Continued from previous issue.

Part II

What forms of skepticism remain that are tenable? They consist in specifically limited skepticisms. For example, those who deny that there is factual truth in any of the world's religions, or assert that all religions are mythologies misconstrued as being factually instead of poetically true, espouse specifically limited skepticism. Social scientists, and especially cultural anthropologists, who are skeptical about factual truth in religion are not skeptical about factual truth in science.

On the contrary, they are often dogmatic about the truth of scientific conclusions and are opposed by those who, while not being skeptical about truth in the natural sciences, are specifically skeptical about truth in the social sciences and in history.

The latter think, for example, that the knowledge achieved in physical science and in mathematics is transcultural (i.e., that all competent to judge in these fields of knowledge will concur in the same judgments regardless of their ethnic and cultural differences in other respects). They also think that, at the present time at least, there is no similarly transcultural knowledge in the social sciences, especially those with a historical perspective.

In the current controversy about multiculturalism in the courses offered in our educational institutions, it is these specifically limited skepticisms -- about religion, philosophy, or one form of science or another -- which must be considered. Only the specifically limited skepticisms that are correct indicate the extent to which the claims of the multiculturalist about desirable changes in the curriculum are tenable.

For example, if the specifically limited skepticism with respect to truth in religion is correct, then any instruction in the field of religion should be multicultural. If the specifically limited skepticism with respect to truth in the social sciences and in history is correct, then instruction in these fields should be multicultural.

Two forms of specifically limited skepticism have a crucial bearing on the current controversy.

One is specifically limited to the whole field of philosophy as opposed to the fields of experimental or empirical science; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to define this skepticism as limited to any mode of philosophy that claims to be knowledge of reality, thus omitting modes of philosophy that restrict themselves to commenting on language as used in ordinary speech or in scientific discourse. To whatever extent logic and mathematics are inseparable, logic must be as transcultural as mathematics.

The other specifically limited skepticism applies to moral and political philosophy insofar as it makes claims to having prescriptive knowledge about what is good and bad, or right and wrong, in human conduct and in human societies. This skepticism is evident in those twentieth-century philosophers who regard ethics as noncognitive. They are philosophers who are themselves specifically skeptical about there being any objectively and universally valid truth in ethics.

Relevant here is the twentieth-century distinction between questions of fact and questions of value, or between factual assertions and value judgments. The skeptical position here consists in holding that there are no correct or incorrect value judgments because there are no entertainable prescriptive statements that are either true or false.

Relevant also is the fourth-century Aristotelian distinction between two kinds of truth -- the truth of descriptive propositions (i.e., statements about what is or is not) and the truth of prescriptive propositions (i.e., statements about what ought or ought not to be sought or done).

In the case of descriptive statements, their truth, according to Plato and Aristotle, consists in affirming that that which is, is; and that that which is not, is not. Falsity is found in statements asserting that that which is not, is; or that that which is, is not.

This is the correspondence definition of truth (correspondence between thought and reality) that has prevailed in the Western tradition down to the pragmatic theory of truth, in which William James distinguished between the question of how truth should be defined and the question as to the criteria for telling whether a given statement is correctly judged to be true or false. An exception occurs in modern times with the rise of various forms of idealism and the denial of a reality that is independent of the human mind.

It should be obvious at once that the correspondence theory of truth applies only to descriptive statements about what is or is not the case. It cannot apply to prescriptive statements containing the words ought or ought not. Aristotle defined prescriptive truth as a different correspondence, not between thought and reality, but between thought and right desire.

It is not necessary here to explain or defend this definition of prescriptive truth. Suffice it to say that only if there is no prescriptive truth are the specifically limited skeptics about moral philosophy correct in thinking that all prescriptive statements are noncognitive -- neither true nor false.

They are correct in thinking that they are neither true nor false in terms of descriptive truth. That, however, leaves open the possibility that Aristotle may be correct in thinking that there is another mode of truth in accordance with which questions of value -- about what is right and wrong, good and bad -- can be correctly answered by affirming prescriptive statements that, as entertained, are objectively and universally valid.

If statements about the conduct of a good human life can be objectively and universally valid, then there can be a transcultural ethics. If statements about how society should be organized and governed, in order to be good for human beings to live in, can be objectively and universally valid, then a normative or prescriptive political philosophy can be transcultural. It follows that instruction in these matters should not be multicultural. On the contrary, if there are no objectively and universally valid prescriptions in the field of ethics or politics, then descriptive instruction in these matters should be multicultural.

What are the instructional aims of proponents of multiculturalism in our institutions of learning, first, with respect to basic public schooling (K-12); and second, with respect to college curricula?

The multiculturalists may differ in their aims with respect to public schooling, but they all respond to the same set of facts. In the ethnically diverse and culturally heterogeneous large cities of this country, the school populations include children that come from black (or African American) homes and from white homes having families of European origin. They also include Hispanics, Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and children in families from India, Southeast Asia, and the Arabic and Iranian Near East. For some time now, educators have responded to these facts by making efforts to acquaint this diversified school population with the plurality of ethnic backgrounds and cultural differences that go into the tapestry of American society, in which all the children will participate alike as citizens when they reach the age of consent.

In the summer 1990 issue of "The American Scholar", Professor Diane Ravitch of Teachers College, Columbia University, published an article entitled "Multiculturalism: E Pluribus Plures." In it she distinguished between two forms of multiculturalism, calling the one "pluralistic" multiculturalism and the other "particularistic" multiculturalism and approving of the first while sharply disapproving of the second.

It is with the teaching of history in the public schools that she is most concerned, but one might have similar concerns about the teaching of social geography. Children should be taught history and geography so that they are made aware of the mixture of ethnic and cultural diversities that have entered into the fabric of American life. They should be made conscious of the contributions of their own forebears to this mixture and take pride in the characteristic traits of the human subgroup that they themselves represent, while at the same time recognizing that those representing other human subgroups among their classmates share the common humanity that makes them all deserving of equal status and treatment.

This applies to subjects that are themselves intrinsically transcultural because they are bodies of objectively valid knowledge, such as mathematics, the natural sciences, and their derivative technologies. The application occurs not in the teaching of these sciences as bodies of knowledge but rather in teaching the history of these sciences.

Here the children should learn that many different cultural groups, especially in antiquity, contributed to the development of mathematics, physics, and astronomy. They should be impressed with the fact that these sciences are not solely of Greek and Roman origin. Contributions to the development of mathematics and astronomy come from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, not just Greece. Eurocentrism is thus alleviated, if not cured. Such teaching of the early developments in mathematics and natural science is not inconsistent with the present transcultural character of the disciplines themselves.

What Professor Ravitch calls "particularistic" as opposed to "pluralistic" multiculturalism is, not multiculturalism at all. It lays stress on one particular human subgroup to the exclusion from consideration of others in the mixture that constitutes our pluralistic American culture.

In educational circles, for example, a group of militant African Americans are acting as a political lobby for giving the African-American children in our schools a diet of legends about African-American origins of much, if not all, of the treasures that have, in the past, been attributed exclusively to Western European civilization. This is intended to counteract the Eurocentrism of traditional teaching; but at the same time it ignores the fact that whatever truth can now be attributed to mathematics, the natural sciences, technology, moral philosophy, and even religion is now transcultural. It is not the private cultural property of any human subgroup.

Professor Ravitch tells us that such particularism "is unabashedly filiopietistic." It teaches black children that the American pluralistically multicultural society in which they live is not their own culture, even though they were born here. That American culture is "Eurocentric," and therefore hostile to anyone whose ancestors are not European. Perhaps the most invidious implication of particularism is that racial and ethnic minorities are not and should not try to be part of American culture; it implies that American culture belongs only to those who are white and European; it implies that those who are neither white nor European are alienated from American culture by virtue of their race or ethnicity; it implies that the only culture they do belong to or can ever belong to is the culture of their ancestors, even if their families have lived in this country for generations.

Professor Ravitch goes on to say that "the war on so-called Eurocentrism is intended to foster self-esteem among those who are not of European descent," but she questions whether in fact it actually works that way; for, in her view,

". . . the children of American society today will live their lives in a racially and culturally diverse nation, and their education should prepare them to do so . . . [The] particularists have no interest in extending or revising American culture; indeed, they deny that a common culture exists . . . [and] reject any accommodation among groups, any interactions that blur the distinct lines between them. The brand of history that they espouse is one in which everyone is either a descendant of victims or oppressors."

We turn now from the controversy at the level of public schools, between the pluralistic multiculturalists and the antipluralistic particularists, to the controversy about multiculturalism at the college level.

This controversy focuses on the books that should be a part of one's general education. It is a dispute about the traditionally recognized canon of the monuments of Western literature in all fields -- works of mathematics and science as well as works of poetry, drama, and fiction, and also works of biography, history, philosophy, and theology. Here we are confronted with current attacks upon the canonical list of great books and the responses that those attacks have elicited.

Part III, next issue.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

MORE ON Y2K COMPLIANCE:

Windows 98 Second Edition appears to be Y2K-compliant: in the Regional Settings on my copy of Windows 98 SE, above the settings for "Short Date Style" and "Long Date Style" there is a "Calendar" setting that includes the option: "When a two digit year is entered, interpret as a year between..." and the default is "1930-2029" so that the year "00" will be interpreted as "2000".

A Service Pack update for Windows 98 original version that addresses Y2K and other issues can be obtained from Microsoft, either on CD or from the Microsoft website at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/highlights/win98update.asp

A Y2K Service Pack for Windows 95 is also available at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/ wurecommended/s_wufeatured/win95y2k/default.asp?site=95

There is also an article about Windows and Y2K rumours at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/usingwindows/ maintaining/articles/910Oct/RumorY2K.asp

Microsoft also has a Year 2000 Readiness Disclosure & Resource Center at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/

Paul Harrison
South Australia

In addition to the date format that Mr. Sutherland discussed, our I.S. department has also installed a patch that was provided by Microsoft that updates the operating system. We were advised that we needed to do both to be Y2K compliant.

Steve Mangelsen

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