Greetings, Mark [Steven quoted] --
On Thursday, by way of clarifying something you said to Steve, you wrote:
My previous presentation was just an exploration of SOM, on metaphysical terms. To say that someone is an SOMer would mean to me that such a person exists within the SOM form of reality. You are right that this is probably true, but it is not because of the grammar they use, it is because of the way they see reality. So, again, my examples were directed towards why people exist in the SOM form of reality. It is because they see their words and concepts as something which are distinct from themselves. I am open to any criticism on this as it helps me learn.
I have always been impressed with your willingness to keep an open mind, Mark. If the truth be told, we are all in "a learning process" as we journey through life, and what shapes our reality is not so much what others say about it as how we relate to experience.
Simplification is often the best approach to resolving confusion, and I would suggest that the term "Cartesian anxiety" be dismissed as a non-starter. Bernstein's proposal that we go beyond the dichotomies of objectivism/relativism to develop a new "practical discourse" for academia has no dialectical foundation. Practical discourse, as the author explains it, means that "...we dedicate ourselves to the practical task of furthering the type of solidarity, participation, and mutual recognition that is founded in dialogical communities." The idea is simply unfeasible.
Existence IS a relational system, and the world we live in IS "the SOM form of reality". Any "anxiety" that arises from our participation in a subject/object world is either psychotic in nature or the frustration of those who cannot accept existence as the relational mode of Absolute Reality.
In my opinion, words and language are no more than "expressions" of what we experience, while experience itself is the product of our value-sensibility. Neither of these humanly generated "patterns" defines ultimate Truth nor the Essence from which existence is derived.
I think Steve had it right when he said: "We have good reason to think that when our beliefs about something change, it isn't the 'something' that changes (and no good reason to doubt that) in lots of ordinary situations. Where I think SOM comes in is when we use the concepts of subjects and objects as the _basis_ for a systematic approach to thinking--for metaphysics."
An SOMer is not simply a person who is prone to say things like, "reality is composed of subjects and objects" but a person who lives the consequences of that belief in certain ways which "Cartesian Anxiety" helps explicate. For them, certain "philosophical problems" are problems. But if a person who says, "reality is composed of subjects and objects" and doesn't display this anxiety, then perhaps this person has simply made the usual practical inference (evolved the usual static pattern) that almost all babies eventually do labeled "object permanence" rather than made a claim about what is _ really_going on in the metaphysical sense of "really"--the One True Way the universe itself demands we describe it.
I haven't been following this discussion, so I'm not sure which of you said this; but I think it's a valid summation of the SOM concept--with or without the "anxiety" factor.
Also, I'm puzzled by what either of you means by "anti-realism". Is this intended to be a pejorative reference to Idealism?
Essentially speaking (again), 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/md/archives.html
