In a message dated 07/11/2004 02:23:13 GMT Standard Time, janstr@xxxxxxx
writes:
Hi Jud,
sometimes i find it difficult to follow your line of agrument. My
whole point is that tautologies of whatever kind can and will have
no epistemic import on materialist ontologies of whatever kind,
because materialists only gain knowledge of natural necessity by
testing hypotheses based on empirical arguments obtained via the
processes of induction, deduction or retroduction.
Hi Jan:
My ontology is not the normal materialist ontology of say Marx or Engels
where *material* whatever THAT is supposed to be is posited but reifications
and abstractions abound.
I don't believe that *Material* or *Matter* exists - but only that which is
entitic and/or that is an object of a force field.
Therefore my knowledge of necessary *truths* such as: *An entity exists in
the way it exists truths* is a *trueism*
for which I have no need for empirical *evidence* Plainly,
epistomologically if an entity didn't exist in the way that it exists it would'nt exist
in the first place.
Jan:
For a materialist it is nonsense to say "matter exists as matter" or
"energy exists as energy", these are empty phrases, even employed
in didactical settings [my students would laugh their pants off when
i would claim that 'circles exists as circles' or that 'an integer exists
as an integer' or that 'the number pi exists as the number pi'].
Jud:
I have never made such claims and I never would never do so.
For me *Matter exists as Matter* is the same sort of nonsense statement as
(2+2=5)=(2+2=5);
it is not classed as a tautology at all - but is meaningless noise.
Neither *matter* nor *energy* exist for me - only that which is *actual*
[entitic] or *energetic* exists.
*matter* and *energy* are merely abstractions.
I did point out in my last post that there were big differences between an
*ordinary* materialist and a nominalist.
For the record Jan you can tell your students that my sort of nominalist
doesn't believe that circles exist either - and that they only believe that:
*that which is circular* exists. I also do not believe that number or categories
exist either, other than as brain activity in the minds of those humans who
happen to be thinking about or dealing with the convenient abstractions such
as number or categories.
Jan:
But maybe you can give me some meaningful examples of how a
(nominalist) materialist would use tautologies in his thinking ?
Jud:
The tautology: *an entity exists in the way that it exists,* is the only one
that I use than I can recall to mind right now.
I'll try to think of some more for you.
Jan:
You wrote:
>I am not *just* a materialist* - I am a nominalistic materialist.
>There are big differences between the two.
Can you say what the big differences are between the two ?
Jud:
I think I have explained this above - if you want more info or wish to
question me more upon the subject please let me know.
Jan:
Can you say what the big differences are between the two ?
Jud:
Ditto.
>For me the [whole] human holism derives its meaning from any
>given source of information - not just one of its five sensors.
Jan:
What other sources of information do you mean here, given the fact
that you claim that there exist only matter/energy in the cosmos ?
Jud:
Only that which is entitic - that which is energetic. Other sources of info?
The human voice, books, traffic signs, TV pictures, computors,
rock-carvings, tapes, maps -
all the same sources that you receive information from.
>A materialist [and I can only speak for my own nominalist materialism]
>does not require *constant* revalidation and verification of *truths*
>which he has provisionally accepted - that would be too onerous
>and time-consuming.
Jan:
How can something (a human activity) be "time-consuming" if you
claim that time doesn't exist ?
Jud:
I have repeatedly told MichaelP for the last four years that nominalists
have no wish to either abolish abstractions
and start a *world language of nominalism* or anything crazy like that, or
to avoid employing such terms in discourse.
>From a nominalist perspective it is perfectly OK to speak *normally* - it is
only when the nominalist ontology of abstraction is threatened, which for me
means the whole of non-transcendentalist philosophy is jeopardised, by the
likes of Heidegger's reificational abuse of abstractions [like being being
hypostasised into *Being* etc.] that a problem arises. Ontologically speaking,
my type of nominalism [and I say *my* because I have never read of or come
across any other nominalist like me] in effect is just about opposed to the
whole of western philosophy in many ways - not just Heideggerianism which is
derivitive of the Western tradition. Of course this also includes the early
nominalists, William of Ockam Abelard and a few more, but their type of
nominalism excluded *God* from their reductions. I have no idea if Heidegger ever
addressed the question of nominalism at all - I have never come across anything
by him on the matter. I suspect that he would steer well clear of it, for
as far as I can see it provides the only clearly argued and viable oppostion
to his views.
>All that the Daseinic approach to *Being* does is to mask these
>>individuate variations of instantiated *Being* into a featureless
>universal aggregation of conflicting instantiations (cue the
>Hottentot's ugly-beauteous behind) - in other words a jumble of
>conflicting instantiational abstract nonsense.
Jan:
All you say is that Being is a highly conflictuous, deeply contested
and most obscure concept: Heidegger never said otherwise.
Jan:
You are wrong here I'm afraid Jan. There was no questioning of *Being* in BT
at all.. Read the opening chapters again. *Being* is accepted as an a
priori. or as a give. It is the *problem* or the *question* of how *Being* has
been dealt with from the Pre-Socratics, through what came later, and up to the
present day, that he dealt with or attempted to address. *Dasein* is just a
handful of ontological dust thrown by him to cloud the different ways the
earth's six billions, who *be here* and are *given objects* in six billion
different ways and instantiate *Being* during the *object givenness* treatment in
six billion ways too. That makes *Being* an ontological miscellany or pot
pourri of abstract mixed-up nonsense. Dasein universalises - those damaging
individual diversifications and magics them away from right under the very
noses of the naive.
>The statement: *An entity exists in the way it exists* is employed
>didactically to illustrate that in spite of the fact that a European or
>American might describe a female Hottentot's buttocks as being
>repulsive or grotesque - the Hottentot man believes that they exist
>as objects of lascivious beauty.
Of course i'm not denying the idea that beauty is relative to culture,
but the statement "a female Hottentot's buttocks exists as an object
of lascivious beauty" is not a tautology, it is a description of male
Hottentot preferences; the statement "a female Hottentot's buttocks
exists as a female Hottentot's buttocks", that would be a tautology.
Jud:
I made no claim that it WAS a tautology. |I mentioned it as an example of
how the *Being* in the sky regarding a male Hottentot's *object giveness* is
entirely different to the *Being* as reified by the old O.G via a guy in a bar
in Brooklyn.
My wife is colour-blind as a matter of fact [although I am a negro - she
thinks I am a white man. {No, I'm only joking) so the *Being* of the furnishing
in our home, and the *Being* of our children's eyes are quite different for
her and for me. [etc.]
>You may be interested in reading a page on my website concerning
>this very question. It also mentions the possibility that the word
>YHWH may mean *Being* [etymologically]
Jan:
Maybe you can post some of the relevant parts to the list?
Its very short - so I'll post it below.
>It is refreshing to have a grown-up conversation for a change as a
>respite from the slanderous juvenilia from other quarters.
I'll keep trying Jud, i'll keep trying ..
Jud:
So do I Jan...so do I.
Professor J. F. Gannon observes:
The similarity of "Yahweh" to "Jov-" is most likely to be fortuitous. But
the similarity is such that it must have attracted speculation earlier. I'm
betting someone on this list knows. Here is the little I know. Flavius Josephus
is the fellow most likely to have made the connection, a Ioudaios writing in
Rome for a Roman audience and stressing parallels between things Roman and
Judean. I have often wondered about this, and have really, really wished that
he had made the connection. But he does not. When he comes to the part of his
narrative that parallels Exod. 3, where Moses asks God's name, he becomes
more reserved than the Bible itself: "And God revealed to him His name, which
had not previously come to men, and about which I am not permitted to speak"
(AJ 2.276).
This is, incidentally, one of the clearest early indicators of the
traditional rabbinic refusal to pronounce the divine name. NB: what one reads instead
of the written name YHWH is of course ADONai -- another tantalizing one for
parallel-seekers. People who did find some resonances, arguably, were those
who composed the spells on the magical papyri, which frequently use forms of
the name: Yahu, etc., no doubt surviving in today's popular ISP "Yahoo". I'm
kidding. Someone mentioned the biblical etymology of "being" for YHWH, and that
is a much better prospect. It was common among Greek-speaking Judeans to
connect their God with ZEUS by a Stoic-philosophical analogy: both names refer
to ultimate Being, Nature, Reason, etc. This is best accomplished with the
accusative form of the name, ZHNA, for obvious reasons. See for example
Josephus, AJ 12.22, where the Greek Aristeas allegedly says to King Ptolemy II, "Both
they and we worship the God who created the universe, whom we call by the
appropriate term ZHNA, giving Him that name from the fact that He breathes life
(ZHN) into all creatures." In the so-called Letter of Aristeas itself (3rd
to 1st cent. BC; sect. 16), both ZEUS (ZHNA) and DIOS (DIA) are connected with
life-giving (ZWOPOIEW), connecting the Judean and Greek Gods. The same point
is suggested by the Greco-Jewish writer Aristobulus, 2nd cent. BC, preserved
in Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 13.12.7. If Dios, then Iove too, I guess.
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
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