[lit-ideas] Re: Ethnic Pride, Black Truck Style

  • From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 15:08:45 -0230

Quoting Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> John McCreery wrote:
> 
> "Am I, as an anthropologist, committed a priori to treating them with
> respect?  If so, why not the John Birch Society or Bob Jones
> University?"
> 
> Paraphrasing Habermas, yes one is committed a priori to treating them
> with a degree of respect since one cannot know in advance what they
> might contribute to public discourse.
> 
> Happy birthday John.

The claim that "one is committed apriori ...." is somewhat ambiguous. Only for a
rationally autonomous agent is such a commitment understood to be apriori (i.e,
necessary and universal across all discourse/justification). The heteronomous
individual, open to persuasion by epistemically irrelevant grounds - i.e.,
religion, personal preference, self-interest, consensus and tradition - is
unable to differentiate between, in Habermas's lexicon, being "convinced" on
the basis of reasons and being "persuaded" on the basis of specifically
agent-relative, non-generalizable considerations.

Reserving much other commentary on death by powerpoint and the end of dialogical
philosophizing in response to 6 recent posts on this topic, due to the recent
end of summer session and the consequent deluge of tests, papers, final exams
and offers of scotch from anxiety-ridden students,

Walter O
MUN

P.S. I believe my concluding sentence is grammatically correct. (But only in
Grman?) I await any educative instruction you all may have.

P.P.S Happy Birthday, John. 



> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Phil Enns
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