Doug Moore,
I can not say that I struggled through what you were saying enough to get a
complete grasp of it but here are *some* comments.
[snip]
>My approach is not one based on a scholarly study of the writings of
>these two philosophers but by starting from scratch and attempting
>to erect a new formal system.
Kudos! That is quite the task.
[snip]
>This means that the Starting Point is of a Socratic nature - all you know
with absolute
>certainty is that you don't know anything.
I dislike it when people attribute this to a Socratic or Platonic nature but
know what you mean. Heidegger's critique of the Cartesian starting point,
while not exactly analogus, points in the direction that this is a bad
starting spot. {maybe it is not a bad place to start, but it is suspect).
The absolute knowledge that you know nothing *assumes* more than what is
contained within the axiom itself. It assumes existence, it assumes
knowledge, and it assumes that there is something "out there" for you not to
know anything about. In my own (*somewhat* humble) opinion, the very fact
that we can believe that we do not know anything for certain, presupposes a
Truth (Telos) of possibility. George Grant points towards this when he
*criticises* modernity for thinking that there is no moral metric and then
uses the word "should", implying that there must be one (for an analogy I
recently hit).
>This absolute knowledge
>placed in opposition with absolute ignorance is seen as an embryonic
>and *generic* form of Heisenburg's uncertainty principle. I manage to
>get around this seemingly intractable situation by introducing
>absolute relative types. The most elementary of the relative types is
>the type of entity which has merely an attribute and the other type
>of entity which is this attribute.
Read any Leibnitz? Pirsig? The fact that you have two separate "entities"
(I'll call them that to simplify for myself), implies a third one that
"binds" them in some way. You run into a "infinite regression" (which may,
in the end, be okay I guess) if you pick one as basic (particle vs.
relativity or particle vs. accident) and if you do not pick one then you hit
that pesky old dualism that runs you into the standard metaphysical problems
Heidegger was trying to avoid.
[snip]
>Clearly, two entities which only differ by
>gender are
> (a) different
> (b) indistinguishable (if Distinguishablity is seen as being
> based on a difference of attribute .. the case in the classical
> sciences and mathematics)
I guess I do not quite get this. If theye are to be different but
indistinguishable then you must mean something different by one of these
words than anyone else ever meant by them. I can see "different and
inseperable" (Being is always the Being of a being) but already the two
things have different attributes, one is an attribute and one is the thing
that *has* an attribute (someone circa Spinoza did this but I can not
remember who). As soon as you separate them they both become "accidents" of
a sort. Clearly, to use an actual example, the colour red has to be a red
something (say light). To speak of red alone or light without colour
(assuming that white light is "coloured") would make no practical sense.
Once you say this, however, you can formally separate the two and talk about
red and light as if they were two things. They are formally distinguishable.
They are "Forms", if you will. Forms are very popular even today but they
never "REALLY" caught on.
>(It is important that philosophers come to at least a
>philosophical appreciation of how (potentially) radical the category
>theory approach is from classical non-constructive approaches such
>as Set Theory in maths - unless if one is forever content for
>philosophy to be a literary discipline only)
That is kind of a low blow (no harm though - I agree in some ases that
philosophy depaertments are headed this way) considering what you are doing
is basically philosophy and, therefore, some of us already do have an
appreciation of this ;) Not to mention, who do you think invented Set
Theory. Heck, if Ayer had his way that is all you would learn to do in
Philosophy.
>Eventually I arrive at two distinct types of (arrow theoretic)
representations of generic
>entities. One type can be thought of as a formal _ontological_
>representation. This is the type of representation that an entity _has_.
Classical science and
>maths is uniquely concerned with representations of this type. The
>other type is a formal _gnoseological_ representation. This is the
>representation of the entity which has an ontological representation.
> In short the "Being" entity can be known (represented) as an entity
>of ontological type. The "Being there" entity is known (represented)
>as _gnoseological_ typed.
I think Heidegger would disagree with your use of terms more than anything
else. Science has definitely not been interested with the "ontological"
nature of anything in a long time (well, since we would call it science).
>These two representation types are the two primitives of
>spatio-temporality. The ontological is profoundly synchronic
>(spatial) and the gnoseological profoundly diachronic (temporal) in
>nature.
I personally believe that the best thing that anyone could do is get rid of
temporal/spacial distinctons as they are commonly used. While I do not
fully grasp the exact nature of your use of these terms (or why you would
find it necessary to use and/or separate the two) attributing spacial and
temporal *characteristics* to entities (and both of your fundamental
starting points are basically "things" or "entities" - or seem to be) has
always been a messy deal.
[snip - religious stuff]
>In a final (possibly grotesque) schematisation, could it be that
>the "Care" that Heidegger speaks about as being analogous with
>the divine Providence of the Stoics?
I don't get this sentence. My reading in Heidegger has been limited to an
extremely engaging and vigorous course on "B&T" and bits of "The Prob'ms of
Phen". If you are asking whether the two are analogus, I would have to say
no. Care is a formal structure that describes Dasein.
>I would very much appreciate comments and criticisms on the above.
I am only sorry that I do not have a better grasp of some of the stuff that
you are talking about (one can only read so much in a day though and Thesis
must come first). Your project sounds/is very interesting. I just thought
that I would make comments in areas where years of studying the
"literary-ness" of metaphysical undertakings have shown me that mistakes
*may* rest their weary heads. ;) Hope I have been a bit of a help.
Nik
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------
I can not say that I struggled through what you were saying enough to get a
complete grasp of it but here are *some* comments.
[snip]
>My approach is not one based on a scholarly study of the writings of
>these two philosophers but by starting from scratch and attempting
>to erect a new formal system.
Kudos! That is quite the task.
[snip]
>This means that the Starting Point is of a Socratic nature - all you know
with absolute
>certainty is that you don't know anything.
I dislike it when people attribute this to a Socratic or Platonic nature but
know what you mean. Heidegger's critique of the Cartesian starting point,
while not exactly analogus, points in the direction that this is a bad
starting spot. {maybe it is not a bad place to start, but it is suspect).
The absolute knowledge that you know nothing *assumes* more than what is
contained within the axiom itself. It assumes existence, it assumes
knowledge, and it assumes that there is something "out there" for you not to
know anything about. In my own (*somewhat* humble) opinion, the very fact
that we can believe that we do not know anything for certain, presupposes a
Truth (Telos) of possibility. George Grant points towards this when he
*criticises* modernity for thinking that there is no moral metric and then
uses the word "should", implying that there must be one (for an analogy I
recently hit).
>This absolute knowledge
>placed in opposition with absolute ignorance is seen as an embryonic
>and *generic* form of Heisenburg's uncertainty principle. I manage to
>get around this seemingly intractable situation by introducing
>absolute relative types. The most elementary of the relative types is
>the type of entity which has merely an attribute and the other type
>of entity which is this attribute.
Read any Leibnitz? Pirsig? The fact that you have two separate "entities"
(I'll call them that to simplify for myself), implies a third one that
"binds" them in some way. You run into a "infinite regression" (which may,
in the end, be okay I guess) if you pick one as basic (particle vs.
relativity or particle vs. accident) and if you do not pick one then you hit
that pesky old dualism that runs you into the standard metaphysical problems
Heidegger was trying to avoid.
[snip]
>Clearly, two entities which only differ by
>gender are
> (a) different
> (b) indistinguishable (if Distinguishablity is seen as being
> based on a difference of attribute .. the case in the classical
> sciences and mathematics)
I guess I do not quite get this. If theye are to be different but
indistinguishable then you must mean something different by one of these
words than anyone else ever meant by them. I can see "different and
inseperable" (Being is always the Being of a being) but already the two
things have different attributes, one is an attribute and one is the thing
that *has* an attribute (someone circa Spinoza did this but I can not
remember who). As soon as you separate them they both become "accidents" of
a sort. Clearly, to use an actual example, the colour red has to be a red
something (say light). To speak of red alone or light without colour
(assuming that white light is "coloured") would make no practical sense.
Once you say this, however, you can formally separate the two and talk about
red and light as if they were two things. They are formally distinguishable.
They are "Forms", if you will. Forms are very popular even today but they
never "REALLY" caught on.
>(It is important that philosophers come to at least a
>philosophical appreciation of how (potentially) radical the category
>theory approach is from classical non-constructive approaches such
>as Set Theory in maths - unless if one is forever content for
>philosophy to be a literary discipline only)
That is kind of a low blow (no harm though - I agree in some ases that
philosophy depaertments are headed this way) considering what you are doing
is basically philosophy and, therefore, some of us already do have an
appreciation of this ;) Not to mention, who do you think invented Set
Theory. Heck, if Ayer had his way that is all you would learn to do in
Philosophy.
>Eventually I arrive at two distinct types of (arrow theoretic)
representations of generic
>entities. One type can be thought of as a formal _ontological_
>representation. This is the type of representation that an entity _has_.
Classical science and
>maths is uniquely concerned with representations of this type. The
>other type is a formal _gnoseological_ representation. This is the
>representation of the entity which has an ontological representation.
> In short the "Being" entity can be known (represented) as an entity
>of ontological type. The "Being there" entity is known (represented)
>as _gnoseological_ typed.
I think Heidegger would disagree with your use of terms more than anything
else. Science has definitely not been interested with the "ontological"
nature of anything in a long time (well, since we would call it science).
>These two representation types are the two primitives of
>spatio-temporality. The ontological is profoundly synchronic
>(spatial) and the gnoseological profoundly diachronic (temporal) in
>nature.
I personally believe that the best thing that anyone could do is get rid of
temporal/spacial distinctons as they are commonly used. While I do not
fully grasp the exact nature of your use of these terms (or why you would
find it necessary to use and/or separate the two) attributing spacial and
temporal *characteristics* to entities (and both of your fundamental
starting points are basically "things" or "entities" - or seem to be) has
always been a messy deal.
[snip - religious stuff]
>In a final (possibly grotesque) schematisation, could it be that
>the "Care" that Heidegger speaks about as being analogous with
>the divine Providence of the Stoics?
I don't get this sentence. My reading in Heidegger has been limited to an
extremely engaging and vigorous course on "B&T" and bits of "The Prob'ms of
Phen". If you are asking whether the two are analogus, I would have to say
no. Care is a formal structure that describes Dasein.
>I would very much appreciate comments and criticisms on the above.
I am only sorry that I do not have a better grasp of some of the stuff that
you are talking about (one can only read so much in a day though and Thesis
must come first). Your project sounds/is very interesting. I just thought
that I would make comments in areas where years of studying the
"literary-ness" of metaphysical undertakings have shown me that mistakes
*may* rest their weary heads. ;) Hope I have been a bit of a help.
Nik
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
------------------