Saul writes: > "it is my perception Cheers does not believe that we should be relaxed , > but should approach each other in our quiries as if we might be doing > philosophy - which means rgor - and self consciousness - it would require that we > express ourselves through specifics - that is try to construct where we may > clear propositions illustrated with examples - as such we may no longer chat but > enter into discourse - no longer offer up opinions and observations but offer > up arguments" > No, I love to see opinions and observations on this forum -- especially when they are by artists of any genre who are more learned than I in their estimable fields. They can be very relaxed as long as they are serviceably clear. What I'm against is fatally muddled or unclear assertions and questions.
AndI'm for objectivity, an open-mindedness not manacled by ego or whatever it is that keeps listers from seeing something worthy in the other fellow's position. I think I remarked that, shortly after I came onto this forum, the New Zealand philosopher David Cauchi made so effective a point against me it sent me off to do two years of needed reading. I'm glad David did that for me. I also look for what I'd call "honesty". This thread has been preoccupied for a week or more by a request Kate made: "Can you explain what you think the boundary between seeing a thing and > understanding it is and how clear that boundary is?" I claimed her request was fatally ambiguous, and no lister who read it could come close to conjuring a usefully clear idea of what Kate had in mind. My indictment drew a stream of protest -- which I don't mind at all. The protests were uniform in conveying I was hair-splitting, nit-picking, being unnecessarily "analytic", "philosophic". So I went about trying to respond with pertinence -- by, for example, supplying at least four different notions stirrable by the phrase "understanding a thing" . But soon I began to notice something. I figured it would serve my point to ask that any other lister describe the notion that came to his mind when he read Kate's request, and to explain why he believed that must be the notion Kate had in mind. What better way to show Cheerskep was wrong to say the phrase wasn't clear enough? In total I think I put that request three times. And I was getting no responses. At last, alas, this silent evasion made me feel there was something not quite honest about those who were accusing me of finding obscurity where it wasn't. That's a glum feeling -- very much in line with my earlier one that said listers too frequently evade the core questions in a thread. ************** Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)
