On 4/12/02 11:16:00 AM, Amy Hall wrote:
>Tompkins suggests that truth
>is in the eye of the beholder
>pretty much, leaving it all
>relative. I think her
>conclusion is a cop-out. Just
>because she couldn't find the
>truth does not mean that there
>wasn't one
>When she says that "any one
>fact is perspectival doesn't
>change its factual nature in
>the slightest. It merely
>reiterates it. (688)" I have
>to disagree. If three people
>see a car accident happen,
>each from an alternate point
>of view, every account will
>likely be different. Fair
>enough, every person is giving
>"their truth" but just because
>it is true to them does not
>make it true. There is really
>only one thing that has
>happened, even if it cannot be
>completely reached. Every
>person will doubt what the
>other has said, because they
>saw their side with their own
>eyes. Their perspectives
>distort the truth, but the
>truth is still there. Every
>person distorts it in their
>own way.
>Tompkins conclusion is
>relatively unclear to me, but
>I do believe that I disagree.

You made a good point, and one that Tompkins did not acknowledge in the slightest. Her statement about perspectival facts still being totally valid but with a different spin on them is totally wrong. I loved your analogy of the car crash - that was a very good point. For one person, it was true that the car just crashed, but the truth for another person, one standing on the other side of the road perhaps, may be that the car hit a patch of ice or something that the first person couldn't see. Now, obviously, the first person's opinion - that the car just crashed - while true for him, is not the true fact of the matter, that the car hit ice and crashed. Or whatever - I think I was rambling again..