On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:41 PM, [email protected] wrote:
I opined that there are times when the words 'require' or
'necessitate'
would, for the sake of enhanced clarity, be preferable to the word
'need'. Let's
each agree to dismount from our chargers and examine the argument.
I'm on the ground now. I can't quite fathom how this blew up into such
a contretemps. You asserted that a reading of "Whatever exists must be
needed" led you to something of an absurd conclusion ("your cancer was
needed").
I replied that the statement could be read, as I read it, to assert a
causal relationship, what exists is the result of a causal sequence
that led to the entity.
The disagreement should have stayed there.
I intended my remark, "not playing by the rules," as a harmless tweak,
as if to say, "Hey, Cheerskep, I think you shifted from one subject
(what "need" signifies in a general way) to another (whether one wants
or "needs" a cancer). I don't quite see how that's a hanging offense,
or in this case, a flogging in the public square offense.
One more observation. I don't know what the original German sentence
reads, or "means," or whether your phrase is a reliable translation of
it. I've tried to look it up on the web, but with no luck so far.
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Michael Brady
[email protected]
