The "blank slate" is perhaps a good
image for trying to get across the
message of Kantian philosophy [broadly
construed].
For the empiricist/realist, a "blank slate" is just
emptyness on which "anything" can be imprinted.
But from the Kantian perspective, a "blank slate"
is rich in attributes (AKA transcendental categorial
determinations, etc.). To state what should
be obvious: one can write on a blank slate with
chalk, but one cannot use it as an abacus for
arithmetical operations.
If we focus on content, then the blank slate is
undetermined: anything that can be chalkied can be
chalked on it.
But if we focus on the medium, then we see that
a blank slate is incapable of registering anything
except chalk marks -- but there many other kinds of
things in the world (which are inaccessible to the
slate). From this perspective, to be a blank slate
is already to be incapable of many experiences,
actions, etc. (and, of course, to be capable of
certain specifiable others).
By reflecting on the properties of a slate, we
may come to see how its slate-nature determines
its perspective on and its place in the world. As said, a slate
cannot do arithmetical operations but an
abacus can; but an abacus cannot receive
chalk marks as reminders to oneself or messages to others.
The medium is the co-message.
For an inhabitant of a "market economy", everything
is a commodity.
Since the marks one can make on a slate are
infinitely variable, the empiricist will never
reach the edge of his flat-earth, and so he will
never notice that what he takes to be
*the world* is really
only the "world of the slate", and therefore,
despite its infinite dimension,
nonetheless, is ery small (constrained) indeed.
This is, of course, a parable, metaphor or whatever....
For a mind is not a slate or anything else that is
part of the world (the set of all possible chalk marks).
A mind is a perspective upon the world (a receiver
of chalk marks, a writer of chalk marks, an observer of
the fact that there are other *kinds of*
things besides chalk marks, etc.
I find it more interesting to study the nature of
the slate than to study the particular marks that can be
made on the slate in their particularity. I like to
see the "whole situation" and not to mistake part of
the situation (the blankness of the slate)
for the whole (what it means for something to be a slate). I like
highly "leveraged" knowledge. I like to get a
big ROI on my mental activity. Leave the bean couners
to count beans -- but studying the form of life of
the bean counters (what they do with
beans, etc.) *is* interesting.... Perhaps you
feel similarly?
\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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