Brian, after reading my harassing post to William about William's use of
disablingly fuzzy words, writes:
"All of this reads like a defense for a doctrine of "clear and distinct"
ideas. Intimated in the accusation that "very often our effort turns to finding
a
word or phrase to "express" the blurry notion before we've cleared up the
focus to a serviceable degree" is the presumption that distinction is always
possible."
Comfortably for Brian, he evidently missed my repeated posts asserting that
ALL notion is indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex and transitory. Plus my many
remarks about how language misleads by "discreting" -- that is, since words
are discrete -- i.e. "distinct" one from another, and you can see their
"borders", their beginning and their end right there in front of us -- we
tend
erroneously to assume the notions they allegedly label are also discrete.
But even without reading those, he had all the evidence he needed, right in
the post he was commenting on, to show I was perhaps the last person on the
forum to champion "clear and distinct ideas".
In that posting I remarked on the frustration I feel when I see smart people
USE words lazily, carelessly, fuzzily. I feel a similar frustration when I
see readers READ things that way, and not link the various accumulating remarks
in a given statement. A dark failing as a reader that Brian manifests, and
that he shares with William and Derek, would seem to be this: From a long
statement they will seize some one or two elements to call inscrutable, or to
disagree with, and use it as the pretext to avoid addressing all the other,
more
seriously rebutting arguments in the post. Though Brian, I admit, didn't convey
that he even noticed or grasped that there were pertinent other elements.
No intelligent reader of my post would infer "it reads like a defense for a
doctrine of "clear and distinct" ideas."
My major complain in the post to William was the proclivity too many of us
have to use a word that doesn't convey our notion -- because we simply don't
stop to consider what a variety of notion the word has the potential to
occasion
in our readers' minds. In William's post I cited the words 'perception',
'synthesis', 'relationship', and 'explained'. William, for example, said
"perception is the synthesis of" a painting and its contemplator. This, I
maintain,
is a deceptively foggy assertion, a kind of fervid, dreamy locution written
by someone who hasn't really worked to make his own notion serviceably clear.
Here are descriptions of the two most common notions occasioned by the word
'synthesis':
As an action: "The combining of separate elements or substances to form a
coherent whole."
As an object: "The complex whole so formed."
When I look at a painting, my thoughts/feelings/notion is quite separate from
the painting causing it. So William's "perception", since it's said to
"synthesize" what's in my head with what I'm looking at, must be different from
what's in my head. His "perception" must be something other than my
thoughts/feeling/notion. But what can anyone's "perception" be other than the
actions of
thinking and feeling, or, as object, those thoughts and feelings? It is
romantic, murky moonshine to assert there is the painting, the contemplator's
complex
notion, and a third entity -- "perception" -- that is a "synthesis" of
painting and notion.
It reminds me of the boozy bunkum of my schooldays: "We are all members of
one another!" "The world and I are one!"
Look at the quote above from Brian. How could he possibly figure I was
looking for "clear and distinct" ideas when I specifically convey I am only
looking
for a "serviceable degree" of clarity? ('Serviceable' is another word I've
elaborated on to an extent William has found tedious in the extreme. I hope
William has noticed that, despite how often I stress the serviceability of a
line
like, "Please pass the carrots," listers still maintain that since I feel
communication can never be perfect I must feel no communication at all is
possible.)
In the posting Brian is commenting on, I explicitly urge speakers to sharpen
their "notion into as clear a degree as you can manage". It didn't occur to
Brian to reflect on why I don't say, "sharpen them until they are clear and
distinct."
Still later I explicitly agree with William's assertion, " everything is
fuzzy and blurry, that nothing is so clear as to be without the sin of fuzzy
edges." I add, " But it's a matter of the degree of sinfulness." I indicate
the
fuzzy edges of a phrase like, "the river", but I go on to say, " Still, 'the
river' can be serviceable, and in fact it usually is."
I should perhaps modify my line, "No intelligent reader of my post would
infer "it reads like a defense for a doctrine of "clear and distinct" ideas." I
should perhaps observe that what's prevailing here is either a lack of
intelligence or a ruinous carelessness at reading. Either way, it frustrates
the
likelihood of useful discussion.
**************
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