===================== HES POSTING ===================== 
 
With respect to Brad De Long's comment on Ross's note: 
 
        Consider the assumptions underlying the ideas of "geneology of 
thought" and "the search for scientific truth" [using this last phrase as 
it is used in De Long's comment, because the search for truth may end in 
the discovery that objective truth is not availble to us, and I do not 
think De Long has that possibility in mind - and that is the whole 
point.]. 
 
        The "geneology of truth" assumes that the human agent is active in 
generating thought;  that what is known is in some root aspect FICTIVE. 
If this is the case, then object truth, [Let us call it "meaning".] is 
unobtainable.  Hence the Postmodern dicta "Meaning recedes". 
 
        But note, we need not return to either Locke or Berkley.  The 
results of scientific endeavour are valid.  It is a matter of recognizing 
limitations, and more interestingly, of recognizing the architecture of 
changing limitations as the instruments of cognition reshape the 
preconceptions of the knower. 
 
Robin Neill 
 
================ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ================ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]