>> ELEPHANT:
>> The idea that language can be distinguished from reason is false.
>
> RICK: A bold assertion. One cannot reason without language? You got some back
> up on this???
>
ELEPHANT:
OK. How about: "A bold assertion. One cannot reason without language? You
got some back up on this???".
As to the rest, really I don't know where to begin. The love of disputation
is very strong with you - I've met my match. But disputation does require
some basic points of agreement, or we will fail to agree on what it is we
are disagreeing about, and none will be the wiser. That seems to be the
situation at present, doesn't it?
> ELEPHANT:
>> Look, you can't relieve a rule of circularity, if that rule is a rule about
>> rules. Being circular in that way is just what being a rule about rules
>> amounts to.
ELEPHANT:
I think that says all I have to say here, and it says it all. As to your
reply:
> RICK: Think of it as metarules. Rules of all other rules. The circularity
> comes from the (unsupported and unnecessary) logical assumption that they must
> address themselves. As for what I really believe about all this.... I don't
> think that makes a damn bit of difference in assessing the validity of my
> arguments. I thought we were just doing this for sport. I think that's enough
> said.
ELEPHANT:
Sure it makes a difference. Like, I have to be persuaded that you're not
just an clown. If you're a clown, I laugh. If you are not a clown but a
philosopher, I argue. Horses for courses.
Generally I start out assuming that people are philosophers. Such is my
bane.
Shall I point this out again? The fact that rules about rules address
themselves is not an 'unnecessary assumption', but precisely what it is to
*be* a rule about rules.
As for the idea that something is a "metarule" because it is a rule of all
"other" rules: this is piffle. A metarule is a rule of *all* rules or it's
just another damm rule. Look it up in your philosophical dictionary Mr
Cornell, and when you've finished check the greek.
I think that exhausts my interest in this "debate". HA HA HA and bring on
the flying trapeze.
Elephant
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