Derek quotes this line from me:
" Ordinary, healthy folk would say the structure in Paris we call 'The Eiffel
Tower' is "real", while Santa Claus's house and factory at the North Pole are
not "real".
And he comments:
"Santa Claus's house etc are real in one world, aren't they? - the world of
little children's fantasy. In that world it would be quite wrong to deny
their existence. What I am getting at is you seem to be very preoccupied by a
distinction between things that are real because they name something 'out
there'
and things that do not name anything 'out there' - and, I gather, are not
real?"
Derek and I were pursuing this sub-thread because he wondered about my
earlier comment that he has traits and lacks that handicap him in doing
philosophy.
To dilute some of the lofty obnoxiousness of a comment like that, and to
stress the objective context in which I made it, I add this: I myself
inherently
lack the gifts required to be a good pole-vaulter, singer, painter, pianist,
architect, and on and on. At Brown, the Chairman of the Department of Pure
Mathematics told me I should major in it. But I knew he was wrong. I knew I
could do
all right at a collegiate level, but I saw I lacked what it took to be a
"first class" mathematician. With work I could get better, but I had to accept
the
objective fact that indeed there are "gifts" required to be "first class", I
could never "learn" such gifts, and that was that.
The single sentence Derek focused on was taken from this sequence of three
consecutive sentences:
"I used 'real' earlier to take advantage of the kitchen-table sense of the
word -- "non-notional entity". Ordinary, healthy folk would say the structure
in
Paris we call 'The Eiffel Tower' is "real", while Santa Claus's house and
factory at the North Pole are not "real". The trouble with my usage of 'real'
is
that notions are also entities, albeit always a little hazy and constantly
morphing, so they are also "real"."
I maintain Derek's focal range is too narrow. If he could have held in mind
all three sentences, I want to believe he wouldn't have made his comment above.
My first two sentences confess I adopted the use of the word 'real' for
reprehensible expediency; it was an easy way of conveying a notion that comes
to
the "layman's" mind when he hears 'real'; my third sentence laments a notional
side-effect of the word.
Derek goes on to say:
"I would rather think about *the contexts* in which things are real, not
whether they name something 'out there' - an idea that puzzles me anyway."
The fundamental distinction I tried to make in my posting was between
notional entities, and non-notional entities. I accept the ideas, feelings,
images in
our minds as entities. If I say "Eiffel Tower" to a Frenchman and a shepherd
in the Andes, a vivid image will pop into the Frenchman's mind, and god knows
what into the shepherd's mind. I accept those two fleeting notions as
entities.
There are all sorts of puzzling ideas in philosophy of mind, but the gross
distinction between notional and non-notional entities should be serviceably
non-puzzling here. (Derek should be puzzled by the idea that anything whatever
ever "names" something, but that's for another posting.)
Another dangerous but useful layman's usage makes a distinction "between the
real and the imaginary". It's what I try to convey in stuffy, forbidding
philosophic lingo as "between the non-notional and the solely notional". In
less
stuffy lingo it's the distinction between what's "out there", and what's solely
"in our mind".
But, as I lamented, the trouble with the layman's asserting that Santa's
factory is not 'real', is that it suggests the image in someone's imagination
is
not an entity. But as an image in imagination, it is a notion, and all notions
are indeed entities -- albeit notional entities only. There is no non-notional
entity "corresponding" to the notional image of the factory. This is the idea
the layman has in mind when he says Santa's factory isn't "real".
I confessed and lamented my using 'real' as a convenience in "communication".
I should have stuck to stuffy lingo. At this point I urge Derek -- and myself
-- to abandon the word 'real'. Our not doing so led to this conclusion by
Derek:
"You seem to be very preoccupied by a distinction between things that are
real because they name something 'out there' and things that do not name
anything
'out there' - and, I gather, are not real?"
I also urge Derek to be careful of the use of the word 'things'. It leads to
confusion and inconsistency, and it's certainly not anything I said. One
interpretation says by 'things' Derek has in mind both a notion, and a word,
and
that Cheerskep is claiming notions and words are "real" when there is a
"corresponding" non-notional entity. When there is no such corresponding
non-notional
entity, Cheerskep is saying the notion and word are not "real".
But I said nothing like that. I asserted notions are entities -- notional
entities. They are still entities -- notional -- when there is no corresponding
non-notional entity.
My unwise introduction of the word 'real' -- combined with his not grasping
the rest of my argument -- also led Derek to say this: "Santa Claus's house
etc are real in one world, aren't they? - the world of little children's
fantasy. In that world it would be quite wrong to deny their existence."
The better locution is this: "Santa Claus's house etc are entities --
notional entities. Little children's fantasies are notional. It would be
quite
wrong to deny those fantasies are entities -- albeit solely notional, with no
corresponding non-notional entities."
Though I abjure the layman and his kitchen-table English, I can't do it
without a final word in his defense. Granted, he uses the misleading word
'real'
but I'd claim his usage is more approvable than Derek's. He would say the
metallic structure in Paris we call the 'Eiffel Tower' is "real", and Santa's
factory is "not real". Derek says they are both "real". I maintain the layman's
distinction "between the real and the imaginary" is worth preserving, though in
stuffier, more defensible lingo: "between the notional and the non-notional".
Derek suggests he is puzzled by the distinction, but I have little doubt he
sees it well enough, and accepts it. But by insisting they are both "real" he
obliterates the layman's good point.
This posting has been in part to indicate for Derek some of the handicaps I
claim he has for doing philosophy. But it also has, for me, the bleak virtue of
exposing yet again my own limitations in conveying philosophic arguments with
the degree of clarity I should have achieved. Maximum, perfect, clarity will
never be reached by anyone, but I want to do better than I usually manage.
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