Even Before Debate Begins By Jim Rutenberg, October 6, 2004. Backup.

  Campaign truth is truth in the best light you can possibly put it to make your candidate look good. It may not go over the edge into falsehood, but it will certainly be carefully worded to make your side look and sound "right." Since we focus so on the problem with seeing the world as either "right" or "wrong," you can imagine how two parties can look at the same evidence and describe it very differently.

  Didn't we used to call that "fudging" when we were kids? What do you call it now? What do your kids call it? Might be a good issue to talk about to help them understand perspective.

• Advertising truth:

  Advertising truth, like campaign truth, is instrumental discourse. That means discourse with the specific intent to persuade you that the one speaking is "right" and that you should do whatever they are suggesting, buy some cereal, vote for a candidate, whatever.

  Unfortunately, corporations and governments are not bound by ethics. They don't mind going over the edge into untruth sometimes. In advertising drugs for example, we have laws that require that they tell the truth. So witness the VIOXX example this last week. Laws are not very good instruments of social change. If it costs less to break them and pay the resulting liability some individuals and corporations and governments are willing to tell an untruth.

  In the Presidential elections both parties are accusing each other of doing just that.

  What makes a corporation or a government ethical enough not to lie. I'm not sure any of us know that. But I believe that labor history and the strong emphasis we have put on the importance of mutual support of the community and the nation-state would tell us that we, each of us, must hold such entities accountable by voicing our refusal to accept lies.

  Read some of the recent transform entries on why should I vote. One of the best answers I know is that you've then added your voice to that of as many others as are willing to fight for awareness and accountability together, as the people who make up this nation-state.

• legal truth:

  In the courtroom, evidence is often circumstantial fact. That means that once the trier of fact has decided, the decision is regarded as legal truth, but that doesn't mean truth in the ordinary sense of the term. It means that once the trier of fact has decided what is "true" that may no longer be challenged on appeal by later courts except under such special circumstances as the sufficiency of the evidence standard.

• satisficing truth:

  Satisficing is a business term. Doing something well enough that it gets the job done and passes muster. If the patients don't die of the side effects, some drugs are treated as if they've passes muster. It's another question whether they really do any good or not. But if they make money for the company, and we're happy little hypochondriacs, then is that enough? Is it enough to tell all that you know, while carefully avoiding knowing anymore?

  These are the kinds of questions we're asking about the war and social issues now. Are you willing to accept satisficing truth?

• neutral or objective truth:

  This is the great postmodern debate. Can there be any truth, or any reality for that matter, without a perspective? The answer is generally accepted now as no. We all have perspectives. We can't avoid them. That's the individual part of us. And the socialized part of us that is cultural.

  I'm a little tired of hearing that George Bush is stupid. I don't know him. But no one who's gotten to the stage he has is stupid. Cunning, malevolent, maybe. But stupid? No. He is inarticulate. He doesn't express himself well in Stanford English. But how many of us do? And if we don't, then how did that get to be the standard by which we elect a President?

  Language isn't neutral or objective. If you speak Black English, you may write poetry like LeRoy Jones. If you speak another kind of English, you might write sonnets like Shakespeare. But is the one more truth than the other, or are these simply different perspectives, expressed by different voices?

  Precisely one of George Bush's appealing characteristics is that he talks like the rest of us when we have our feet up and just kick back and talk down home. That doesn't make our theoretical understanding or our social issues strategies either better or worse. You've got to go past the language and listen to what is really being said.

  Just for the record, I'm a little tired of hearing about personalities in this election, too. I may like the guy, but that certainly isn't why I vote for him for President. I may dislike the guy, but that doesn't mean his social issues agenda is wrong.

  Hear the arrogance of wanting someone "just like me," or someone "not like that."

• evidence:

• perspective:

• agency and constitutive theory:

  Guys, I'll finish this tomorrow. I'll never get any sleep at this rate. See you in class. jeanne

---

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Individual copyrights by other authors may apply.