[lit-ideas] Re: Beyond Belief
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 21:28:42 -0500
----- Original Message -----
From: <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 9:21 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Beyond Belief
>
>
> "Beyond belief", "Unbelievable"
>
> Was: "A Hard Imagining"
>
> In a message dated 8/22/2004 10:07:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> I just have a hard imagining that when one combines men and booze and
> professional pleasers let's call them, that sex isn't involved. It still
leaves
> the question of why these men prefer geishas to spending time at home.
House
> of Sand and Fog again ...
> In re-reading this just before deleting it, I notice I wrote "I just have
a
> hard imagining". Filling in the blanks the ol fingers leave, I meant to
say,
> I have a hard time imagining ... I imagine you all figured it wasn't a
hard
> on. I think I'll give myself typing lessons for Christmas.
>
>
>
>
> ----
>
> Actually, I read the original sentence to mean that you had a 'hard
> imagining', literally, i.e. a difficult act of imagination.
>
> Some people use 'imagine' (and notably, 'conceive') like that. They say,
"It
> is pretty inconceivable that..." and then add what they have _just_ noted
it
> was not possible to conceive.
>
> I'm glad you only had a 'hard time' and not a 'hard imagining'. Imagining
> should always be a pleasant, easy flowing experience.
>
> The epitome is again in the Alice Books, where Lewis Carroll pokes fun at
> people who 'overuse' 'unbelievable!':
>
>
> --- Quote:
>
> I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.'
> `I can't believe THAT!' said Alice.
> `Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long
> breath, and shut your eyes.'
> Alice laughed. `There's not use trying,' she said: `one CAN'T believe
> impossible things.'
> `I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was
your
> age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed
as
> many as six impossible things before breakfast.
> --- End of Quote:
> Note that the Queen is right, "The Queen is one hundred and one, five
months
> and a day" is _quite_ possible to believe.
> A recent philosophy title dealing with these problems is:
> Conceivability and Possibility
> edited by _Tamar Szabo Gendler_
>
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho
r=Gendler,%2520Tamar%2520Szabo/002-6770060-1806
> 440) and _John O'Leary-Hawthorne_
>
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books&field-autho
r=O'Leary-Hawthorne,%2520John/002-6770060-18
> 06440) (OUP blurb below), with contributions by M. Della Rocca et al.
> Cheers,
> JL
> ---
> "The capacity to represent things to ourselves as possible plays a
crucial
> role both in everyday thinking and in philosophical reasoning; this
volume
> offers much-needed philosophical illumination of conceivability,
possibility,
> and the relations between them."
>
>
>
>
>
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