I don’t think I understand this quote. What is a “temporally contingent worldview”? It can’t simply mean any worldview that wasn’t widely held in the past, because that would mean distancing oneself from pretty much all science. What, then?
Also, while I agree that the truth of a statement (that doesn’t include spatio-temporal indexicals, either implicit or explicit) is not a function of time or place, widespread knowledge of a true statement usually varies with time and place. Not saying this justifies adoption of a temporally contingent worldview (since I’m not sure what is), but there does seem to be a bit of a non-sequitur in that quote.
Without doing much in the way of research, which would spoil the game, I think the quote is urging people not to privilege the beliefs of the culture they live in. For example, many popular beliefs of the 1900′s are clearly incorrect when viewed in hindsight; the logical conclusion is that, in a hundred years, many popular beliefs today will be seen as clearly incorrect by those future generations.
I can think of a few likely candidates off the top of my head. And sorry for the sesquipedalian loquaciousness. I keep trying to stop, but I can’t!
I don’t think I understand this quote. What is a “temporally contingent worldview”? It can’t simply mean any worldview that wasn’t widely held in the past, because that would mean distancing oneself from pretty much all science. What, then?
Also, while I agree that the truth of a statement (that doesn’t include spatio-temporal indexicals, either implicit or explicit) is not a function of time or place, widespread knowledge of a true statement usually varies with time and place. Not saying this justifies adoption of a temporally contingent worldview (since I’m not sure what is), but there does seem to be a bit of a non-sequitur in that quote.
Without doing much in the way of research, which would spoil the game, I think the quote is urging people not to privilege the beliefs of the culture they live in. For example, many popular beliefs of the 1900′s are clearly incorrect when viewed in hindsight; the logical conclusion is that, in a hundred years, many popular beliefs today will be seen as clearly incorrect by those future generations.
I can think of a few likely candidates off the top of my head. And sorry for the sesquipedalian loquaciousness. I keep trying to stop, but I can’t!