Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 21:20:17 +0000 (BST)
From: John Appleby <pyrew-AT-csv.warwick.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: New Year, Same Old Crap


On Tue, 5 Jan 1999 Unleesh-AT-aol.com wrote:

> The reason that I would say Reason is reactive is because it just assumes the
> status quo mindstate and works from there.

This is not because reason is reactive, it is because certain philosophies
deploy reason as a way of creating a standardized subject. 

This does not really happen in either Spinoza or Leibniz, both of whom are
rationalists. In particular, Leibniz's perspectivism sends reason into
some very strange places.
 
> It's one thing for reason to make us wary of following another's
> arguments. It's another thing when it begins to invalidate experience.

No it's the same thing. You apply reason to make sense of experience.
Two people undergo the same experience but describe it totally
differently, eg 'vision of angels'/'alien visitation'. Are you going to 
believe them both? 

You cannot take experience on trust: 'Experience is authority, but it
expiates itself' (Blanchot quoted by Bataille)

Regards

John