From: Erin (macavity11@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Jul 24 2005 - 19:22:33 BST
David said:
Why would no one have heard or understood this word when originally by your
own definition this word "is understood by the vast majority of a culture".
What caused the huge shift in values? I think that such a shift occurs
because new patterns have been introduced which encompass the older ones
which are now not so valuable anymore. Unlike what Rorty suggests where
suddenly, for no reason, the patterns are "simply dropped".
Matt:
Most people don't know what phlogiston is. Most people, after being told
what it is, don't care what phlogiston is. And I don't think phlogiston has
been encompassed by anything, either. It was rejected by the scientific
establishment, the same as Aristotle's telos for rocks. Newton's gravitas
didn't encompass Aristotle's idea of why rocks fall, it replaced it.
Ptolemaic astronomy wasn't encompassed by Copernican. There was a coup
d'etat. The cause of a "huge shift in values" is a replacement value, a
replacement pattern, idea, concept, belief. But I don't think it
necessarily encompasses it. And people won't have heard or understand
common words from the past because people gradually stopped hearing or
understanding the word: they stopped using it because it wasn't useful.
They stopped using it because it wasn't central to their self-understanding.
Matt
Matt,
I still don't get where the no attitude of phlogiston or nonuseful word comes in. It appears it would be a negative attitude ...it isn't useful in understanding reality and so it is rejected. You say Ptolemaic astronomy wasn't encompassed by Copernican....but I think it is more that our ideas of the universe encompass both theories the ones we find useful/positive attitude with the ones we don't find useful/negative atttiude. The ones we don't believe I still would say are not dropped it helps us in finding what is useful.
For example in our conceptual web it is argued that that negative exemplars (things known not to be acceptable referents of a word) are contrasted with positive ones to establish boundaries on a word extension.
I don't see why it wouldn't be the same with beliefs. The beliefs you find useful are contrasted with the beliefs you don't find useful. The beliefs are not dropped and you do have an attitude about them.
Erin
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