Nature and Convention
Are there natural truths? Or are there only conventional truths?
To elaborate: Indian linguists either support the theory of natural (originary) meaning, as Mimamsakas do, or maintain that meanings are conventional, as Naiyayikas do. A similar debate is present in Greek philosophy.
But the nature/convention option concerns at least two other philosophical areas: morality (are there naturally true moral values?) and mathematic (do mathematical truths reflect an external reality, or are just conventionally true in a close system?)
To elaborate: Indian linguists either support the theory of natural (originary) meaning, as Mimamsakas do, or maintain that meanings are conventional, as Naiyayikas do. A similar debate is present in Greek philosophy.
But the nature/convention option concerns at least two other philosophical areas: morality (are there naturally true moral values?) and mathematic (do mathematical truths reflect an external reality, or are just conventionally true in a close system?)
posted by Alessandro at
5:29 PM
1 Comments:
It might also be interesting to investigate on whether the upholders of the naturalistic stance in, say, linguistics are just naive or whether they consciously chose to do so. Linked to that is the issue of whether naturalism is consistently adopted in all fields or not. For instance, Mīmāṃsakas are naturalists as far as language is concerned, but not as far as morality is concerned and this seems to prove that their is well-thought position (and not a naive one).
Why did not you mention the area of ontology? Upholders of naive realism are also believing in "natural objects" unlike idealists who believe that all that we perceived is a thought-construct.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home