William writes: "Boy, Cheerskep is so tough on poor little ity-bitty minds like Lehrer's. I'm sure I missed some of Lehrer's lazy uses of IS, but not so with Cheerskep. I'm not sure what other failings Lehrer is guilty of, but they must be serious...or perhaps not, as Cheerskep relishes any chance to proclaim the inferiority of another's little offering."
I like your verve, William, but you're naughty to assume I relish any chance to proclaim the inferiority of another's little offering. I don't. I groan when I encounter incompetent efforts like Lehrer's, especially when it isn't such a "little offering", it's a 250-page book of "My Thoughts" about "science and art". And in fact I didn't cite any instances of Lehrer's using a reifying "is". I wrote: " What I hope is that listers will attend to Lehrer's uses of 'brain', 'mind', body, 'soul', 'unity', ['spirit'], 'irreducible whole', 'came from', 'depended upon', 'art', and other terms; notice the lack of descriptions of what he has in mind with each term; notice the blurry inconsistencies in his evident thinking. (E.g. you have to suspect anyone who talks of a 'human being' as an irreducible whole and yet goes on to distinguish body, consciousness, soul, immaterial mind etc.) Principally, perhaps, evaluate his efforts to reconcile Damasio's physicalist views with his, Lehrer's, insistence on the immateriality of mind. And so forth." You'll notice in there a number of OTHER immortal horses I keep beating, but no inapt 'is's. Walt Whitman wrote some admirable, memorable lines, yet the following -- which are not among those lines -- are the sort that Lehrer quotes in an effort to make his "transcendental, cloudy" point: "O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men, nor the likes of the parts of you, I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my Poems, and that they are my poems." It takes a mind easily intoxicated by such fumey stuff to believe the stuff shows Whitman was presaging Damasio and other neuroscientists of today. I confess I do have little regard for Lehrer's mind. Meantime, in "Leaves" Whitman also speaks of the "soul" of the nation. Like Lehrer, he never bothers to convey what he has in mind with "soul". Or "meaning", or "stand", orb& ************** Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp& icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010)
