Until IC draws attention to it, absolute truth (or the question whether absolute truth exists) attracts hardly any attention. It seldom forms the topic of conversation, and little gets written about it. This does not mean that it plays no part in thinking. IC‘s challenge provokes more letters than any other subject raised, and almost… read more »
Readers have written in, from time to time, criticising the proposition that Nothing Is Absolutely True. Personal correspondence with others suggests that they have reservations about it which they don’t express. Here we offer a passage which seems to us to formulate these objections, or at least some of the main ones, with power and… read more »
One major ideology develops out of another, and it does so because the previous one falls short; along with some of the desired results it produces others both unintended and unwanted. As warnings of the precarious condition of the giant panda brought these animals into the news, so destruction of them increased, more being captured… read more »
IC maintains that Nothing is Absolutely True. The Shorter Oxford gives several meanings for ‘absolute,’ all deriving from the root meaning of detached or disengaged; in religion, for example, absolution detaches from sin. The most explicit of these is the one numbered IV.3: ‘Existing without relation to any other being; self-existent’ and (in the attached… read more »
HYPERSCEPTICISM Sir, I wonder if you realise that your extension of systematic ideology to the business of everyday living [1] – the ideologies surrounding a flying brick – marries up with hyperscepticism when it is applied to existence itself? In hyperscepticism the viewer does not accept any proposition as ultimately true. Resonance: NIAT. There is… read more »
Ideological development through the series can be presented as a series of stages in a continuing attempt to define the assumptions held, and as the definitions become sharper so self-contradiction becomes more direct. At one extreme statements made by the expedients display neither precision nor integration; the two poles of potential contradictions, seldom clearly distinguished,… read more »
IC50 commented on the reaction, of the International Committee for the Defence of Salman Rushdie, to his announcement of his conversion. IC51 printed a letter, from Nicolas Walter, strongly criticising the comment, with a reply. He has written again, but the main part of his letter adds nothing of substance and his side of that argument has already… read more »
Sir: You say [IC50, From Hegel-San to Niat] that “nothing is absolutely true.” Is that right? I am assured by my scientific friends that there are two absolutes; the speed of light and absolute zero. This seems to be beyond question. At another level, however, the matter may be mostly semantic. We still have to… read more »
SEEN FROM OUTSIDE FactSheetFive #41 says of IC “This political journal is a chewy nugget indeed, as it tries to expound the ideas of ‘systematic ideology.’ Their basic tenet is that there is a hierarchy of ideologies, with progressively fewer people at each step; they spin this out into fascinating discussions of everything from history… read more »
One of the less intelligent everyday remarks is that we cannot predict the future. In fact we not only can but are constantly doing so, and could not live sensibly otherwise. For the most part our predictions remain unexpressed in words, but they appear from our actions. Every time we make a plan, buy anything,… read more »