File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-07-10.220, message 47


Date: Wed, 12 Jun 1996 21:24:33 -0500
From: rahul-AT-peaches.ph.utexas.edu (Rahul Mahajan)
Subject: Re: ..cat


>"This kind of crude reductionism is, alas, found all too often among
>postmodern scholars. They start with the premise "All thought is
>linguistic," which itself is a lie, and go on to say that everything is
>stuctured like a language -- as Lacan's famous but meaningless dictum."
>
>Have you ever tried to think without language?  All thought, as Peirce showed,
>is in signs.  And this is not limited to postmodern scholarship; modern
>analytical philosophy operateds on the same basis.  This is not to say
>that all
>thought is in words.  For example, I have yet to find any physicist who can
>explain quantum mechanics in any detail without the math (and most of the ones
>to whom I have spoken said exactly that).
>
>Yours &c.,
>
>Jeff Johnson                      "Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato,
>Undergrad, Political Science            sed magis amica veritas."
>Cal Poly Pomona                                       --Aristotle

If you think about it, you'll realize this is not true. A considerable
amount of thought is in fact visual in nature, and nearly impossible to
describe in words. Much of the thought that goes into mathematical
discoveries (or even figuring out how to solve a math problem) is of this
nature. After you figure out the correct way of looking at it, then you
have to find a derivation in mathematical language. Since the statement is
false, Peirce can hardly have shown it, can he?

Rahul




     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005