From: Allen Barrows (allen_barrows@yahoo.co.uk)
Date: Sun Jun 19 2005 - 17:04:55 BST
Hello Mike and Platt, i read Platts quote with great interest and thought about it in the context of value-centered reason. May i repeat the Franklin quote again...
"So convenient a thing it is to be a rational creature since it enables us to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."
Indeed Mr. Franklin. It certainly is convenient a thing to throw quotes about, but is it any good?
Is it quality? Now theres the rub.
When Franklin says 'to have a mind to' what he is saying is 'value.'
To this end, value centered reason is not dismissed as convenient - value centered reason can be verified by its ability to discern harmonious relationships, or to put it another way, beautiful relationships in the aesthetic continuum.
From ZMM:
Through the communications that we have with other men we receive from them ready-made harmonious reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not come from us and at the same time we recognize in them, because of their harmony, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus it is that we know we haven’t been dreaming. It is this harmony, this quality if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can ever know.
'...because of their harmony, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves.'
Now if we contrast this with Mr. Franklins assertion we can see that Mr. Franklin is telling us that any daft nonsense can be argued for as reasonable (hope you are listening bo?) but ZMM tells us that the yard stick, if you will, for valuing the quality of work of reasonable beings (rational creatures) is harmony.
I find Mikes suggestion that reason is value-centered to be most compelling, or harmonious!
Thank you,
Allen.
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