<<<To say continuously defining, redefining, accepting and working within objective reality is a religion is ludicrous.>>> [Terrence]
I said, in response to FT's comment above, that "'Objective reality' as applied to social phenomena is a religious concept, that's all it can be," for a simple reason, one even simpler than your argument, I think.
'Social phenomena' are human (for purposes of our discussion) phenomena manifesting behaviors, or ways of being. The behaviors FT mentions specifically are 'defining,' 'redefining,' and 'working,'--- all three of which are, of course, human behaviors. It is human beings who are perceiving the 'reality' FT stipulates that they are "working within," and of course they are perceiving this 'reality' in the only way they can perceive it (and thereby get hold of it enough to 'define,' 'redefine,' or 'work' within it) -- subjectively. They perceive it subjectively, by definition. That's not even an argument; it amounts to a tautology.
So we have this entirely human, ergo subjective, situation-- behaviors, working within... within... uh, something.
The existence of this "something" is where FT has necessarily introduced religion.
Ft says these subjective behaviors are working within something he calls "objective reality."
But so far in this scenario, we have only those human psyches, doing their thing; or their three things, defining, redefining, and working-within.
Now, if you postulate something that contains FT's 'objective reality,' an entity that somehow subsumes all the subjective ones, a social 'reality' that is out there, and can be defined, redefined, and worked with, where does it reside?
Terrence's 'objective' social reality = the mind of a God, or it doesn't exist.
I say it doesn't exist; Terrence says it exists in the mind of a God.
(As a reminder, we are talking about social reality, not, for example, mathematical reality.) |
