Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 20:51:20 -0700
From: Bob/Diane <guevara-AT-rain.org>
Subject: Re: What is being said


howdy all.  i'm enjoying my 3rd glass of a nice cabernet.  is wine
language?  hmmmmm.


>It sure seems that a lot of people have a lot of things to say on the
>initial question, "what do H-ians mean by Language?"
>
>But with this plethora of views having come to hand, I think that we
>might do well to ask some of the participants "what do you mean by ...?"
>where the ellipses are filled by their various comments.
>
>To be perfectly frank, I don't understand many of these comments. Take
>just one example:
>
>>i say that a "thing" is very rigidly "defined."
>>i can bring about evidence to support it.
>>i can validate it.
>>it is self-consistent.
>>it is calculated.
>
>
>C'mon, man. Take a "medium-sized dry good," like a chair. Is it rigidly
>defined? What's it mean: that you can bring evidence to support a chair,
>that you can validate a chair, that a chair is self-consistent, that a
>chair is calculated? Is this meant as some kind of endorsement of what
>another participant called "foundationalist" thinking? Even though the
>problem which many "foundationalist" faced, at least those of the
>phenomenalist variety (note the word: it is NOT "phenomenologist"), was
>that they could accord only a "mentalistic" nature to such items as
>chairs. Or is this even meant as either a characterization of or a
>caricature of "ein Seiendes"?  


i was referring to the implicit "range" of related-ness to chair, as an
example.  my point is that the chair, in the mode of everydayness is just a
"thing."  an object separate from me the subject.  my characterization was
meant to emphasize the apparent concrete-ness of the chair.  in the world
of everyday-ness, it exists independent of language as a separate thing,
however if i decided to "prove" it's existence, i could do so by reasoning
an "absolute validity" of such an existence.  and in the same sort of way,
i can come to an absolute validity of my wife being stubborn, as an
example.  i can mentally hold her that way.  she is that in my mind and
since i'm being my mind (default ground),  i am that she is stubborn.
that's who she is for me.  i can bring about tons of evidence that supports
she-is-stubborn.  as a default human being, we "do" this is my claim.  and
we do it habitually.

a thing can be proven to exist scientifically, of course.  but it isn't the
"truth."  truth is "truthed" in that it is "what" is disclosed in the
open-ness of Being. 



>Or what is "metaphysically based thought," or "calculative thinking,"
>and whatever their meaning, in what sense is one an expression for the
>other, as another participant's use of "eo ipso," suggested? For
>example, are a customer's calculating a tip, or my calculating how much
>change I have to return to a customer -- something of which I enjoy an
>abundance of practice -- examples of "metaphysically based Thought"?


james.  please consider carefully the distinction between "contemplative"
thought and "praxis."  when calculating change, you are indeed using
"mental" calculation.  a perfectly appropriate use of such thought.  simple
and useful.  then informed by this activity, you give change in an actual
encounter with the customer.

this completed human being that i'm considering is foremost a responsible
party or the cause of it's life as it measures out; rather than being it's
familiar and recognizable "behavior" directing matters in a familiar way
without real awareness of presence as present.

use of ratiocination is directed rather than the "unconscious" or
involuntary amorphous blob (?) of activity generating the result -- out of
automaticity.  or habit.  or a  "patterned" way of being in the world.  you
know.  the way you are.  you "do" your life a very certain way, in general
and everyone recognizes you as james "because" james does life in a james
kind of way in a world of subject and object.


>Or
>consider calculating in math, even. Sure in the lower reaches of math
>there is some calculating (calculative thinking, for the sake of
>argument), but is it metaphysically based thought?



yes.  read _What Calls for Thinking_ & _The End of Philosophy and Task of
Thinking_,


>When Goedel started
>arguing that an adequate math epistemology must countenance a genuine
>Platonic ontology of math objects, his views were widely criticized.
>Indeed, historically, the philosophical tendency has been to provide
>maths with a "basis/foundation" which is bereft of such metaphysical
>views as Plato's or Goedel's. If, on the other hand, all of these
>varieties of 'calculative thinking' are "m based" because they invoke
>concepts of identity and sameness, then so also is such type of thinking
>as underlies our greeting a friend on the street who we haven't seen for
>a while, or our telling a friend to help herself to the last beer in the
>fridge, or our asking whether some essay is the same article as appeared
>in the papers. In short, if invoking identity and sameness is
>characteristic of "metaphysically based" thought, then all thought is so
>based,



all contemplative thought is so based.  read as above.  as i indicated, my
assertion is that calculative thinking is technological as well as the
ground of default relationship or "being with" as you indicated in your
examples.  i assert that you relate to your friend in a way that is
mediated by your indentity's hierarchy of values.  which is perfectly fine
if you were aware of it and in charge of it's deployment.  the particular
expression of your personality that is.  and it's fine to act as given by
an automaticity, in anycase, you survive as the james that you are.  either
way.  the consideration is quality of life or "aliveness."



>and so also is the thought that: because "Das Mitdasein" delivers
>so many of my un-expressly thought "thoughts," you and I may suffer many
>of the same thoughts.



i would say yes.  the same "sort" of contemplations.  a basic "kind" of
internal dialogue.  the same "exact" voicing is another matter that i
consider irrelevant.  being human is, in a sense, culturally derived.  in
our default configuration (metaphyically grounded beings) we be human in a
manner given by beings given metaphysically.  without exception until a
shift in the very ground that gives us.



>My point is simply that in our conversations about H's views (early or
>later), or in communicating our thoughts for which H's views are a
>vehicle, shouldn't exceptional care be exercised in language, such care
>as H's subtlety demands. Else wise, it seems that we may be susceptible
>to the kind of bewitchment against which Wittgenstein was so wont to
>warn us. What is more, we may be guilty of committing the same blunder
>of which Wittgenstein accused the tradition: taking language on holiday;
>and on holiday, language don't work.
>Cheers,
>jim

precisely.  the "mind" is indeed bewitching.

so james.  i request that you positively state your view.  as in contribute
positively to the conversation.  i guess i'm asking for your take on the
deconstruction and metaphysical thinking.

are you arguing for the status quo?
are you proposing something new in the way of workability?

by the way jim.  why don't you address me directly?


Robert T. Guevara   | guevara-AT-rain.org
Electrical Engineer | guevarb-AT-mugu.navy.mil
Camarillo CA, USA   | http://www.rain.org/~guevara


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