http://phys.org/news/2013-04-photons-loopholes.html
2013/4/20 ADRIE KINTZIGER <[email protected]> > DMB to Ron, concepts &reality& reific > > To believe, as Nietzsche puts it, "that the leaf is the cause of the > leaves" is Platonism. > > Adrie says,... > The mother leaf, ---as in "Cause" of the leaves, yes platonic reasoning, > however to reject reification or denying the possibility of a mother > pattern behind the leaves is still to be rejected. > > Collect all leaves,all of them, and keep them separate but dissolve them > in a moleculair state without killing the clorofyl, dna,carbonmatrix. > every leaf will show the same physikal properties,to be regarded as a > mother pattern > > Life- > Dna > > whatever the philosophical concept or reifeid entity,until proven > otherwise,no leaf or life is unique or only on itself. > > But these areonly some asides. > > I was reading in what you are presenting here , David,and i have to say , > you are powering up so fast nowadays that it is not easy > to follow the rabbit so to speak.still i'm on track. > One of the problems that keeps on bugging me is the interlocutor position > of Pheadrus in Plato's dialogs and the differences if compared to > Pirsigs alter/interlocutor,only on first sight it reads clear as the > "alter"Pirsig, but Plato's interlocutor is playing in the shadow. > > So sad that i can do it all in my language, but so rudimentair in English > > Adrie > > > > > 2013/4/20 david buchanan <[email protected]> > >> Ron said to dmb: >> >> >> ...Right, they all oppose "vicious intellectualism". But my comments rest >> on HOW they oppose it. Fred (to me) tends to express that relativistic anti >> intellectual claim that to think, to understand, to conceptualize is to >> reify. The assertion of those that insist that intellect = SOM. Fred, in >> that quote is lumping together nouns and abstract nouns and rendering them >> as equivalent. Which begins to diverge from the meaning and aim of Bob and >> Will. >> >> >> >> dmb says: >> You think that Nietzsche tends to express that relativistic >> anti-intellectual claim that to conceptualize is to reify? I don't think >> so. As I read the quote, Fred is making a distinction between >> conceptualization and reification. The latter is not just >> conceptualization, of course, but a certain kind of conceptual error. Here >> is the moment wherein Fred makes this distinction, I think: He says, "the >> concept 'leaf' is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual >> differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects". (This part >> distinguishes the clear and clean concept of a "leaf" from the all the >> concrete and particular leaves of actual experience - distinguishes between >> concepts and reality or between concepts and 'nature,' as Fred is puts it). >> So far, so good, but the very next sentence from Nietzsche says, "This >> awakens the idea that, in addition to the leaves, there exists in nature >> the 'leaf': the original model according to which all the leaves were >> perhaps woven, sketched, measured, colored, curled, and painted—but by >> incompetent hands, so that no specimen has turned out to be a correct, >> trustworthy, and faithful likeness of the original model." Right there; >> that's the difference between concepts and reified concepts. The concept of >> a leaf, he says, "awakens the idea that ..there exists in nature the >> 'leaf': the original model" and that's the reified concept. When "leaf" is >> taken to be more real than all actual leaves, when it becomes the "original >> model" which all actual leaves are supposed to instantiate or copy, we are >> no longer talking about words, concepts or definitions but Essences, Forms, >> primary ontological realities, things-in-themselves beyond the phenomenal >> realm. These "original models" aren't just taken as abstractions, words, >> concepts or generalizations but as a primary realities, more primary than >> the actual experience from which they were abstracted in the first. That's >> what Plato did to concepts like Truth, Justice, Beauty and the Good. These >> were taken as fixed and eternal realities and were held to be more real >> than phenomenal reality, than empirical reality, as in the allegory of cave. >> >> To believe, as Nietzsche puts it, "that the leaf is the cause of the >> leaves" is Platonism. To believe that "honesty" is an essence existing >> behind each instance of actual honesty is just another case of this >> Platonic reification. "We know nothing whatsoever about an essential >> quality called 'honesty,'" Nietzsche says, "but we do know of countless >> individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting >> the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as >> "honest" actions." It is we who formulate the name "honesty," Nietzsche >> says, "whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts" and >> "even our contrast between individual and species is something >> anthropomorphic and does not originate in the essence of things". >> >> >> While Nietzsche is certainly darker and more bombastic in his style, I >> think we can see that James is saying very much the same thing. >> >> "...Both theoretically and practically this power of framing abstract >> concepts is one of the sublimest of our human prerogatives. We come back >> into the concrete form our journey into these abstractions, with an >> increase both of vision and of power. It is no wonder that earlier >> thinkers, forgetting that concepts are only man-made extracts from the >> temporal flux, should have ended by treating them as a superior type of >> being, bright, changeless, true, divine, and utterly opposed in nature to >> the turbid, restless lower world. The latter then appears as but their >> corruption and falsification. Intellectualism in the vicious sense began >> when Socrates and Plato taught that what a thing really is, is told us by >> its defintion. Ever since Socrates we have been taught that reality >> consists of essences, not of appearances, and that the essences of things >> are known whenever we know their defintions. So first we identify the thing >> with a concept and then we identify the concept with a definition, and only >> then, inasmuch as the thing IS whatever the definition expresses, are we >> sure of apprehending the real essence of it or the full truth about it. S >> far no harm is done. The misuse of concepts begins with the habit of >> employing them privatively [to negate or exclude] as well as positively, >> using them not merely to assign properties to things, but to deny the very >> properties with which the things sensible present themselves. ...It is but >> the old story, of a useful practice first becoming a method, then a habit, >> and finally a tyranny that defeats the end it was used for. Concepts, first >> employed to make things intelligible, are clung to even when they make them >> unintelligible. Thus it comes that when once you have conceived things as >> 'independent,' you must proceed to deny the possibility of any connection >> whatever among them, because the notion of connection is not contained in >> the definition." (As if the definition of "horseman" could be invoked to >> prove that the man never goes on foot.) >> >> >> I have some disagreements with some of your "asides" about Socrates and >> the Sophists but I'll leave them alone for now, just for the sake of focus >> and clarity. Instead, I'll leave you with some additional thoughts from >> Pirsig about this thing called vicious intellectualism... >> >> “His mind races on and on, through the permutations of the dialectic, on >> and on, hitting things, finding new branches and sub-branches, exploding >> with anger at each new discovery of the viciousness and meanness and >> lowness of this ‘art’ called dialectic. ... Phædrus’ mind races on and on >> and then on further, seeing now at last a kind of evil thing, an evil >> deeply entrenched in himself, which pretends to try and understand love and >> beauty and truth and wisdom but whose real purpose is never to understand >> them, whose real purpose is always to usurp them and enthrone itself. >> Dialectic - the usurper. That is what he sees. The parvenu, muscling in on >> all that is Good and seeking to contain it and control it." >> "How are you going to teach virtue if you teach the relativity of all >> ethical ideas? Virtue, if it implies anything at all, implies an ethical >> absolute. A person whose idea of what is proper varies from day to day can >> be admired for his broadmindedness, but not for his virtue. Lightning hits! >> Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! Not >> ethical relativism. Not pristine 'virtue.' But areté. Excellence. Dharma! >> Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and >> matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first >> teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they >> had chosen was that of rhetoric." >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> 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 >> > > > > -- > parser > -- parser 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
