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Ron:
Pirsig describes it as the act of deductive inference, the manipulation of
abstract symbols that have no
reference to expereince. Language may be inductive as abstract symbols which DO
correspond
to expereince.
See my philosophy studies has now brought me to Derrida and Davidson and their
philosophising around truth and language. Some of you may remember that I have
talked about Truth as the core value of the intellectual level, and the quest
for truth as defining of the intellectual level - yes? Well, as we all know, no
one really knows what truth is, philosophers and scientists and mystics and a
whole lot of other people have been looking for truth through the centuries -
and as much as they have been looking for truth they have been looking for what
Truth _IS_ but, well, it hasn't been going all that well has it?
Ron:
That is because classical definitions of truth is collaborative, it is built
upon the universal understanding of terms and their syllogism.
Anyway. Derrida's thoughts about language, as I understand it, is in contrast
to the positivists and other since he says that language doesn't necessarily
represent anything in the objective world, like Russell said for example (words
representing sense-data, and thus being able to carry truth and building logic)
but if something is true or not is determined by how it corresponds to the
structure of the language. Inner coherence and all that. According to him,
language isn't determined or given meaning by intersubjectivism, but has
meaning in itself because of it's nature. Well, anyway-
Davidson in turn says that there is three types of knowledge, knowledge of the
"I", of "the world" and knowledge of others (others minds I suppose). According
to Davidson, these three areas of knowledge cannot independent of one another
give rise to knowledge. You know, if you take Descartes "cogito" for example,
Davidson would argue that the only way that becomes True is if there is other
people that can verify it by putting it into context with what they have agreed
that they know about the world.
(This is probably a very unfair presentation of Davidson's philosophy, partly
that's because I am translating spontaneously from Swedish, and partly it's
because I'm not all that good.)
Communication and interpretation is the basis of Truth, and if you put Derrida
and Davidson together - even thoug one of them says that language is decided
intersubjectively and the other that this is not the case, if we look at the
big picture in relation to Pirsigs statement about language (actually it was
symbol manipulation, right? never mind) as the intellectual level, it makes
sense if you look at it like this:
Humans create a language, and that language then becomes larger than the sum of
it's parts (the humans) and it's nature decides one very crucial thing: what
truth is. Thus truth doesn't exist for any being that doesn't have a developed
language, because it is only with advanced communication and interpretation
among individuals that the concept of truth can arise: and without the concept
of Truth there can be no intellectual level in the MOQ.
This is all very sloppy, but are any of you following me here? What have I
missed?
Ron:
MoQ posits truth as expereince. Therefore pre-lingual societies DID have
notions of truth
yet they did not have a universal concept of truth. Universal abstractions are
the origins
of the intellectual level but those abstractions are defined by the society
they emerge from.
Therefore truth as we know it, is socially defined.
It is therefore of interest to note that the first natural "scientists" were
the "holy" ones
of a tribe, the shaman offering abstract explainations grounded in inductive
expereinces
and relations in the form of myth.
Why, the father of western thought, Parmenides practiced Iatromantis, a form
of Greek shamanism. We could say that we still adhere to the myths of
Aristotles explainations
with the myth of universal forms.
Regards
chris
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Chris:
Comrades! I Think I may understand the whole language as the intellectual level
now.
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