[davem]

'Truth' seems to have become an issue - is there such a thing as an objective standard, or value?

Lewis wrote a book on the subject - The Abolition of Man - Quote (refering to Coleridge's response to two people, a woman who said it was 'pretty' & a man who said it was 'sublime'.)

'The reason why Coleridge agreed with the tourist who called the cataract sublime & disagreed with the one who called it pretty was of couse that he believed inanimate nature to be such that certain responses could be more 'just' or 'ordinate' or 'appropriate' to it than others. And he believed (correctly) that the tourists thought the same. The man who described the cataract as sublime was not intending simply to describe his own emotions about it: he was also claiming that the object was one which merited those emotions. But for this claim there would be nothing to agree or disagree about. To disagree with This is pretty if those words simply described the lady's feelings, would be absurd: if she had said I feel sick Coleridge would hardly have replied No; I feel quite well.

He goes on:

The chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all ppredicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. it is Nature, it is the Way, it is the Road. It is the way in which the Universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly & tranquilly, into Space & Time. It is also the Way in which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic & supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar.... It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true & others really false, to the kind of theing the universe is, & the kind of things we are...And because our approvals & disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason... or out of harmoony with reason. No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions & sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform.

This thing which I have called for convenience Tao & which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained.

But you cannot go on 'explaining away' forever: you will find you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things forever. the whole point of seeing through somethiing is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.'

I still feel that you & Aiwendil are wanting 'Truth' reduced to a set of 'facts' which you can analyse & 'see through', rather than accepting that is the 'source' of 'facts' as well as everything else. We cannot see through the Mountains to what's beyond. We have to climb over them in order to see what's there.

Forget 'Truth' if you want & call it Tao as Lewis does. I can't help feeling that you are running scared of a belief - that if you were to accept that 'Truth' is 'real' then you would have to put down your Tolkien, pick up a Bible & head off to Church. Its not like that. Its simply about there being more going on that you can see, or that some 'scientific' theory can explain.

If you experience what Tolkien called 'enchantment' through his works, & because of that experience what he calls 'Eucatastrophe', you are glimpsing 'something', which can't be quantified & reduced to logical statements, only felt - a 'fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the Walls of the World, poignant as grief'....In such stories when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, & heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, & lets a gleam come through.'

So, if you don't like 'Truth', & don't want to follow Lewis's use of Tao, call it 'Joy'.

'And all the Host laughed & wept, & in the midst of their merriment & tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver & gold, & all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, & their joy was like swords, & they passed in thought out to regions where pain & delight flow together & tears are the very wine of blessedness.'

Ain't that the 'Truth'?