From: "Simon Beesley" <simonb-AT-beesleys.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Habitus
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 10:56:34 +0100


Ania,

> You
> may not agre but for that you have to do a bit more than simply accuse me.
> I at least have a proof: teh recent reform movement done by
> Carnegie-Foundation for Advanevement of teaching and research. They may be
> wrong in the way in which they approach teh problem, but tehir movement
> reflects teh awareness that something somewhere got lost. And if this is
> all that this Foundation achieves, that's enough for others to build upon.

I am not accusing you of anything -- except incoherence. I don't know what you
are talking about. For example, you write:

"We invent machines only to give our calculations an air of independence.
Diseases may surge but not because of global warming: I think that we
somehow lost here the context: a machine's error or an epistemological
error?"

This is suggestive of certain ideas about the concept of the machine that have
been aired by Wittgenstein (in Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics) and
also Lacan (in Seminar II) but by expressing yourself in this semi-aphoristic
way and at such a high level of generality you make it impossible for me to
respond either positively or negatively. What do you mean? What is an
epistemological error? An error in the theory of knowledge? How can a machine's
error (whatever that may be) be equated with a philosophical error (whatever
that may be)?

"Diseases may surge but not because of global warming" -- how so? Are you saying
that there is no link between global warming and the greater risk of malaria
transmission in parts of the world hitherto comparatively free from malaria? Are
you implying that Paul Epstein has got his facts wrong? "We invent machines only
to give our calculations an air of independence."  I can more or less get my
head around this notion, but I can't take it any further. What can one say in
response?

Regards
Simon



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