From: Matt the Enraged Endorphin (mpkundert@students.wisc.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 13 2002 - 19:15:25 GMT
Scott,
Very interesting. I have a few comments on the parts before your long
accout at the end.
>Any thing lacks essence, since any thing depends on all other things. But we
>can see a thing, and think about it, and how is that possible if it is
>empty?
Just because a thing is relational (as anti-essentialists claim all things
are) doesn't mean we can't think about it. For instance, I think about the
number 42 all day long. Numbers are the easiest thing to see as not having
an essence, as being pure relation. For essentialists trying to understand
anti-essentialism, the number 42 is a good thing to meditate on.
Anti-essentialists claim that its better for us to think of all things as
being like numbers i.e. relational. And just as I can think of the number
42 though it has no essence, why can't I think of humans or justice or
protons without them having an essence?
>If the alternative is Rortyian anti-essentialism, then, first, he is kidding
>himself if he claims he has no metaphysics (he holds with Darwinism and with
>the mind-brain identity hypothesis, both of which depend on a materialist
>metaphysical position, and both of which happen to be wrong :), but
>secondly, as Nagarjuna pointed out long ago, it leads one to nihilism.
Granted, you may not like the alternative I'm offering, and possibly for
some good reasons, but I'm still pretty much going to deny these two things
as good reasons. On metaphysics, to say that everyone has a metaphysics
either begs the question or stretches the word "metaphysics" out into
ubiquitous proportions (see my recent comments to Wim, for some related
thoughts). On nihilism, that's a strawman position that nobody holds and
wouldn't be hard to refute if anybody did hold it.
>Or take the essentialist/anti-essentialist debate, though I prefer the older
>terms: universals and particulars. Rorty, in Philosphy and the Mirror of
>Nature, takes aim at universals. But he neglects to recognize that without
>universals there would be no particulars. Without universals (concepts) we
>cannot be aware of a particular. And, without particulars, we cannot have
>concepts, since concepts have to be about some set of particulars.
This I find amazing on your part. You've already told me that what you are
"trying to do here and above is to say that you [Matt] are trying to force
[emptyness] into standard philosophical categories, while I see it as
trying to make new ones." I'll grant this. As a good ironist, I really
want to learn new vocabularies that move beyond the old ones. But in this
last passage you are trying to force the Rortyan position into an old set
of philosophical categories, when the new ones are meant to move beyond
them in some sense.
Antiessentialists have nothing wrong with universals and particulars when
universals are meant to refer to categories of cognition (which have no
natural kinds, however). I think it would be safe to say that Rorty is a
Kantian in this sense. He thinks that, sure, there's a particular dog over
there and that dog falls into certain "universal" categories such as brown,
short, four-legged, Fido, etc. and doesn't fall into others like black,
tall, eight-legged, Rover, etc. The point is that I don't think Rorty has
any trouble with particulars and universals, when they are taken in this sense.
>Now, you might say that you would rather drop the whole sterile debate, but
>you can only do so by *assuming* that awareness is not relevant to the
>question, that is, by assuming that things (particulars) exist *as things*
>in the absence of awareness of them. It is awareness that creates things as
>things (and also space and time). But one cannot make sense of this within
>either a SOM vocabulary or an anti-essentialist vocabulary (since that only
>allows particulars). What one needs is the logic of contradictory identity,
>which is what a 'doctrine' of emptiness can supply.
Ok, I will say I would rather drop the whole sterile debate, but I don't
see how I would be assuming that awareness is not relevant to the question
or how I would be assuming the things exist as things in the absence of
awareness of them. This seeming idealism/realism trap (meaning you can
have a Berkeleyan position where awareness creates things, a Realist
position where the things are just there, or a Kantian hybrid (which can
look realist and idealist) where the things and us coming together creates
them) is one more sterile debate that pragmatists wish we could get on from.
>how, if we are spatio-temporal processes, can we be aware of time passing?
I don't see why we can't be aware of time passing, particularly if we are
spatio-temporal processes. But as philosophical questions, once again,
they are probably best left alone. As scientific questions, maybe they can
be answered in some way. Granted, I don't think science would quite ask
these questions, but I think science could come up with some ways we can
get a handle on space and time.
Now, I find many of the mystic type things very interesting (like the part
from Franklin Merrell-Wolff). As personal (read: private) belief systems,
I find them attractive. The reason I find your position so intriguing
Scott is because you claim you've found a way to reconcile absoluteness
with irony. When it comes down to my private belief in ironism, though, I
don't find your alternative to be that different in practice from mine on
the one hand or as attractive in theory as mine on the other. But these
are philosophical problems. At the end of the day I would hope that we
could still be good believers in democracy (assuming that you do).
I say this because, as an antiessentialist, just because I'm an
antiessentialist doesn't mean that others can't be essentialists. In fact,
my ironism forbids me from claiming that one or another of these views is
the Correct View. If one takes philosophy seriously, I would predict that
you may never find a great answer that you never consider leaving by the
wayside. This is the great irony that philosophy undergrads have to come
to terms with when they enter college. I can't tell you how many laypeople
I've talked to who took a Philosophy 101 course expecting to find the
Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. And the number of people
majoring in Philosophy thinking the same thing are not that far behind.
But while I think that reading philosophy can help you find a belief
structure that fits you, I think it is less successful in everyday things,
like writing a legal brief or a memo, or milking cows, or shooting down
enemy aircraft, or debating legislation. I think philosophy can help clear
away conceptual debris so we can know what's acceptable in the public arena
and not, but I don't think it can actually help us in the public arena.
For once we start allowing large parts of our belief structure into the
public arena, we start to border on telling people what to think on matters
like the meaning of life and the question of spirituality, things liberal
democracies would like to leave for the private realm. Do I think ironism
is more appropriate for liberal democracies? Sure I do. I think that
belief in absolutes would possibly predispose someone to thinking that his
or her absolutes should be believed by everyone and the best tool for this
happens to a government. But that's all I can say on behalf of ironism. I
can't say its the right thing to believe, I can only point out how it might
be better. Because when I enter into the public arena to argue with Platt
about this or that policy, it doesn't matter that he's an essentialist and
I'm an antiessentialist. It only matters that he's some sort of
conservative and I'm some sort of liberal. And while I care more about
people being liberals then antiessentialist, either way, Platt and I hold
enough of our belief structure in common, namely our belief in democracy,
that we don't need to debate where that belief came from. This is why in
practice, I don't see much difference between your position, Scott, and mine.
In the end, one reason I find Rorty's position more attractive (and why I
keep denying absolutes) is because I believe ironism with no absolutes to
be more suitable to liberal democracies. But, like I've repeated like a
broken record, this shouldn't stop us from debating the range of the
welfare state and entering into the voting booth and registering our votes,
wherever that booth is located.
Matt
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 : Wed Nov 13 2002 - 19:22:39 GMT