From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 26 2003 - 19:55:11 GMT
Matt and all:
Matt:
Yeah, I believe that's what I said when I said,
"he's saying that believers think that metaphors have cognitive meaning
(and are therefore important) and atheists don't think they have cognitive
meaning (and are therefore unimportant). If what he means is something
along the Davidsonian lines I drew above (which I think he might given "God
is a metaphor for that which trancends all levels of intellectual
thought."), then Campbell would say the fact/lie distinction should be
blurred. Metaphors don't have cognitive meaning, but that doesn't mean they
aren't important."
DMB says:
Here's my problem. As I said, "Cognitive meaning? I honestly don't know what
that means." And since this phrase seems so central to the point you were
trying to make, I could hardly make any sense of it. I would have hoped that
you'd respond with an explanation of that phrase. (You seem to rely on
obscure jargon so frequently that I very rarely have any idea what you're
talking about.) Anyway, I did a google search and looked it up. There are
references to it in many fields, but in this case the appropriate usage
comes from Logical Postivism. For those who are equally perplexed here's
what I found: "COGNITVE meaning - An utterance has COGNITVE MEANING if and
only if it is either true or false." So now that I have an idea what this
key phrase means, it is clear that both the atheist and the believer think
it has cognitive meaning and this is precisely their mistake. And it seems
to me that Campbell does not say the "fact/lie distinction should be
blurred", but thrown on the trash heap altogether. How's that?
C'mon, Matt. Don't you think its perfectly reasonable to ask for a little
clarity? Don't you think one of the most important goals here is to be
understood? Don't you think its unfair and unhelpful to employ such obscure
phrases without explaining what they mean? I do.
Hugs and kisses,
DMB
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