Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 12:07:48 -0400
From: Stirling Newberry <allegro-AT-thecia.net>
Subject: Re: PLC: "Deconstruction"


>Stirling,
>
>
>> >> Do you mean:

Rothstein wrote a book on music and mathematics called "Emblems of the
Mind". Like many late moderns he "retreats" to the platonist position: he
can't accept pure relativism, but cannot see any formal system which
explains the effect of beauty in music and mathematics. Hence the idea of
some external , or quasi external, standard of ideals becomes the only safe
haven.

>
>
>>
>> >> 2. There if the ruby were looked at then the characteristics which are
...

So you would say that in order to appreciate the beauty of a thing the
person observer would have to be possessed of the attributes required to
translate perception into understanding.

Would you also say then that a book can be said to have meaning if there
*could* be a person who was able to understand what is written in it?




>When A. talks about the good, he's pretty much
>saying, "What good is it to me?" Plato's Good is
>something quite different. At least that's as I
>have come to understand it.

Aristotle believes that things have ends implicit in them separate from any
particular person - hence politics is not what is good for a person or
group of people - but the good of combining the ends of various other
disciplines. From this comes his famous question: is the good of a polity
that which is good for the poeple who govern - or for all people in it? He
then points out that they are often different. See Nichomachean Ethics.


Stirling Newberry
business: openmarket.com
personal: allegro-AT-thecia.net
War and Romance: http://www.thecia.net/users/allegro/public_html




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