-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Kundert Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007 12:59 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MD] Mystics, Brains -- Matt has a question
Hey Case, Well, like I said at the outset, I haven't been following the conversations you've been in that closely. When you say I "complained of [your] enthusiasm for figurative science," I have to confess that I don't know where I did that, primarily because I'm not sure what "figurative science" is supposed to refer to. I'm not sure what you're pointing at or what you are reacting to when, I guess, you suggest that I'm like others in suggesting the "poverty of modern metaphors." I guess I might be inclined to say something like that, but only under highly specific circumstances, and not ones revolving around science--only representationalism. So, I don't know. A lot of what you said was interesting, but I'm not sure how it hooked up much with what I was talking about. I don't know. You did say, "Wisdom is knowing when to pay attention to what," and I can only enthusiastically agree with that. And I can certainly agree with disliking "the idea that somehow mysticism can tag team with science to throw theism out of the ring and smash it with a folding chair." I've been at odds with DMB for some time about that, about how I don't know how to be a Jamesian anti-theist without throwing out "The Will to Believe." But I'm not sure what saying "science is my favorite way of thinking about things" means. If it means you are drawn to read Science Magazine as opposed to the New Yorker or the London Review of Books, then I guess it makes sense as a preference. But if it means that you prefer thinking of the table as a cloud of electrons as opposed to brown and solid, then it just sounds weird. If you construe "representations" as "memories and models of the future," then I guess I have no real problems with that, none that I can immediately see. What pragmatism's assault on representationalism is is the suggestion that we get rid of the metaphors of sight and of mirroring reality from philosophical reflection. Those, pragmatists suggest, are what caused Plato's problem and the problems of modern, Cartesian epistemology. Matt _________________________________________________________________ Laugh, share and connect with Windows Live Messenger http://clk.atdmt.com/MSN/go/msnnkwme0020000001msn/direct/01/?href=http://ima gine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=hmtagline 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/ 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/
