Donald T Palmgren (lonewolf@utkux.utcc.utk.edu)
Tue, 3 Mar 1998 05:08:05 +0100
On Fri, 27 Feb 1998, Magnus Berg wrote:
> Hi Donny
>
> Actually, the name is Magnus, and that's the truth.
Ha-ha :D
:) I tried to imply
> this
> the other post by calling you Donna but I fear it was too subtle.
That's funny; I didn't even notice you called me Donna. I'm sure a
looked at that and saw "Donald" or something. I'm sorry Magnus. Truth
is I've got a mild form of dyslexia. It slows my reading speed down to
about a 6th Grade level and I tend to interchange words that have close
spellings like "does" and "dose" which look the same to me unless I focus
on them serial-like / letter-by-letter. If I'm continually screwing up
words or names and it gets on anyone's nerves just yell at me; it's the
onnly way I learn. (Actually my writting just 3 years ago was much, much
worse. These new word processors which highlight misspellings while they
happen have helped me a lot because they make me stop and reexamin what I
wrote.) If it makes you feel better Magnus, a few years ago a friend
caught me spelling MY name Palmgrne rather than Palmgren.
> Ooops, I think we misunderstood each other here. I commented the ending
> "Maybe you think that's a good thing... Maybe it is." part, not the
> title of
> your writing. I'm looking forward to reading that.
I think you and I misunderstand one-another a lot. I get the
impreession that we actually agree on many points but I just have a very
different aproch to things, so...
> > Good is more real than truth.
> >
> > NOW MY TURN:
> > Good is more real than truth. (and ain't that the truth?) ;)
>
> It's *a* good truth, not *the* truth.
Ah, so there are different *kindes* of truth?
Now we're coming back around to something I said way back in
"Three shots in the night." Wittgenstein asked, does phil. need a
technical language? No, he decided, because "there are no special
experiences in philosophy." There is no equivolant to the scientist in his
lab -- or more importantly, at the laboratory door. The most important
science goes on at the door. Suppose Dr Lab-rat meets his colligues at the
lab door one morning and he's drunk as a skunk. His colligues tell him he
can't go in. He's in no condition to be objective -- to do science. Or
suppose Lab-rat is in the lab doing tests w/ Gorgous Gloria his blond
bombshell of a lab assistant. (Ladies I apologize for this illustration in
advance.) Lab-rat is supposed to be watching this meter, but he's really
checking out Gloria while she operates whatever it is they're running. Now
she catches him and says, "Lab-rat, you're supposed to be watching that
meter. You've invalidated all our data w/ your sloppy readings."
In the lab you have a moral/social imperative to be objective --
that is, to maintain a certain posture, a pose. Objectivity is a role! You
can put it on and take it off, assume it and drop it. All these people
talking about, Is objectivity possible? miss the bloody point. That's
really secondary and not as important. (And P didn't catch this himself
which is why I bring up, What is "SOM?")
So objectivity is a pose that Doc Science strikes while in the
lab... but phil. draws from the everyday expeirances of life on the
street. (No special experiences.) This is one place where Kant goofed-up.
He assumed that experience ment "scientific"/emperical experience, where
what we do on the street is the same as what the scientists does in his
lab but he just does it better. (Think of Sherlock Holmes. He askes
Watson, "How many steps up to the door at 221B Baker St?" And Watson can't
tell him and he says, "That is because you don't observe!") This is
non-sense. Lab-rat's objectivity is dependent upon nothing more than
Gloria and everyone elses' ability to recognize him as being objective --
and their objectivity is likewise reciprocally recognized. This
reciprocity is what Hegel means by *Geist*. (I can have good maners only
because I can recognize good maners in others.)
So philosophers (laking a lab door) don't have the same kind of
regimented objectivity as scientists. (Heck, Don Juan does philosophy
while high on peote.) Insted in philosophy there is an appeal to reason --
"Be Reasonable, Bob!" What that means is: follow the rules of proof. The
diferance between phil. and poetry is phil. prooves something. So, what's
a proof? A proof is the most moraly/socially acceptable way to settle an
argument. If you and I dissagree on something there are a number of ways I
can get you to agree w/ me. I can send Nuckles and Rocko over to
"persuade" you. I can blackmail you, or with-hold money... But we all
agree there is some best, most socialably acceptable way to do this -- to
offer a proof! (And this is an assumption for how would one prove it?)
Magnus, it seems to me that you're so bussy hunting this demon,
objective philosophy (or subjective philosophy), that you neglected to
pause and reflect: What does it mean to say someone is being objective?
And, What is Phil.? (Which also asks: What's the pay-off in-- and what
counts as understanding in-- )
"Quality is reality" is *a* truth but not *the* truth. As I said
in my first e-mail to the LS: We know what it means for F=ma to be true.
We know what it means for something to be scientifically true. What does
it mean to say, "Science is True!"? And it is true. That proposition is
only non-sense if we take "true" to mean "scientifically true." There are
rules for winning a game just as there are rules for proof -- but how
would you prove the truth between two rival systems of proof? The
creation-evolution debate will never be resolved (as such) because one
side looks to Biblical proof, and the other looks to scientific proof --
it's like a football team playing a basketball teal and nobody can agree
on which game is being played. The debate is meaningless!
Now here's a real good question for you: What kind of proof does P
use in ZMM and LILA? (Consider that in conjunct to the question Keith has
just raised.)
> > (Oooh, dichotomistic destinctions! And
> > what
> > do we do w/ those? Apply them to themselves.)
>
> What on earth is that tool supposed to show anyway? It's like creating
> a new alphabet, and then see how to spell the name of the alphabet in
> the alphabet.
>
> I think it's obvious that some SOM professor invented it to make
> philosophology fit into the Church of Reason. He had to find ways
> to "objectively" compare different philosophies. Then he could say
> to the other scientists, "Look, philosophy is just as objective as
> physics and chemistry!".
No, waaaay off. Actually he's the most iconoclastic prof. I know
and he's *at least* as deeply suspicious of the Church of Reason as P is.
I honestly don't see why you think that move is suposed to display
some kind of special objectivity. I don't get that out of it. Rather it
helps me put these dichotomies in their place. Look, is the distinction
between subjectivity and objectivity itself subjective or objective? If
it's subjective then that means we can dissagree over whether Dr Lab-rat
is being objective or not, right? If not, then what? One's
objectivity is a brute fact? Recognizable by all. But what if there are no
objective people around? What if we're all drunk as skunks in the lab?
Isn't it objective people who have to decide whether I am objective or
not? Isn't that like asking, Are good table manners ob or sub? Wouldn't
that mean that objectivity exists *only* reciprically? How long will Donny
keep talking in interogitives?
Or (and here's the one that gets me going), is the
abstract-concrete distinction itself abstract or concrete? An abstraction
is something timeless or universal, like 1+1=2. Something which is
concrete has a history, it exists in time, it changes... it "lives," one
might say. (Now this is a logical distinction, not a metaphysical claim.)
Walter Neely's got this book, *The History of Logic*. It's written like a
history of math: "Joe *discovered* X." Like it was already there somehow.
Can you imagine someone discovering the ab-con distinction?
Bottome line: Logical distinctions exist in discorse. The way the
rules of a game exist in its exicution. Nobody discovered baseball.
Was that way too much at once, or way too tanjental? Sorry.
What I ment to say was: Magnus, the iteration of a distinction is
a nice tool, but don't take at as anything more than that, and if you
don't like it or you think it's part of some evil plot, don't use it.
There are no philosophical laws, only pointers. Phil. is an art, not a
science. (That too is worth reflecting on.)
It's been fun.
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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