We learned (didn't we?) that there is a strand of rationalist philosophy, that still just about persists, that wants to claim for philosophy, the kind of certainty that science and maths claims. It wants to be able to find the kind of 'objective' 'a priori', necessary truth that mathematical theories have, it wants to be able to do what science does and abstract 'universal' laws and principles from its observations. It wants to be able to say 'this is how things really are!' It wants to strip away appearance and uncover the 'reality' behind it.
Most of you seem to think that you think it can't do this. Most of you seem to think that you think there is no objective truth, but I don't believe you really think it. After all aren't claims like 'the Earth goes round the Sun' closer to being true than the claim that 'the Sun goes round the Earth.'? So doesn't that mean that science is getting closer to the Truth?
Do you really think that the only measure of truth is agreement? I don't think you really think that if we all agreed that eating custard creams prevented heart disease then it would be true that eating custard creams prevented heart disease.
I think you all really think that there is a 'way things really are'.
But I don't. So there.
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