Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 22:38:16 -0400 (EDT) From: Ruth Groff <rgroff-AT-yorku.ca> Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Another try Hi Tobin, We missed you! In response to Carol, you wrote: >Also I'd like to offer another example of the causal power of an absence: >ignorance. What we don't know can cause us to do things. I still don't see what is of *ontological* significance here. Epistemologically significant yes, but ontological I don't get. I mean, just as our thinking something ought not to be confused with the reality of its existence or non-existence, so, it would seem, our *not* thinking something ought not to be so confused. Now, perhaps I am making a category error here, in confusing the reality (or not) of the object of thought with the reality (or not) of the thought itself, but even corrected, the existence of the thought doesn't imply the existence of the *lack* of the thought. All *kinds* of things happen, especially in our minds, but are we to count every twist and turn of our consciousness -- and, more to the point, every twist and turn that our consciousness *doesn't take -- as a metaphysical entity? If all the things that I didn't think yesterday are to count as real, or, to put it differently, if reasons are not just causes, but -- which is not the same thing -- ontological entities, then how ought we to understand the concept of the epistemic fallacy? [Please forgive my tone! I'm not frustrated with *you*, I'm frustrated with what seems like a whacky idea -- which, to make matters worse, I don't understand.) R. --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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