Ohhh snap!
Let’s keep things civil in here, please.
I’m not trying to insult anyone. I am trying to point out a serious flaw in Magee’s presentation. And I wish that iam would respond to it directly, instead of answering my points with a series of questions. I am asking for good faith argumentation.
Personally, I would like to hear what Heidegger has to say about this topic.
Define “say”.
oh wait, now I deleted all that.
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According to Magee, (I) “real life” is too subtle and particular to be captured by any grand theorizing. And (II) philosophy is all about theorizing. (That’s his objection to philosophy, since it leads to inauthenticity. --A nutshell).
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According to iam, analytic philosophers “punt off” concerns about grand theorizing to others. (i.e., “their point is…that human language cannot ever hope to encompass with any degree of precision”).
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Therefore, iam and Magee have completely different (opposite, in fact) views of philosophy. (Which is fine, in itself).
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I often do not know what Faust is getting at, but here’s a position in logical space that’s pertinent: ‘Any given theory may never be complete and capture all new data, but nevertheless theories are useful, improvable, and don’t lead to inauthentic behaviour when used while in tune with the facts of a particular situation’.
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Nothing iam said is incompatible with #4.
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Therefore, if Faust is arguing #4, then I will not be able to understand what iam and Faust are arguing about.
Q.E.D.
Monie, read my posts. I am not arguing. Iam is.
Again, my own philosophical interests gravitate around the extent to which general statements can be embodied out in the world existentially. Now, I’m not suggesting that logic and epistemology are only relevant there, just that they pique my own interest to the extent that they are.
imabiguous:
Magee is merely suggesting that, regarding many crucial aspects of human interaction, “what the facts are” and “what the facts mean” are open to conflicting interpretations that cannot be pinned down “theoretically” by academic philosophers.
I think I have. Or, rather, in reading Magee’s words above, that is how I interpreted them. Perhaps I am misinterpreting them instead. But, in having read a number of his books, that’s my honest reaction to his argument.
"Theory ", however, is, admittedly, one of those words [like, say, “cleave”], that can be used to convey opposite things.
To wit:
Theory:
“a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena: Einstein’s theory of relativity”
“a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact”
Magee [to me] seems suspicious of academic language used to encompass things it has no capacity to encompass. I merely extend his argument beyond the aesthetic and the somatic to include value judgments and issues relating to one’s “sense of self”.
But, sure, since his argument above is also my own argument, perhaps I am misconstruing it because [psychologically] I want it to overlap with my own in order to reinforce it.
By “instantiate” I am referring more to the things Magee and I note regarding the “limitations of language”. Not to Plato and the rationalists. I want the words to be thoroughly integrated into the worlds in which our sense of self, our value judgments, our aesthetic proclivities and our somatic inclinations might come into conflict. What then can our arguments express, explain, reconcile and resolve?
But there are folks who do indeed try to encompass racialist arguments in an elaborate intellectual – even “scientific” – edifice. To the extent these can be called “philosophical theories” might be open to debate, but they by no means reflect merely the blind prejudice of the “Uncle Neds” in this world.
Again, any behaviors can [theoretically or otherwise] be rationalized in a world sans God…
How does one rationalize that one should not be a pedophile when such was originated as a blasphemy because it was an act of spilling the seed (having sex when it was unnatural; i.e. when procreation was not possible), wherein only then did the social conundrums of being a child who had sex with an adult arise as due to the typical social acceptance that it was a bad thing in the first place? You can rationalize wrong it but it requires seeing that spilling the seed is actually an act of killing potential life, but then without God one has to ask why is it relevant to care about a future life? (of course i am against pedophilia) The idea of the spiritual or otherwise force or forces beyond us controlling and /or empowering is what served as the foundation for all our morals. Further more if God does exist, why would one want to consider the worlds sans God as such would be trying to work with a puzzle that was missing a piece…regardless if you could, it would be easier, better, more efficient to see the whole picture. So i see the argument that we “don’t need to know about God.” silly.
iam - here’s my problem. While he’s knocking the usefulness of theories, he’s using a made-up example and he’s not telling us which sense of “theory” he is using. But we know, for instance, what kind of theory John Rawls uses. It’s not just some vague theory ''about violin-playing". This is very sloppy on Magee’s part, and so I am giving him the benefit of the doubt - my most generous reading here is that he doesn’t know what he is talking about, that he lacks the philosophical sophistication to use a better example and/or the technique to convey his ideas more effectively.
And i know that you have adopted his argument, so I must assume the same can be said about you. i do not mean to insult you, but the fact is that every time i ask you to talk about an actual philosopher who is not a rationalist, you refuse. In fact, i do not recall you responding with anyone but Kant, which is a bad but easy example because no one understands Kant, including Kant. So don’t take this personally, but I am forced into the view that you are attacking something you know little about.
You do this all the time - you mix logical types. Of course arguments can’t do all that at once. You’re playing a shell game. Let’s just pick one. What do arguments express? Well, I have this argument that Derek Jeter in his prime was the best shortstop ever. I will use as premises that which I value in a shortstop. There is no big mystery here, and i cannot help but “instantiate” what matters to me.
Then let’s talk about those and not the guys down at the barber shop.
And again, philosophy is not about reason first and values later - it’s about values first. Magee would do well if he at least understood the first thing about philosophy. Or about values.
So much for not arguing.
Nope. I’m still not arguing.
iambiguous is a village relativist who harps on nothing unrelated, and who decides for himself whatever the hell he wants to about what counts as a good reason to think A rather than B. It’s not just values that are relative for iambiguous, it’s basic reasoning and argumentation skills as well. I’ve never heard of someone having a theory that theories are useless! Leave it to Faust to try to catch a ghost with a fishing net.
I guess you haven’t read much Colin Leslie Dean, then.
While I’m just making this up out of my ass and intuition… I assume Colin Leslie Dean is a credit card scam originating somewhere in Africa. If you find ladyjane’s interpretations somewhat persuasive, you are then invited to send money so that Colin Leslie Dean can come to America to give a lecture series on the topic of meaninglessness, at a school in Massacheusetts.
Some aspects of “real life” can never be captured wholly by The Word. But other aspects clearly are. Or, rather, are more clearly captured by words reflecting objectively a synchronous relationship between language and living.
The bottom line [mine] remains the same: What can philosophers ensnare in their logic? And if it cannot ensnare “I” or the value judgments “I” endorse, who else but the anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, politicians etc. will make the attempt to bridge the gaps?
This, in my view, does not obviate the points I raise regarding the inherent limitation of language with respect to that which most preoccupies us: How ought I to live my life? And who am “I” anyway?
Not to mention Bryan Magee’s own qualms.
Of course it can always be argued that someday a theory may come along that narrows these gaps down to that of the one between, say, a physics text and the laws of nature.
Yes it does… You don’t need a perfect, flawless, complete theory to say that theorizing is useful. If language is limited in some respects, that doesn’t make answering questions in helpful ways impossible or futile. Btw, I can’t believe you read Heidegger and seem totally unwilling to make up new words, to help.
Bryan Magee’s qualm is the EXACT OPPOSITE OF YOURS!
Well, I’ll just have to keep waiting then for a theory regarding one’s identity and one’s ethical obligations that is on par with, say, the theory of evolution or the stuff Albert Einstein thought up. My aim has always been only to draw a clearer distinction between them. But, again, theoretically, anything is possible, sure.
That depends on your vantage point of course. Both Magee and myself are pointing to things in which the tools of philosophy are of limited value. Doesn’t seem all that contrary to me.
I don’t see it as “knocking” so much as situating; though I do agree the inflection embedded in his argument does come off as rather dismissive of folks who might see things otherwise.
Know what I mean?
I have asked you before to situate Rawls’s theory out in the world. How might it come into play regarding, say, the current debt crisis or the conflict in Afghanistan or the abortion imbroglio? Let’s take his theoretical constructs down to earth. Here I suggest that, sooner or later, the theory will begin to deconstruct when the superbly aligned words meet the conflicting existential narratives of particular daseins living in a particular rendition of how one ought to live in this clearly fractured and fragmented world.
Why, for example, are the conservatives and the liberals never able to resolve or reconcile their own conflicts? Doesn’t William Barrett’s argument regarding “conflicting goods” always come into play here?
Or the narrative of folks like me who gainsay both their arguments [idealistic to the bone] by introducing others to Marx and his more materialist rendition of political economy?
But over and again I make it abundantly clear that my interest in philosophy long ago transcended what particular philosophers may or may not have broached theoretically. I am only interested now in how their arguments function out in the world of conflicting moral and political narratives. This may not be your own approach to philosophy. Fine. I can respect that. But surely my aim is not irrelevant to “the human condition”. On the contrary, it aims to explore the very heart and soul of it. But what can and cannot be encompassed with respect to the knowledge philosophers are able to impart.
To wit:
By “instantiate” I am referring more to the things Magee and I note regarding the “limitations of language”. Not to Plato and the rationalists. I want the words to be thoroughly integrated into the worlds in which our sense of self, our value judgments, our aesthetic proclivities and our somatic inclinations might come into conflict. What then can our arguments express, explain, reconcile and resolve?
Then explore [and then expose] this shell game of mine “out in the world”. I don’t wish to discuss “logical types” that [technically] are untangled. I wish for those who have untangled them to situate them out in a particular world that we are all cognizant of. How can logic understood clearly help to clarify [in turn] human behaviors that come into conflict?
What can logic denote objectively here and what can only reflect the connotated prejudices of a particular subject? My point is that tastes in music and moral persuasions are rooted existentially in dasein. This does not mean that all is subjective, of course, but I always aim at distinguishing alleged knowledge that is more rather than less subjective.
Here, however, there are actual objective stats that can be used to substantiate your argument. It will still never be resolved, of course, but the distinction I make is between this argument and one that revolves around, say, “I believe baseball is a better sport than basketball” or “I believe sports are a complete waste of time in a world where we should concentrate only on more important things like world peace and economic justice.”
Or, at the other end, imagine someone arguing that Derek Jeter plays center field for the Baltimore Orioles. How heated would that argument become?
iambiguous:
But there are folks who do indeed try to encompass racialist arguments in an elaborate intellectual – even “scientific” – edifice. To the extent these can be called “philosophical theories” might be open to debate, but they by no means reflect merely the blind prejudice of the “Uncle Neds” in this world.
Good point. But the guys down at the barbershop may actually be more refletive of way racism persists. In other words, prejudice may well be rooted in the more deepseated emotional, psychological and instinctual components of “human nature”. Rational arguments may only go so far in deflecting [or decapitating] these things.
But, given that the rational arguments do revolve by and large around ignorance, there is hope that, at least with respect to racialists “theory” [from Plato and Aristotle to Murray and Herrnstein], it might yet be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Though I suspect not give the sheer complexity of human motivation.
Again and again and again: What in the world does this mean?!