Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 10:06:49 -0700
Subject: PKF: jerry fodor



anybody here familiar with jerry fodor's work ?

i have recently read his modularity of mind nd ther are some paragrahs that i have a hard time understanting (about the observational-theoretical distinction)>

thank you

>Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 11:41:46 -0700
> Re: PKF: .Expert vs. non-expert ...... Terry Bristol <bristol-AT-isepp.org> feyerabend-AT-lists.village.virginia.eduReply-To: feyerabend-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>
>On 7/28/01 1:20 PM, "K. S. Fester" <ksfester-AT-tin.it> wrote:
>> Here is one way I have challenged the dogma of medical
>> science of ,and perhaps Feyerabend would agree.
>> 
>> There is this dilemma between traditional reductionist
>> medical science and alternative healing eg. homoeopathy,
>> naturopathy.  Since the enlightenment 'science' has been
>> trying to throw all unprovable healing methods into the
>> garbage can.
>
>Karin -
>
>Nice comments about medical science.  Feyerabend would be quite sympathetic
>I am sure.  I used to teach a course called "The Political Environment of
>Health" geared primarily to nursing BSN students.
>
>I suggest reading Fritjof Capra's "The Turning Point".  This was Capra's
>much more sophisticated follow-up to "The Tao of Physics".  Capra makes a
>great case for the complementarity of the Physician's Research Program and
>the Nursing Research Program.  The former sees only the physical entity
>while the latter sees the person and the system within which she lives.
>
>I don't think PKF was aware of Capra's work, but they are on a similar pathCapra has what Kuhn called a "conversion" from the classical science
>tradition to what might be called ³eastern² science.    Unfortunately a
>conversion tends to ignore the incommensurability of the two traditions, and
>typically tries to subsume the rejected tradition into the favored
>tradition.  A better guess is essential complementarity (see below).  These
>are the research traditions that Gerald Holton (cf. The Scientific
>Imagination) called Apollonesian and Dionysian.
>
>From American Heritage Dictionary:
>Dionysus n. Greek & Roman Mythology.
>The god of wine and of an orgiastic religion celebrating the power and
>fertility of nature. Also called Bacchus. [Latin Dionùsus, from Greek
>Dionusos.]
>
>Dionysian adj.
>1. Greek Mythology. a. Of or relating to Dionysus. b. Of or devoted to the
>worship of Dionysus.
>2. Often dionysian. Of an ecstatic, orgiastic, or irrational nature;
>frenzied or undisciplined: ³remained the nearest to the instinctual, the
>irrational in music, and thus to the Dionysian spirit in art² (Musco
>Carner).
>3. Often dionysian. In the philosophy of Nietzsche, of or displaying
>creative-intuitive power as opposed to critical-rational power. [From Latin
>Dionùsius, from Greek Dionusios, from Dionusos, Dionysus.]
>
>Feyerabend¹s anarchism and dadaism in science as in art and so forth fit
>well into the Dionysian tradition (?).  I wonder if others on this list have
>seen this connection.  I like the ³irrational nature; frenzied and
>undisciplined² comment here.  One must keep in mind that the source is
>officially quite ³rational² (American Heritage).  When you have two
>complementary traditions one always sees the other as proposing an
>alternative rationality ­ typically referred to as ³irrational².  (Because
>they are complementary one can not be made sense of in term of the other;
>at least legitimately.)
>
>In the past twenty-five years scholars of the pre-Socratic era have realized
>that the Dionysian tradition came to the Greeks from India (a guy named
>Orpheus is an early proponent).  It first shows up in Thales of Samos, but
>most clearly articulated by Anaximander.  This leads a little later to
>Heraclitus.  The more famous opposition between Heraclitus and Parmenides is
>at the core of Plato¹s dialogues, Parmenides and Theatetus.   The former
>dialogue is tough reading ­ it is the Greek experience of undecidability
>(due to irreducible uncertainty).  This is how and where the Greeks
>recognized the limits of reductionism and the consequence: namely, a
>complementarity of research traditions.  (Each tradition is like the axis of
>a graph (x- or y-axis) with reality in the defined space; i.e. No ³pure²
>examples, all reals are mixed, displaying an aspect of each, but only if you
>look for it;  like saying everything has a wave and particle aspect.)   The
>Theatetus begins to explore the consequence of embracing this seemingly
>paradoxical situation.  The essential ambiguity leaves each of us in a
>situation wherein how we experience the world depends at least in some
>essential ways on how we look at it (like in QM where we have an essential
>element of subjectivity/idealism), how we explore it, how we live our livesIt is this essential stand-off of the two traditions that defines the space
>that makes Socrates famous question meaningful:  How should we live our
>lives?  And so the humanities are born.  The existentialist are on to the
>notion that you don¹t have a choice on whether to choose ­ it is an
>essential aspect of everyone¹s reality, everyone¹s relation to nature.
>
>Karin, you mention the Bible.  Note that Heraclitus (and before him Orpheus,
>who apparently brought the Dionysian tradition to the Mediterranian area)
>found the essence of the universe not in numbers and symmetries but in the
>logos (the Word).   And ³the word² is the core of ³the story of the
>universe²;  the greatest story ever told(?).  The Parmenidean reality is
>absolute symmetry ­ no real change or development ­ despite appearances.
>Heraclitus sees an essentially developing and differentiating universe ­
>despite the demonstration of apparently universal regularities governing
>phenomena.  Tracing word origins we find that the term ³logos², as used by
>the authors of the Bible, derives from the same traditions that Heraclitus
>and Orpheus worked from.
>
>Taken by themselves the Apollonesian/Parmenidean tradition seems to want to
>converge on ³truth², while the Dionysian/Heraclitean tradition is concerned
>with understanding the ³meaning².  As each pushes its extreme position it
>loses the essential partnership of the other;  the results being either
>non-sensical or paradoxical:  truth without meaning, meaning without truth.
>
>Isn¹t this fun!?  It is just the pain and the waiting that is somewhat
>aggravating.
>
>Terry Bristol
>
>
>P.S.  An Anecdote
>Feyerabend switched from traditional to alternative medicine later in life.
>PKF carried a bullet embedded near his spine in his lower back ever since
>being shot in WWII.  It was inoperable.  He would have it checked every once
>in a while.  He told me that he liked to visit a new physician and he
>wouldn't tell him that there was a bullet, just that he had had a problem
>for some time.  He enjoyed the look on the face of the radiologist and
>physician when they ³discovered² the bullet ­ it being rather prominent on
>the X-ray.  Just a little story showing what a fun guy PKF was.
>
><< msg2.html >>




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