I tend to believe that three truths are innate:

The law of noncontradiction;

The law of cause and effect; and,

The law of the basic reliablility of sensory perception.

I think of a crawling baby and a hot stove.

This is an interesting thread and I am really enjoying these questions and wrapping my head around PoMo thought.

Help me with my weakminded head.

Number one: Didn’t Captain America DIE? So why not picture the hero of the Civil War…Iron Man on your blog/comments?

Anyways.

“All data, observations, and laws are theory-laden. There is no bare data, no bare laws that are not dependent on a scientific paradigm.”

Ok. I get what you are saying, but does this really dismiss Laws of Science?

Science (observed science) is drawing conclusions from repeated tests.

I have to draw some conclusions from throwing an apple in the air 1,000,000 times and watching it fall on down. Do you wake up at night frighten and scared because you might float away into outer space?

You might be correct in stating that we can’t prove that we have proof of Laws of Science being true, but we still have to draw conclusions based on the evidence shown so far, don’t we?

Even so I can’t prove that Laws of Science are 100% absolutely true…I can still use them as answer to your original question…I think.

What is one truth that is not contextualized? Laws of Science (gravity).

I think the only way to disprove this is to prove that there are times when the Laws contradict/don’t apply in a certain setting.

ps. I don’t know if I believe this stuff…I was just trying to think about your question and this was one of the thoughts that I had.

I would still like to hear more about this from you (others)…especially the “revelation” talk.

Casey and Phillip - when you talk about the laws of science - all “laws of science” are based on paradigms (see Kuhn), or structures (the term paradigm seems overused and structure means just about the same thing) that frame the questions in an interpretive framework. All data, observations, and laws are theory-laden. There is no bare data, no bare laws that are not dependent on a scientific paradigm.

casey

I might be wrong here…feel free to help.

You bring up something that is good…but wrong?

Honzo’s Q: What is one truth that is not contextual?
My A: Maybe…Laws of Nature

If God chooses to act in a way outside of the norms that he created…does that negate the the Law. I don’t think so. I might be wrong (you fellow smart people can correct me–if I am), but God is outside (greater–or Trancedent) of our context. He does not dictate the norms…thus it is true…the laws of nature (science) are truths outside of our own worldview.

Philip…not to be a wheeny…but I really didn’t understand what your second paragraph was trying to communicate. What I am talking about with Revelation might be different from what you are talking about. Revelation (special rev) would not be the same as learning geometry or learn about the bible.

I think a lot of theists would deny that the laws of nature hold in all contexts because they would say that it is possible for God to violate the laws of nature. Thus there are some contexts where they don’t obtain.

However, if a truth being noncontextual means that it is true in all possible situations then there are lots of noncontextual truths. For example, ‘There are no triangles with only two sides’, and ‘there are no married bachelors’. Most theists would add ‘God exists’. Of course, how (or if) we learn these truths does depend on the context of our situation.

-Philip

But as I see it, going back to your original question “What is one truth that is not contextual?” My statement is correct pertaining to revelation.

Revelation is not man passing info to others…which at this point it should always be experiential and contextual.

Revelation is about receiving “truth” from God. This is obviously an experience (but isn’t EVERYTHING an experience). Experiencing something does not make it PoMo, contextual, or conditioned. Experiencing truth means am a witness.

The journey from this point is contextual and conditioned, but the starting point of receiving revelation from God is not any of this.

I would not assume that we have many things today that are reveal to us through divine revelation. In fact, I believe that God usually does not reveal much these days (he can, but chooses to allow his word and Spirit to guide us).

I think in one of your comments you made mention of scripture (indirectly). I would not think that today scripture would be considered revelation (newly, given to us from God). But perhaps the first (and only the first manuscripts) would be revelation. After that it would be contextualized and conditioned by man.

I would still like to hear a response from someone (especially Honzo) about “Laws of Nature” being truths outside of context and conditions.

You’re right that I’m a philosophy student. The kind of philosophy I do is very non-postmodern. In general, when I hear people say things like “our culture and experiences influence each and every thing that we name as a truth”. I am often not quite sure what they are suggesting. They could mean:

(1) Cultural and experiencial factors always affect us and our belief forming mechanisms. As a result, (when that influence is negative) it is more difficult for us to learn about objective reality, but nevertheless, we do have many true beliefs about objective reality.

This strikes me as obviously true. I took you to be advocating something close to this. Is that right?

or they could mean:

(2)Because we can never lift the lenses that culture and experience place over our view of the world, we can never know anything about the world as it is. Thus what we think is true does not actually ever track reality.

This is just skepticism, and although there are some pretty good arguments for it, I think it is false. I don’t think the premises of any argument for skepticism will be more plausible than the truth of things like ‘I know that 2+2=4′ or ‘I know that I have hands’. I’m pretty sure that this was not what you were advocating.

or they could mean:

(3) What is actually true always depends on how our culture and experiences have shaped us. There is no truth about how things are independent of what people and cultures believe.

This one seems crazy. How could what we believe directly effect the truth of propositions like ‘trees exist’?

Or perhaps they mean something else entirely.

But anyway, I took you to affirming something like (1) and I agree with (1).

-Philip