"What luck for tyrants that people don't think!"
--Hitler
Sunday, November 23, 2008
The Sitting Ducks of Political Correctness
Criminals are bound to pay close attention to those too politically correct to suspect a protected-status person, group, situation, or event.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Fun With Self-Exemption
A self-referentially inconsistent statement undercuts itself. It denies or cannot explain something that's required for that statement itself to make sense and be true.
Also, a self-referentially inconsistent statement is its own subject matter. Hence, it refers to itself. But a self-referentially inconsistent statement can't explain or justify itself.
I'm so glad no one can read or communicate a statement in English!
Also, a self-referentially inconsistent statement is its own subject matter. Hence, it refers to itself. But a self-referentially inconsistent statement can't explain or justify itself.
I'm so glad no one can read or communicate a statement in English!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A Free Ride for Meaninglessness
My notion of meaninglessness would not draw any conclusions
or have any implications for my life, since that too would fall
under the same category and be jettisoned with the same
eager relish. Any apparent deviation would be purely
arbitrary, so that I would not be accused of capitulating
to some kind of rationalistic objectivism.
So there's no way to tell the difference between "life is
meaningless" and "life is meaningful" since both positions
seem to enjoy all the same supposedly paradoxical
characteristics: self-exemption, self-referential
inconsistency, etc. Surreptious obligation to hold value X
in relation to philosophy Y.
What I would then do is exempt my own views from the premise
of universal absurdity, and then parade them around casually
as if they are necessary imperatives for intellectual salvation. A
"Come to Jesus" all over again, of sorts, but with social
approval retained.
I take my views on the grand tour: through all the motions
of their counterparts: being stated, being held as a
proposition that has some fixed relation to the person who
holds it, declaring it to be somehow appropriate,
acceptable, worth having as a view, asserted, etc., and of
course suspended when I get inconsistency allegations.
Postmodernism has had a really bad time of this, while the
views it has tried to counter have picked up the
methological ball and run with it. Reminds me of the time
I asked a prof at UT what he thought about arbitrary
relativism for the hell of it, using a roulette wheel to
choose which values (or disvalues) to champion. It would
have to be patterned after Wheel of Fortune or else I would
just plain lose interest.
My view would be that values are person-relative, including the
values of meaning, consistency, reason, and
self-referential implications. But to hold this, I would have
to get rid of that nagging backdrop of fixed definitions and
selective preferences, both for my own values and value per se.
Nevertheless, self-exemption and arbitrary deviation are
great fun and should be forced on all at-risk youth.
But the implicit rationalism of all the above still dogs me.
or have any implications for my life, since that too would fall
under the same category and be jettisoned with the same
eager relish. Any apparent deviation would be purely
arbitrary, so that I would not be accused of capitulating
to some kind of rationalistic objectivism.
So there's no way to tell the difference between "life is
meaningless" and "life is meaningful" since both positions
seem to enjoy all the same supposedly paradoxical
characteristics: self-exemption, self-referential
inconsistency, etc. Surreptious obligation to hold value X
in relation to philosophy Y.
What I would then do is exempt my own views from the premise
of universal absurdity, and then parade them around casually
as if they are necessary imperatives for intellectual salvation. A
"Come to Jesus" all over again, of sorts, but with social
approval retained.
I take my views on the grand tour: through all the motions
of their counterparts: being stated, being held as a
proposition that has some fixed relation to the person who
holds it, declaring it to be somehow appropriate,
acceptable, worth having as a view, asserted, etc., and of
course suspended when I get inconsistency allegations.
Postmodernism has had a really bad time of this, while the
views it has tried to counter have picked up the
methological ball and run with it. Reminds me of the time
I asked a prof at UT what he thought about arbitrary
relativism for the hell of it, using a roulette wheel to
choose which values (or disvalues) to champion. It would
have to be patterned after Wheel of Fortune or else I would
just plain lose interest.
My view would be that values are person-relative, including the
values of meaning, consistency, reason, and
self-referential implications. But to hold this, I would have
to get rid of that nagging backdrop of fixed definitions and
selective preferences, both for my own values and value per se.
Nevertheless, self-exemption and arbitrary deviation are
great fun and should be forced on all at-risk youth.
But the implicit rationalism of all the above still dogs me.
Neo-Kantian Logic
I. Transcendentalism Revisited
Our knowledge comes from two sources in the mind: receiving representations of objects, and also conceptualizing representations of objects.
So receiving representations provides given objects, while knowing through representations provides thoughts about objects. Therefore, intuition and concepts are required elements of all knowledge, and neither by themselves can yield knowledge.
Both intuition and concepts are either pure or empirical. They are empirical when sensation is contained in an object. They are pure when no sensation is mixed up with the representation. Therefore, pure intuition contains only the form through which we see. Pure conception is the form through which we think. Pure intuition and pure concepts are only possible as prior notions, while empirical intuition and concepts are only possible in the aftermath of an experience of empirical data.
Sensibility is the mind's ability to receive representations whenever affected. But the understanding is the power to produce representations to spontaneously know things. Our intuition always has to be sensuous and must always be the way we are affected by objects, whereas the understanding is what enables us to think about the objects of our sensuous intuition. Neither one of these faculties is preferable to the other. Without sensibility, objects would not be given to us. And without understanding, we could not think about them.
Thoughts without contents are empty.
Intuitions without concepts are blind.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Our knowledge comes from two sources in the mind: receiving representations of objects, and also conceptualizing representations of objects.
So receiving representations provides given objects, while knowing through representations provides thoughts about objects. Therefore, intuition and concepts are required elements of all knowledge, and neither by themselves can yield knowledge.
Both intuition and concepts are either pure or empirical. They are empirical when sensation is contained in an object. They are pure when no sensation is mixed up with the representation. Therefore, pure intuition contains only the form through which we see. Pure conception is the form through which we think. Pure intuition and pure concepts are only possible as prior notions, while empirical intuition and concepts are only possible in the aftermath of an experience of empirical data.
Sensibility is the mind's ability to receive representations whenever affected. But the understanding is the power to produce representations to spontaneously know things. Our intuition always has to be sensuous and must always be the way we are affected by objects, whereas the understanding is what enables us to think about the objects of our sensuous intuition. Neither one of these faculties is preferable to the other. Without sensibility, objects would not be given to us. And without understanding, we could not think about them.
Thoughts without contents are empty.
Intuitions without concepts are blind.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
Bored Indifference Posturing as a Way of Life
Modern culture is a refuge camp where all the geniuses have been driven out by an unfriendly regime. But it's also an old flea market where in the middle of a pile of junk those with a good eye find thrown-away treasures.
Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Alan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind