Subject: Re: Perseus Project
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2002 21:34:51 +0000


Jud wrote:

>Jud (previously)
>PURPOSE: I have continually said and say again that "purpose" is an
>existential modality of the hewer not the hewed - the hammerer not the 
>hammer
>- so I am NOT and have NEVER denied that "purpose," does not exist as an
>existential modality of mankind.
>
>Anthony:
>Since in this sense, "purpose" and "essences" are real (i.e, as an
>existential modality of mankind), then this could not have been the sense 
>you
>had in mind earlier when you rejected purpose.
>
>Jud:
>Hahahah!
>You are up to your foxy tricks of putting not only words but also ideas 
>into
>my mind. YOU may conceive of existential modalities of the hewer and the
>hammerer as existing, but that doesn't mean that I do. For me the only
>things that exist are material things

Material things? Where is the "appearance" of matter? Remember, not color, 
or sound, or smell, or hardness, since these are qualities OF material 
things. Again you inconsistently apply the criterion of appearance vs. 
non-appearance, and yet you rant:

>I TOLD you that the religionists have messed up our ability to discuss the
>ontological nature of reality rationally, and NOW you can see the results 
>of
>their intellectual vandalism.

Your ontology is far more obfuscated than anything the religionists offered, 
because even if they were wrong, they were at least consistent.

>Anthony:
>Rather, the sense of purpose you must have had in mind in your rejection 
>was
>something of beings themselves independent of us.
>
>Jud:
>Again you persist in putting your own interpretations of what I must have
>had in my mind.

1. You were REJECTING purpose before.
2. But you DO accept the existence of purpose as an existential modality of 
mankind.
3. Therefore, the sense of purpose which you rejected could not have been as 
an existential modality of mankind.

You are trying to reply like this:

ME: The pink elephant in my dream last night was not real, but the blue 
dinosaur was.
YOU: That is inconsistent; by what criterion do you accept the blue dinosaur 
but not the pink elephant?
ME: I never denied the existence of the pink elephant - it existed as an 
existential modality of me.
YOU: But that is not the sense in which you were denying it before.
ME: Stop putting words in my mouth and ideas in my mind!

A first year philosophy student could see the obvious equivocation here.

>How do you know what I have in my mind for in your Berklean
>isolation I might not exist never mind having a mind? Following from your
>must have permit me to introduce a might of my own. For all I know
>Bishop Berkeley may have believed that beings themselves did not exist
>independently of his mind. Now he is gone the being still remain - for me
>anyway, though patently not for you in your Berklean isolation, accept 
>maybe
>as painted figures projected on the revolving magic-lantern of your mind? 
>Do
>you believe that objects will cease to exist for others after your death? 
>:-)

You must have missed the post in which I explicitly told you that the 
conclusions which I am drawing from your position are not my own. They 
follow from your criterion of appearance vs. non-appearance.

>Anthony:
>So you cannot attempt to respond now that you never denied the existence of
>purpose in the OTHER sense (as an existential modality of mankind), since
>that was not the sense we were talking about concerning your rejection of
>purpose. Nice try old boy!
>
>Jud:
>If you look back the discussion it hinged on whether a HAMMER had a purpose
>of its own - not a human HAMMERER.

Yes, and if we stick to your criterion (appearance vs. non-appearance), then 
not only does a hammer have no purpose of its own, but also no matter of its 
own; and yet, you inconsistently affirm the existence of matter.

>Jud (previously)
>CAUSALITY: I have steadily maintained for years on this list that I 
>conceive
>and accept that "causality" is the way in which we describe that event or
>those events, or series of actions, or existential modalities, of the
>billiard player, the "effect" of which, is the collision of one or more 
>balls
>with one or more other balls.
>
>Anthony:
>No, do not try to revise what you said, which was:
>
>"The Atomic Bomb doesn't explode itself any more than the star conceals
>itself behind trees as we walk along, or as the Pepperpot hides itself and
>sinks itself into the mountain. WE explode the bomb by pushing the button.
>The Atomic reaction of a far off star is the end result of a long causal
>chain of cosmic button-pushing, the origin of which we can only speculate
>about."
>
>Here, you were specifically criticizing the idea that a star "shows itself"
>or "conceals itself" since only we can do this. You were therefore arguing
>that self-showing and self-concealing are our existential modalities which 
>we
>anthropomorphically impose on the star. In contrast to this, you say that 
>the
>star is really an "atomic reaction" that is "the end result of a long 
>causal
>chain of cosmic button-pushing, the origin of which we can only speculate
>about." You were therefore contrasting "causal chains" AGAINST our
>existential modalities, contrary to what you tried to say in this post. Try
>again old boy!
>
>Jud:
>You entirely missed the point (too much altar wine?)  ; -)
>My comparison was NOT one of contrasting "causal chains" AGAINST our
>existential modalities, but of contrasting our existential modalities with
>the existential modalities of stars.

Yes, and you contrasted "causal chains" against OUR existential modalities 
(such as self-concealing), not against those of the star. So then causality, 
unlike purpose, would not be something that we anthropomorphically impose on 
things, but an existential modality of those things themselves (such as 
stars). Yet, causality has no "appearance" either, contradicting your 
earlier use of the criterion of appearance vs. non-appearance in your 
rejection of purpose. Contradictions galore from the one who accuses others 
of obfuscation.

>My point was that just as the hammer lies there purposelessly, and is maybe
>picked up by the hammerer in order to pursue HIS purposes, in the same way
>the star just occupies its existential relative spatial positionality
>purposelessly.
>It has no conception of the human beings millions of miles away on planet
>earth and certainly has no intention or desire or purpose to show itself to
>them if a break in the earth's cloud cover affords the opportunity. In the
>case of the star it is undergoing a continuous existential modality of
>nuclear reaction, the causal chains for which events we can, [with the help
>of cosmologists] construct theories about. What I was addressing here was 
>the
>originative cause that set the chain in action which led to the star's
>existential modality of continuous atomic reaction, [that which you call 
>God]
>that I referred to metaphorically as cosmic button-pushing, the origin of
>which we can only speculate about."

Whether you are addressing the originative cause or the resulting causal 
chain which led up to the atomic reaction, you are still inconsistently 
accepting causal chains in the same sense that you rejected purpose (as an 
existential modality of things besides us), even though the criterion you 
used (appearance vs. non-appearance) would demand that both be rejected.

>Jud: (previously)
>COLOUR: As for colour, I accept "colour" as the human apprehension
>[existential modality] of that which results as a product of the 
>transaction
>of the human sensual apparatus with the incoming data of an exterior 
>entity.
>
>Anthony:
>Yes, even though color HAS an appearance, and you had rejected purpose 
>before
>for precisely the reason that it does NOT have an appearance. In other 
>words,
>you are contradicting the very reasoning you gave earlier
>(appearance vs. non-appearance). And now you say that the ontologies of
>transcendentalists and religionists are obfuscated?
>
>Jud:
>I consistently pointed out that purpose exists in the sense that it is a
>word or reificational noun which we employ to describe an existential
>modality of a hammerer - it has no appearance of its own, for it is the
>proposal or intention of the hammerer to commit himself to a certain 
>action.
>The hammerer certainly exists in the world - but his purposes and 
>intentions
>only exist reificationally as ideas expressed as words.

Which means, once again, that you are rejecting both purpose and color as 
existential modalities of the HAMMER, even though the criterion you 
explicitly used (appearance vs. non-appearance) would demand that color be 
accepted as an existential modality of the hammer. Contradictions, 
contradictions, contradictions, and yet you say:

>the ontologies of transcendentalists and
>religionists are obfuscated and grow more obfuscational exponentially by 
>the
>minute.

Speck, log, eye.

Anthony Crifasi

_________________________________________________________________
Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com



     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---