Subject: re:  perspectivism and tautology
Date: Wed, 17 May 95 0:48:17 MDT
From: "Nathan Bauer" <njbauer-AT-acs.ucalgary.ca>


On May 10, David Westling wrote:

> . . . . This is the problem with Truth with a capital or small t.  One
> remains in the realm of concepts regardless of content of the utterance.
> Tautology is powerless to rescue us from the deficiencies of a world-
> view in which the concept is primary.  We must always start with a
> conceptual premise.  This leads us away from particularization, from
> concretization, and toward bloodless abstraction.  Heraclitus' efforts
> to move away from a=a in his aphorism of the river's waters is founded
> in this pre-conceptual view of experience.  If we can agree that we _are_
> speaking of experience here.

Is it our world view (in which the concept is primary) that is
deficient, or is it our desire for certain/absolute/eternal/
objective truths that gets us in trouble?  It seems to me that
conceptual language is quite adequate for small 't' truths (those
that recognize their subjective and un-absolute nature).

As for Heraclitus, is his river aphorism really an effort "to
move away from a=a"?  I always saw it primarily as a defense of
becoming against the notion of being.  And doesn't Heraclitus'
notion of becoming represent a conceptual understanding of
reality (albeit a very good one)?  Perhaps I have failed to
understand what you mean by a "pre-conceptual view of experience".

Bye for now,
    Nathan Bauer (njbauer-AT-acs.ucalgary.ca)


	--- from list nietzsche-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu ---

     ------------------