Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

or, it might be said — all narratives are equally plausible and by the same token potentially all moral and aesthetic standards as well. But oddly enough, there is also a rejection of things that suggest some kind of value — at odds with an apparent acceptance of all values that one might assume should be the post-modern stance. It could be said that post-modernism suggests that there has been an attempt to fathom the mysteries thrown up by truth, goodness and beauty and this is seen to have failed.

Post-modernism also seems to pay lip service to a transcendent truth of science and mathematics and yet at the same time argues for relativity in all other aspects of truth. Someone can somehow have a personal subjective truth that is okay for them so long as it does not overlap any scientific truth. Likewise, goodness and beauty are seen as subjective, but there is a rejection of strongly held values as well as a rejection of beauty for its own sake that might be expressed in sensuality.

The problem with post-modernism (similar to pragmatism above) is that it covertly relies on an objective truth to make it work. In other words, post-modernism must be literally true in order for all narratives to be accepted as equally valid. But then this makes post-modernism exempt from its own rule — it is claiming a higher standard of truth. So there is inevitably some contradiction in the post-modern stance. For instance, even the statement: ‘all truth is relative’ — a typical post-modern view — creates an inherent contradiction if at the same time the claim is made for post-modernism to

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