On Oct 5, 2008, at 10:17 PM, Jim Devine wrote:
Anyway, why are you opposed to Plato? doesn't your e-mail address
include "platosbeard"?
That's a reuse of a term from the mathematician and philosopher
W.V.O.Quine, who wrote thus, while speaking "On What There Is":
It would appear ... that in any ontological dispute the proponent of
the negative side suffers the disadvantage of not being able to
admit that his opponent disagrees with him.
This is the old Platonic riddle of non-being. Non-being must in some
sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled
doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has
proven tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor.
Quine, like you (in the parts of your post that I have snipped away)
was speaking of ontological issues. But here again is Quine:
_Realism_, as the word is used in connection with the mediaeval
controversy over universals, is the Platonic doctrine that
universals or abstract entities have being independently of the
mind; the mind may discover them but cannot create them.
And in my previous post, I was referring to what I see as
epistemological Platonism (I used "platonic" rather than go the whole
hog and call it "platonism") i.e., a view that suggests that there is
a perfect theory (and hence a single story that is true) that we can
approximate our way towards.
In my blog title (and email address), I borrow Quine's term to use it
elsewhere... and like Quine, but in these areas (e.g: politics), I am
unhappy with the Platonic tangled beard and "the inconveniences of
putting up with it". It is not so much Occam's Razor that I am worried
about, but that the Platonic trickery is aimed at overcoming the more
"real" and valuable diversity of existence and ideas. I fully endorse
I.F.Stone:
Plato turned the trial of his master, Socrates, into a trial of
Athens and of democracy. He used it to demonstrate that the common
people were too ignorant, benighted and fickle to entrust with
political power. In Plato’s "Apology," the contrast drawn between
the nobility of Socrates and the grim verdict of his juror-judges
indicted democracy in the eyes of posterity. And thanks to his
genius, no other trial except that of Jesus has so captured the
imagination of Western man.
--ravi
--
Support something better than yourself ;-)
PeTA => http://peta.org/
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If you have nothing better to read:
http://platosbeard.org/_______________________________________________
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