I had an English Lit professor at uni who claimed that milton was the first thinker to argue for logical relativism, ie “what’s true for you may not me true for me.” He used to point to a passage in the Areopagitica as proof, but it is only a brief assertion, not a fully articulated system of relativism or even an argument for relativism. I was and am skeptical, but i don’t know milton that well either. Ideas?
I had a prof at university once…
[size=59](essay question – not a great cover either…)[/size]
Cranky, gobbo?
Uni was three years ago.
Anyone here interested in talking about milton?
Talking about Milton. I read “Areopagitica” and find no moral relativism there implied by Milton. It’s a work on education. Morality enters only from Milton’s Puritan POV. About education, Milton notes that “It is ill-suited to the votaries of Apollo”. In other words, it stifles creativity. T. S. Eliot considered him to be an intellectual asshole. Education fosters creativity.
Be that as it may, “Paradise Lost” amounts to a failed explanation of justifying “God’s ways to man”. I love the Houseman poem with the lines “Malt does more than Milton can/ To justify God’s ways to man.” Most who read “Paradise Lost” find Satan much more heroic than God or any of His angels. And Milton’s relegation of mythological dieties to Satan’s cohorts is just plain stupid.
that’s a nice little grab bag of opinions for me to think on : )
by the way, are we talkinga bout the same essay? The aer. I read is about censorship, specifically prior restraint. I can’t find any logical relativism there either. My old profs claim seemed slightly bizarre to me at the time and still does. But he was a pretty sharp cat otherwise or I wouldn’t be looking into it at all.
Edit: Maybe i’ll reread it again tonight.
But who censors the censor? And what is there that is knowable that we have no right to know? It’s been a long time since I’ve read the essay, so you are probably right about its content. Milton, however, even if he preached tolerance, was unable to practice it. And the idea that he was for it is negated in the bulk of his writings. He had a religious agenda!
This idea of perspectival “truth” has rather ancient antecedents:
D.,
But that is not characteristic of Milton’s written ideas.
I am not speaking to Milton’s written ideas, but to the thread’s idea that Milton may have been the first to briefly argue for “logical relativism”.
Dunamis wrote:
Dunamis, thanks. But doesn’t this mean either
1- that nothing is completely good
or
2- nothing appears good from every perspective.
is either 1 or 2 really the same as logical relativism?
D.,
How can you divorce the OP from Milton’s written ideas? Are you somehow privy to ideas he might have had but did not write down? To show historical precedents for an idea, you really must take the idea into account, not the further interpretations of the idea. If the OP is not based on opinions of what Milton wrote, it must be based on sheer conjecture. That, of course is not worthy of debate.
Of course its not the same as logical relativism because logical relativism could only arise at a certain point in history. Yet, if you look at the form of the phrase (which is why I put the Latin), it literally says: Nothing out of every part, is blessed. If taken from a conception of a whole, one which assumes that all parts fit together, the idea that the blessedness of the parts is dependent upon the perspective taken cannot stand. Implicit is a kind of disjunction caused by judgment itself. It provides a spatial metaphor which disjoins in terms of perspective. This can of course be interpreted as the limitation of judgment, in favor Horace’s Epicurean stance, but the form of the statement is one of human relativism.
Why not post the Milton passage so we can see what your professor was talking about?
I have no idea what you are talking about. I responded to the portion of the OP that said:
The question about what Milton thought besides his writing, or even what he wrote is moot. I don’t really care about Milton in this context. My point is that even if the gods deemed that Milton really had argued for logical relativism, he would not have been “the first”, in otherwords the idea has antecendents that extend further back in time. We have yet to see the passage, nor what constitutes such an argument.
D.,
Could you at least listen to and absorb a point made before trying to set precedents for points that have not been clearly established.? You go on with your speil as if nothing can counter it. Wrong. Most of my thoughts can be countered; so can most of yours. Show me your reference to Milton’s tolerance in his writings so that we are not discussing strawmen.
You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what Milton wrote. I am not trying to set a precedent for what Milton wrote, but for what is being attributed to what Milton wrote. The connection I am pointing out is between “Logical Postivism” and “Horace”. It has nothing to do with Milton, other that being addressed to the idea of Milton being “the first”. Getting one’s panties into a twist over a passage no one has posted, or for an argument that is not presented (The Milton argued in such a such a text for logical relativism, and he was the first, argument), is senseless. In lieu of such an argument and such a text, I have information germane to the subject in general: antecedents for logical relativism.
If you want to go on and on about Milton, go on and on about Milton. No one is stopping you.
Show me my reference to anything in Milton. I am not discussing Milton.
You people are insufferable. Look how quickly this thread lost it.
We’re going to start over. BS, tell us about Milton in fifty words or less of your own making.
Dunamis, shut up with the Horace already and let BS say his piece.
Sheesh.
A blind anarchist directing traffic, how hilarious.
I guess you didn’t notice that beautifulspam asked me a question, and I answered it. In normal non-super-chaotic-detrop worlds, this is known as a discussion. beautifulspasm posted her/his post nine hours ago. I’m not sure someone is stopping her/him from saying something about Milton if she/he wanted to. The Big “I” would like to harang Milton, no one is stopping her/him either.
=D>
I was going to comment that the Stoics held opinions that a person’s values were their own and need not be impacted by others. That points to relative philosophy.