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

  • From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "Lit-Ideas@Freelists. Org" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2007 14:16:29 -0400

The Sage of The Rock wrote:

"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."

At least in Kant, there are no purely autonomous agents.  Following
Heidegger, we are given a world and all experience is structured by
that world.  Back to Kant, there are autonomous activities and clearly
the goal is to maximize the number of these activities but  I think it
is fairly obvious that for Kant no person can act only according to
these activities.  In fact, following Wittgenstein, perhaps the most
interesting activities are those that require heteronomy.  The claim
that any perspective may contribute to the social good is banal but
what is interesting is working out if or how John's black truck crew
contribute.

Watching for black helicopters,
Following and followed,

Phil Enns
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