In a message dated 2/25/10 9:06:41 AM, [email protected] writes:
> So it's not surprising that the most radical nominalist on our listserv > would > conclude "he's no one I want to spend time > reading - given how many other worthy books are around." (although, > indeed, > over the last ten years in this listserv, > Cheerskep has yet to identify a single one of those "worthy books") > > Here's a surprise, Chris: I explicitly suggested Kivy's PHILOSOPHIES OF ARTS long before you (commendably) talked the forum into reading it. It was a genuine disappointment to me that I was occupied off-forum when the group was going through that book, imperfect though it is. And you're right: The few lines you quote from Smith are sufficient evidence of a degree of muddlement that makes him a waste of time for serious readers. Here they are again: "The most important factor of all, I believe, has to do with the radical change in the status of membership institutions, which are no longer accorded the kind of Platonic reality they once possessed, a kind and degree of reality that was closely related to that of the buildings that were erected for those same institutions.... Both the public edifices and the pictures that adorned them continuously challenged the member to "take his stand" with reference to a body of narrational and iconic subject matter that served to authenticate the real and enduring being of the institutions and their power to give order and meaning to the life of the community.....Nothing has done more to undercut the claims of any institution to ultimate reality than the burgeoning of radical nominalism that owes much to the triumph of science and the scientific outlook."
