DIALOGUE AND UNIVERSALISM No, 32014 Evgeniy Bubnov TRUTH IN RELIGION, SCIENCE, AND POSTMODERNISM, ABSTRACT In this paper different approaches to the concept of truth are compared. Many changes in the concept of truth result in making it a zero notion. Similar processes are described in Max Miiller’s conception of the genesis of religion. In this respect we sug- ‘gest that postmodern philosophy should be treated as a new mythology. Keywords: truth; Baudrillard: postmodernism. Jean Baudrillard once said that truth did not exist at all. (Baudrillard, 1990, 59) However, he voiced this thesis speaking on the discussion between icono- clasts and iconodules. Therefore, the aforementioned discussion implicitly re- fute his own statement. Particularly, the arguments justifying the icon worship, e.g., Regulation 82 of the Quinisext Council (the Council in Trullo), state that truth recognition and worship is possible because personalized truth as the in carnation of the Logos appeared to people by itself thus becoming cognoscible. The Truth is here understood as the Absolute because in the Holy Bible the truth and the Absolute are sometimes identified with one another (Jer. 10: 10; Jn. 14: 6). And this identity demonstrates that the provided argument serves as the rea- son for criticism of not only atheism but also agnosticism. Agnosticism is more correct and does not @ priori controvert the existence of the God. However, without abnegating and equally without acknowledging it, agnosticism proceeds from the ideas of the Absolute as a certain dues otiosus—otiose God not mani- festing himself anyhow. But in the case in question agnosticism projects its own views onto reality—if Kantian thing-in-itself exists, its presence is impossible to prove by definition. In theory God must not necessarily be a thing-in-itself, deists’ God. He may be a God of the Revelation religions. But such an apology of the truth and its accessibility in cognition is possible not only for the Pascale- an God but also for the Spinosean deus sive natura, because nature in its nu- merous manifestations reveals its essence to us.Truth in Religion, Science, and Pasimadernism 98 In consequence, Baudrillard does not abnegate the existence of truth. From his views it follows that “the truth does not exist” is a true statement. He merely upholds his own understanding of truth, relativizes it. Another question is how does he relativizes. Physicists Jean Bricmont and Alan Sokal showed how Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Francois Lyotard and other postmodernists manipulated scientific data in attempting to justify relativism and demonstrate their incompetence in natural science issues. (Bricmont, Sokal, 1998) So, the absence of the truth is not the only logical possibility but it is this possibility which is not confirmed by the scientists and is contradicted by everybody who acknowledges the true nature of his statements and adequately uses the term “truth.” Certainly, this term could be used in the way Baudrillard uses it; insist- ing on the fact that it is necessary not to mix up the concept (or proposition) and its contents. Then it is admissible to declare that truth consists in the fact that there is no truth, But also in this case the reference of Bricmont and Sokal to the continuous linkedness of the scientific experience leaves no grounds for the declaration. And disagreement with this declaration is the effect of empirical data accumulation. Besides, it is also possible to draw attention to the induction drawbacks, and, following Karl R. Popper, state that induction does not exist. However, truth, as Plato’s Kratylos states, is something which corresponds to reality. Therefore, even if there is no induction, then it is also impossible to separate the form of the thesis from its substance. Derrida quite justly noticed that after Descartes philosophy cannot be non-Cartesian but the radical doubt and the attempt to overcome it certainly did not first appear in the Modern Age. Already St. Augustine in his De Vera Religione [On True Religion], in his po- lemics with the academicians, used the prototype of the Cartesian cogito. He applied it to prove the possibility of the existence of truth, Not only after Descartes but since ancient times, philosophers have not been able to postulate the absence of truth without a justification of their thesis. Let us remember here that Maimonides used derivatives from the word emet (which is translated from the Hebrew term “truth") to designate people not satisfied with a custom or authority and tending to the mental cognition of truth. (Floren- sky, 2002, 14) In other words, using this word he designated philosophers who would not adopt any statement without its verifying even if the validity were justified with the reference to the authority of Baudrillard or the authority of the person who is the authority for Baudrillard himself. Therefore, both the history and the sense of the concept under consideration do not allow an a priori denial of what is designated by it. To say that there is no truth in the classical sense of the word means to say nonsense. Non-existent truth is the same contraditio in adjecto as hot cold or circular square. Consequently, it is possible to speak of truth the way Baudrillard does do only biasing the sense of the concept. In effect, contexts may change the initial meaning of the concept. For exam- ple, for Hegel, it was obvious that the very notion indirectly changes itself in the course of time, Baudrillard writes that beyond the framework of the text terms.96 Exgeniy Bubnov lose their sense. (Baudrillard, 2007, 48) And really one cannot but agree that in a different text the sense of the word may be different. Then all the aforemen- tioned critical remarks addressed to Baudrillard are eliminated. Say, iconoclasts and iconodules have, in Wittgenstein’s terminology, one type of language game whereas Baudrillard and Foucault apply another type. But that is the point that referring to the iconoclastic controversies, Baudrillard imposes the sense be- yond his own text and language game. Baudrillard’s proposition is as follows: iconoclasts and iconodules lived with the idea of altered truth because the truth does not exist. However, historically and etymologically it would be more right to say that both the opposing parties lived with the idea of truth in the classical sense of the world. The truth, regardless of the ideology corresponding to it, cannot but exist due to this very (classical) sense. The point is not the fact that iconoclasts or iconodules lived with the idea of altered truth. The point is that Baudrillard distorted the sense of the concept of truth, and, having superposed it onto the period of iconoclastic controversies, saw the very distortion he was declaring. The question is: what did make him distorting the sense of the con- cept in the way which made it possible to state that there is no truth. Or vice versa: the question is what prompted his statement that there is no truth which resulted in the distortion of the concept. Who is the authority that influenced Baudrillard and with whose opinion would philosophers in Maimonides’s un- derstanding do not agree a priori? I believe that the deconstruction of the extract from Baudrillard which is of interest for me would be impossible if we do not take into account that Baudrillard is a part of the postmodernist tradition which has been evolving since the second half of the 20th century. And the formation of the ideas in the framework of this tradition is comparable with the formation of religion as it is expounded in Max Milller’s conception. For Milller religion is a product of mixing the meaning of the concept, a certain “language illness”: the penury of ancient languages resulted in the designation of different phenomena with simi- lar features using the same words, many names were metaphorical in na- ture. In the course of time the meaning is obscured, changed, and, when the original meaning becoming forgotten, the phenomena, due to language polyn- ymism and synonymism, were personified; that is the way objects for worship appeared. The material presented by Milller in his Science of Religion may quit possibly be interpreted in favour of pramonotheism. One cannot help notici the isomorphism of his concept with the processes being the effect of the post- modernist discourse. Baudrillard quite reasonably questions Foucault: if sex exists solely when it is spoken and discoursed about and when it is confessed, what was there before we spoke about it? (Baudrillard, 2007, 45) This, verging on the loss of reality obsession with language, results in the scenario described by Miller. The word is equalized in rights with the reality and may even oppose it. Far back Pierre Duhem wamed that one had not to make conclusions con- cerning results of physics research basing on a play on words. But his warningTruth in Religion, Science, and Postmodernism 97 was not heard. As demonstrated by Bricmont and Sokal, postmodemists often understand metaphors used in natural sciences literally which results in inad- equate interpretations of scientific data, due to which an assertion of relativism, equality of any opinions (each implied as containing a part of the truth) be- comes possible. The effect of this is quite predictable, often supported by the speculations around the general theory of relativity. It is the statement that truth cannot be contained in the unbiased form in any separate statement or concept. That is, there is no truth. However, this idea may be a prerequisite in accordance with which scientific data are interpreted: we believe these two processes are interdependent. Therefore, completely in accordance with Milller’s mechanics, postmodernism creates a new mythology thanks to which words describing reality do not obey this reality. It is noteworthy that for Foucault, dis- identification of the words and reality, dis-identification of the words and things is an objective process which we are forced to merely certify (presumably, here Foucault managed to persuade Baudrillard). However, according to Foucault, archeology of the humanities is a speculative structure; the truth of it rests on two doubtful operations. First, it is initially postulated that words and texts, in general, are independent, unique structures. This postulate is an element of the tradition formed among others by Barthes, Derrida and Foucault himself who projects the postulate under study back to the past. Second, to make this projec- tion Foucault considers the dis-identification of the words and things as exem- plified by the evolution of money, and he extrapolates this particular metamor- phosis onto everything that is going on. Neither the first, nor the second opera~ tions are justified. Ultimately, the reasoning tums out to be circulus in proban- do: words live their own lives because words live their own lives (and the very acknowledgement of this proposition explains why nobody is afraid of being caught in the incorrectness of the statement that there is no truth). I believe that the ban of ontology is a direct effect of the denial of truth and affirmation of relativism. However, in the light of the above expressed investi- gations, I consider this ban temporary because it is just an episode in the dialec- tical formation of philosophy. This formation may be observed in most versatile areas. Certainly, such authors as Gianni Vattimo or Slavoj Zizek are not quite consistent when trying to simultaneously return to conventional axiology and stick to their own world-view concepts. But still they demonstrate the trend which may also pertain to epistemology. REFERENCES Baudrillard, Jean. 2007. Forget Foucault. Trans. Nicole Dufresne. Los Angeles: Semio- texi(e). - 1990. Seduction. Trans. Brian Singer. Montréal: New World Perspectives. Bricmont, Jean, Sokal, Alan. 1998. /ntellectual Impostures. London: Profile Books Ltd.98 Exgeniy Bubnov Florensky, Pavel, 2002. The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters. Moscow: Lepta. ABOUT THE AUTOR — PhD, Omsk State University. Research fields: epistemol- ogy, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion. E-mail: knizniycherv@mail.ru