Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 15:50:30 +0100
Subject: Re: Short and to the Point.
From: michaelP <michael-AT-sandwich-de-sign.co.uk>


on 30/7/03 2:20 pm, GEVANS613-AT-aol.com at GEVANS613-AT-aol.com wrote:
 
> 
> Dear Michael,
> Your problem was you didn't grasp [or refused to see] the essential ground of
> my position. I spelled it out over and over again.
> To cut to the chase - here it is my position on the matter in three short
> sentences:
> 
> (1) An abstract designatum is acceptable in natural  language, as long as it
> is not reified into an actual entitic denotatum.
> (2) An abstract designatum is unacceptable  as a denotatum in philosophical
> language, unless any suggestion of reification is tacitly acknowledged.
> (3) If ontological  language the use an abstract designatum as a denotatum is
> not acknowledged, then what is said is  automatically meaningless
> 
> For reasons that are still beyond my understanding, you chose fit  to
> alchemise my position to mean:
> 
> All words are abstractions ‹ therefore all language is automatically
> meaningless.

Dear Jud, and just to set the record straight before I abandon this
discussion) please have another look (and from a delicious line in EmineM:
"let me give you motherfuckers some help!" {forgive the vulgarity, its MnM's
and its a quote, but you get the message}):

By no means do I think even from your position that language is
automatically meaningless (and certainly not at all, all language)...
although you did say yourself that all words are abstractions (I wonder if
you could tell us what you mean precisely by that; I have gone along with
this because that was my brief, to walk along with your brand of thinking,
but it is not mine...). Firstly, I have not mentioned the notion of
meaninglessness {nonsense might not be meaningless} or automaticness
anywhere. Secondly, my analysis, briefly again, is that if one says that (in
philosophical speech, not anything else!) speaking seriously about that
which does not exist is speaking nonsense, and, that the designata of
abstract (and other) nouns are things that do not exist, then, speaking of
the designata of abstract (and other) nouns is speaking nonsense. My only
addition is that it makes no difference whether the speech about
non-existent things is acknowledged (ironically, cynically, or otherwise) or
not, it remains nonsense (it either is or it is not). My furthest and most
serious addition is in noticing that (the class of) all "abstract (and
other) nouns" is itself an abstract (or other) noun, and therefore, such a
statement as concerning the designata of abstract (and other) nouns is
itself a piece of nonsense since it insists on speaking of non-existent
things. In other words, such a set of principles leads by its own
application to nullifying its own utterances, especially and crucially, the
very principles themselves. And this is fatal and cannot in all honesty be
fudged. The answer, of course, is to re-examine the principles themselves;
e.g., look at the definition of the criteria for existence/non-existence
(and before you jump in as usual without thinking further, you must have
criteria because otherwise you should not be able to distinguish between
existent and non-existent entities, and you clearly seem to be able to);
re-examine whether the nouns you call "abstract" are necessarily the result
of an abstraction process, i.e., re-think 'abstraction' and its relation to
existence (again, don't just jump in with the oh so easy denial of the
existence of existence: you know the way I am using the term, just as I know
the way you use the abstraction "abstraction" in your innumerable speeches
that employ it); or much further, re-think the relation between language,
logos and what is signified by linguistic signs (and, again, please don't
just jump in saying that you've done this any number of times: to my mind,
your philosophy is in ruins, so attempt some kind of step back or even the
ruins will collapse upon you and your comrades); etc.

Remember that as it stands in accordance with my analysis, your philosophy
cannot even begin to speak its principles because it implicitly denies them
in the same breath. But, language is fine (or "alright" as Wittgenstein once
said).

regards

michaelP



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