Jay Hanson wrote:
>
> From: Tom Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> >It's also clear to me that there is no point arguing with someone who
> simply
> >repeats a particular "fact" or "law" as the conclusive answer to every
> >conceivable question. Science is science. Fundamentalism is fundamentalism.
The above sentence should arouse every sleeping Hegelian/Marxist....
For the dialectic says that A becomes other than A (even perhaps
while remaining itself) in the course of history.
But I'm not going to go off on that at the moment, but rather to
digress.
On Monday, I attended a one day lecture by Yale Prof Edward Tufte,
author of the famous books on how to present visual information.
He showed us a copy of an original book by Galileo, in which Galileo
presented his observations of sunspots. On the title page, Galileo
signed his name: Galileo Galilei Linceo --> Galileo identified
himself as/with the lynx-cat, which is apparently noted for
keeping its *eyes open*. I'd vaguely heard of this (or maybe
I hadn't), but suddenly I saw more clearly than ever before why
the Roman Catholic Church needed so badly to crush Galileo: It simply
was not acceptable for people to be going around with their eyes
wide open! And, "bless their holinesses!", they used intelligence
rather than sheer brute force to gain their victory: If this
man had his eyes open, they'd let him do himself in by being
offered the sight of the instruments of torture. Sun Tsu could
not have come up with a more elegant and economical solution to
the problem. Galileo, alas, was no lynx-cat, although he
honored their species and showed us the way.
I deeply hope Stanley Kubrick's forthcoming film:
"Eyes Wide Shut" lives up to its name (although his "Paths of
Glory" is already enough).
>
> As far as I know, you three have been so busy denying
> reality, that you haven't asked any questions.
---------
One way we can boil Kant and Husserl (et al) down to
"real basic stuff" is to say that every perception
asks a question [about a particular in its relation
to the whole] and hypothesizes an answer. I mean this
entirely seriously, and if any of us ever comes close to
being the recipient of a letter bomb (e.g.), I believe
we will "see" how true it is.
Reality is not
anything which stolidly "is" (although many persons
live more or less in such a world -- did somebody recently
mention Bruno Latour here?), but rather "reality" is the
always in-process process of our ongoing conversation
with our life (the situation into which we always
already find ourselves "thrown" -- Heidegger's:
"Geworfenheit", and which, in one of his less hero-
worshiping moments, Heidegger named well: "es gibt" -->
what you see is what you get to try to figure out
and cope with, and it's always
changing (Heraclitus) -- it is a tale told by an
idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing, or,
in Heidegger's version, a child playing on a beach [the sand
is the world] who plays because he plays and there
is no why :: We are the question and/because
we are the questioners).
>
> Did I miss something? <G>
Jay: what means: "<G>"? [I have a friend whose name is
"Gee", and G is a computer programmer, and his eyes
are wide open and he is probably closer in strength
of character to the lynx than was GG. -- But,
to repeat words of Elie Wiesel: "Don't
compare! All suffering is intolerable."]
>
> Jay
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(914)238-0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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