OK, Cheerskep, Ok. I rest my case but why cause trouble?. Whatever. wc
----- Original Message ---- From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, February 28, 2010 1:42:27 PM Subject: Re: "What is happening during an 'a.e.'?" William writes: "Cheerskep defers to our varied specialities but also presumes that our capabilities are limited to them and by them while he, as a self-proclaimed philosopher specialist, is exempt from sharing his special knowledge on the grounds that he hasn't the time and we don't have the wits to follow him anyway." William, I read this as saying I never deign to talk philosophy on this forum because I'm convinced that no lister can follow my lofty thoughts. Your line dismays me, one, because it is demonstrably false; two, because perhaps the very last thing I'd expect to be accused of on this forum is not talking enough philosophy; and, three, because it suggests that all the philosophical palaver I have indeed posted has been utterly lost on at least some readers. Many, many listers have posted messages here that I've learned from, and that I've been gratified to learn from. Just as I've been unschooled in vast areas of interest and knowledgeability for artists and art-scholars, I've been convinced that my years of study of philosophy of language, of mind, of ontology, and of aesthetics have left me "knowing" some pertinent things that most of our listers don't know. So I've tried to post - in phrasing that I believed the many alert minds on the forum could comprehend - much of what I've learned or thought up myself in these related areas. I'm aware than many who might grasp the material won't stay with me through some of my long philosophical jags because they simply find the stuff tedious or irrelevant to their interests. I also concede there have been a few listers who I suspect don't have the turn of mind for it, the way many people who are gifted in other areas don't have a head for mathematics. But you're very wrong to think I believe none of the listers has "the wits to follow" me. I have posted on the forum scores of thousands of words of philosophy that I wrote in the confidence that other listers could not only follow me, but not infrequently come up with pertinent remarks and inferences I hadn't thought of myself. If you believe this a false claim, and I cannot produce any past "philosophy" postings, please say so and I shall re-post a few thousand such words. I've been actively critical of other amateur and professional posters of philosophy here who don't strive to make the stuff comprehensible. And I admit I've failed at that effort many times here myself. But I've regularly comforted myself with the evidence that it has not always been lost on all readers.
