The Crane's Walk: Plato, Pluralism, and the Inconstancy of Truth
Fordham University Press (2009)
| Abstract | In The Crane's Walk, Jeremy Barris seeks to show that we can conceive and live with a pluralism of standpoints with conflicting standards for truth--with the truth of each being entirely unaffected by the truth of the others. He argues that Plato's work expresses this kind of pluralism, and that this pluralism is important in its own right, whether or not we agree about what Plato's standpoint is.The longest tradition of Plato scholarship identifies crucial faults in Plato's theory of Ideas. Barris argues that Plato deliberately displayed those faults, because he wanted to demonstrate that basic kinds of error or illogic have dimensions that are crucial to the establishing of truth. These dimensions legitimate a paradoxical coordination of logically incompatible conceptions of truth. Connecting this idea with emerging currents of Plato scholarship, he emphasizes, in addition to the dialogues' arguments, the importance of their nonargumentative features, including drama, myths, fictions, anecdotes, and humor. These unanalyzed nonargumentative features function rigorously, as a lever with which to examine the enterprise of rational argument itself, without presupposing its standards or illegitimately assimilating any position to the standards of another.Today, communities are torn apart by conflicts within and between a host of different pluralist and absolutist commitments. The possibility developed in this book-a coordination of absolute and relative truth that allows an understanding of some relativist and some absolutist positions as being fully legitimate and as capable of existing in a relation to their opposites-may contribute to perspectives for resolving these conflicts. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Truth Certainty Pluralism | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Buy the book | $65.00 direct from Amazon Amazon page | |||||||||
| Call number | BD171.B26 2009 | |||||||||
| ISBN(s) | 9780823229130 0823229130 0823229157 9780823229154 | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesCory D. Wright & Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (2010). Truth, Pluralism, Monism, Correspondence. In Cory D. Wright & Nikolaj J. L. L. Pedersen (eds.), New Waves in Truth. Palgrave Macmillan.
Mark Wrathall (2004). Heidegger on Plato, Truth, and Unconcealment: The 1931-32 Lecture on the Essence of Truth. Inquiry 47 (5):443 – 463.
Michael P. Lynch (2004). Truth and Multiple Realizability. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (3):384 – 408.
Cory D. Wright (2012). Is Pluralism About Truth Inherently Unstable? Philosophical Studies 159 (1):89-105.
Julian Dodd (forthcoming). Deflationism Trumps Pluralism! In Nikolaj Pedersen Cory Wright (ed.), Truth Pluralism: Current Debates. O.U.P..
Douglas Edwards (2011). Simplifying Alethic Pluralism. Southern Journal of Philosophy 49 (1):28-48.
Steven D. Hales (2001). Lynch's Metaphysical Pluralism. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (3):699–709.
Hugo Meynell (2011). The Crane's Walk: Plato, Pluralism, and the Inconstancy of Truth. By Jeremy Barris. Heythrop Journal 52 (6):1036-1037.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads15 ( #78,732 of 549,198 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,397 of 549,198 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
