From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Sat Oct 05 2002 - 22:36:02 BST
DMB,
David Buchanan wrote:
DMB says:
It looks like Owen Barfield does parallel Pirsig. Cool. I'd split hairs with
your take, however. The intellectual level isn't unborn, it is just very
young. Its learning to walk. Also, mathematics isn't the only field where
thoughts focus on non-objects. There are lots of disciplines where the main
work is thinking about ideas and analyzing other non-material realities,
such as philosophy or literary critiicism. Even when physicists are
examining objects, the scientific method proscribes a certain and careful
way of thinking about your perceptions of the object. In any case, thanks
for the scoop.
I'll go for that (the intellect being in the toddler stage).
What I meant is that the other disciplines are still thoughts about
other things, which things may be thoughts. If I write a paper about
Hamlet, my paper is not Hamlet. But if I write a mathematical paper,
there is nothing outside the paper that my paper is about. A vector
space, for example, is all and only the definition of a vector space. If
the physical world can in part be modelled with a vector space, that is
irrelevant to the mathematical concept.
I have sometimes wondered if philosophy couldn't be seen in this way.
Obviously, philosophology is not that, and also obviously, traditional
Philosophy does not see itself as such (it sees itself as "about"
reality, or ways of knowing, etc.). But what it does is redefine these
words. So if one thinks of it as applied semantics, say, then it isn't
that different from mathematics (as not being "about" something else --
obviously it is different in not being precise). One philosophizes to
alter one's philosophy. In philosophizing, one is loving wisdom.
Something like that.
Well, maybe, or maybe not until the intellectual level gets past the
toddling stage.
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 10:37:53 GMT