On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 12:18 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]>wrote:
> > John said to Mary: > You hit upon a very interesting topic there. Royce once answered the > question in a letter, why in his experience there were so few female > philosophers. He said the problem was not intellectual - women are just as > smart as men, but moral. The female of the species is almost always > reluctant to strike out on their own, to challenge authority and reject the > social norm. Probably even truer in the 19th century than now, but I see > vestiges of that attitude still. > > > dmb says: > and yes there are female philosophers. I've never seen anybody so much as > bat an > eye at that. > > Me neither, for sure. Dr. Kegley, for instance. > John's recent complaints about me, for example, could be explained by a > clash of the two styles. Where he sees mere antagonism, I see a substantial > disagreement on issues of real concern. Well I'm always open to discussion of issues. Heck, that's why I'm here. My complaint about you David, is centered more around your evasion of the philosophical issues in favor of getting on your high horse rants, fundamentalist nazis, blah blah. I can't recall a single critical analysis of any sort of argument I've offered you, and bob knows I've offered plenty. Usually it's some dismissive disparagement about you'd rather talk about more interesting things, oriented around your own thinking, or "it's just not fun anymore" and whoosh gone. So my main experience of you, has been kinda sketchy, you'll have to admit. > It's not that the mode of expression is irrelevant to me but it is, > admittedly, far less important than the actual issue. On top of that, there > is the fact that we've never actually met and we're communicating in public > cyberspace through a keyboard. That's not exactly conducive to an intimate, > heart to heart. One can only guess at the tone of voice. There is no body > language, no facial expression, no chance to catch the other guy's > unpremeditated, natural response. Sometimes we can't even tell sarcasm from > sincerity. In a forum like this, it just doesn't work to focus on style > instead of the content. This doesn't mean we can't talk about anything > personal, in which case the content itself is the intimate thing. But actual > disagreements and hostile tones are not at all the same thing, even i > f they often go hand in hand. That's why there can be such a thing as > friendly disagreements and why we can sometimes agree with our enemies. > > > Sure, we tend to like the people who agree with us but that's just the > ego's satisfaction, not the intellect's. Given that this is supposed to be a > place to discuss metaphysics, to debate philosophical issues, all this other > stuff seems like a distraction. To be honest, I don't really care if that > makes me seem unfriendly. The only that matters to me here, is WHAT you say, > not how you say it or what a nice guy you are. For all I know, you could be > posting from a psych hospital, a prison or a circus. > > Well you can't hear WHAT I say. i dunno. mebbe shoulda used more caps. All you can hear is what's in your head. And that's starting to seem like a psych hospital, prison and circus all rolled up into one. But hey, it's more your playground than mine so do whatever you like with it. By all means. I'll give you one concrete example of what I'm talking about, just to avoid the over-generalities, your utter disregard and disparagement of Royce is completely illogical and ill-thought, because any true scholar of James would be fascinated by the back and forth relationship between the two men. Here were the dialectical forges of American philosophy, as up close and personal now as when the words were uttered between them in person. And in Royce, we find a fascinating phenomena, in that until ten years or so ago, he'd been practically forgotten! Deemed utterly unworthy of scholarship. What's up with that? That doesn't pique your interest at all? Then you're not a philosopher sir. Socrates would puke you out. My only conclusion can be that your sneering dismissal of him is rooted in something besides intellectual interest or pursuit. It must be some sort of social dominance game you play in your own head that makes you so keen to reject a man with a life-long friendship and sparring partnership of your hero. I'm shakin' my head sadly Dave. You can't see me doin' it, but you can read my words and know that they're true. I'm shakin' my head sadly. John the sad head shaker 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/md/archives.html
