Hi Ham, inserted (again) On 10/22/07, Ham Priday <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [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.
[IG] Not me Ham. Can you not spot irony when you see it. I said there is no final word. (Not even Quality is the "final" word, there is no final word. If you forced me to choose one word in your explicit question, and I could chose the best single word, that might be closest to it, but .... it doesn't change the point .... there is no final word.) > It doesn't explain anything. [IG] I wasn't "explaining" anything. I was answering your "final word" question. One word is never going to 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. [IG} I, (and the MoQ I suggest, but I'm not wedded to it) could explain any and all of those things, if asked. > > So now I'm an "extremist" for insisting that a valid philosophy must provide > a logical explanation of reality. [IG] Yes. Please listen closely. Anyone who accepts ONLY logical arguments is an extremist, someone who chooses one extreme to the exclusion of other options is an extremist. > > [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. [IG] That Ham is the problem. You are using ridiculous rhetoric. Rolling Dogma together with Myth and Poetry and then excluding them as sources of philosophical uynderstanding - explicitly ruling them out - your words "only" and "not". > > 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.) [IG] Exactly - we all agree, as I said at least 4 years ago. You are the one asking me the questions. My only argument with you is that I still don't see that your essentialism adds anything to (say) MoQ, or any other pragmatic worldview, and that the debate about whether either is a metaphysics doesn't help anyone. (The argument you are creating here is one of introducing crass rhetoric as if it were a summary of my position ... that I need to respond to.) > However, we all have the ability to reason, [IG] All I'm saying here Ham, is that "reason" is more than logic and emprical science. We need an evolving, contingent, pragmatic basis for relative values too. Ian 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/
