When Harry Graver states in his Oct. 18 op-ed “Rooting the humanities in right” that my “rejection of an accepted methodology goes hand in hand with [my] rejection [of] the idea of conclusive result,” he would have been exactly right — had that been what I said. But that was not what I said. Regrettably, Mr. Graver did not read what I wrote but instead read relativism into an essay which was not written by a relativist.
Substitute the phrase “an accepted” with “the right” and he would have been a little closer to the idea of my essay. We are not debating accepted methodologies here. We are being critical of a belief that the right methodology, the right interpretation, or the making of right meaning is something like a scent that you and I, but very few others today, are onto — indeed, it’s the belief that to be on the trail in the first place one must have a certain kind of nose.
Peter Gayed
Oct. 19
The writer is a medical student and an affiliate of Saybrook College.