Ian --
On 10/19/07, Ham Priday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > How you can justify an author's deliberate intent to espouse a > metaphysical theory "for all the right reasons" but at the same time > call it a "mistake"[?] [Ian]: > ... A mistake to deliberately seek a metaphysics (so far as I > understand metaphysics). But obviously he was well intentioned > in making that "mistake" same as you are in disagreeing with me. [Ham, previously]: > You and David M. seem to agree that "the 'argument' about whether > it is a metaphysics or not is pointless, and the argument about whether > as a metaphysics it establishes some fundamental ontology is also > pointless." ...If it doesn't matter whether philosophy is a valid > ontology or a romantic poem designed to please the reader, it would > appear that we've lost the ability to discriminate between legitimate > theory and literary prose. [Ian]: > (We do say that the debate about "whether this philosophy is a > metaphysics or not" is uninteresting, but not entirely pointless, > since there is learning and discovery in going through the process.) > But that does not say philosophy is pointless - far from it. David > does not say "equate" or "doesn't matter" and neither do I. You are > flip-flopping all-or-nothing - "is a ..., or a ..." - of course we can > discriminate, but having made the distinction there is no rule that > says you must choose only one side. Of course there is no "rule" that you must accept a philosophy. Any philosophical persuasion is the individual choice of a free agent. The point I'm trying to make is that it represents your view of reality, including the values and meaning that pertain to it. It's not just a panacea of made up paradigms and pretty verses to make you feel good. [Previously]: > Where, then, do we turn for "the final word"? [Ian]: Pin your lug-holes back Ham. There is no final word, >only the best word so far. Quality. You see, that's what I mean by a verbal panacea. We fool ourselves by this kind of reductionism. It doesn't explain anything--even when you break it down into levels and patterns. You can't develop an ontology out of quality. To say that things are patterns of quality has no more meaning than saying that things are objects of consciousness. Where does quality come from (if not from subjective awareness)? What is its purpose? How do we account for the forms of existence?. Is there a reality that transcends the finite world? If so, what is man's relation to it? If a theory cannot address these questions, it is not a philosophy, let alone a metaphysical hypothesis. [Ham, previously]: > Are you content to base your belief system on poetic reflections > of experience? On adages, metaphors, clichés and aphorisms, > as opposed to well-thought-out cosmological theories? [Ian]: Grow up Ham. Stop playing the Platt card, throwing extremist opposite rhetoric into the mouths of the person you're debating with to ridicule an argument they are not actually making. So now I'm an "extremist" for insisting that a valid philosophy must provide a logical explanation of reality. [Previously]: > Has philosophy in our enlightened culture come to this? > If everything that can not be empirically known as truth is dismissed > as myth, then we believe in nothing and are fulfilling the Ecclesiastical > proclamation "All is vanity". [Ian]: > No. Not me. Just your dumb rhetoric is saying that. The opposite > in fact ... where objective empiricism reaches it's limits - do NOT > dismiss myth (and linguistic history) - you are the one doing the > dismissing. Equally where myth runs into empirical experience, give > value to the latter. I do not dismiss empirical evidence, but I do not accept the conclusions of Science as ultimate truth because they apply only to a relational world. I acknowledge myth, dogma, and poetry as expressions of man's spirituality, not as sources of philosophical understanding. [Previously]: > Tell me, Ian, how would you define the purpose of Philosophy? [Ian]: > To help us to find the best model / view / theory of how the > cosmos works. Excellent. > (But not to fall into the schoolboy error of having found a > good philosophy, the best that can be found, to then go around > proclaiming that it is therefore an absolute metaphysical truth.) > "Best" is about value and quality and experience in real life - all > of it, excluding nothing, neither poetry nor logic. You won't find me proclaiming Essentialism as "absolute metaphysical truth." I am on record as saying that the only truth man can know is relative, and that absolute truth is inaccessible to the finite mind. (I believe Rorty reached the same conclusion.) However, we all have the ability to reason, and it is within our intuitive grasp to conceive of an absolute reality that is the source of all difference. If this is a concept that can be rejected (for antitheistic reasons), it is also one that can be embraced (for spiritualistic--i.e., valuistic--reasons). Essentially yours, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
