[lit-ideas] How to Raise the Perfect Dog: Through Puppyhood and Beyond


Method in Dictionary of Philosophy

Thanks for sharing, L. Helm.
¨Method¨ is an interesting philosophical word, that I don´t use!
The Greek etymology is very precise: it has to do with ´hodos´, path, and ´meta´, through. In America, through-roads, I understand, are for trucks only. The problem started really with Descartes. Without his ¨la methode¨ -- why method should be feminine escapes me: ´path´ was in Greek, possibly, but surely ´meta-´ sounds more like an epicene or asexual thing to me -- no Gadamer. 
The path idea has to be explored. For surely a path is between points

 A B
so the straight line should be hodos. So why bother with a method, less so with a treatise or (the French love this, a ´discourse´) about it. It´s like Mrs. Marx said of her hubby: "I wished he had spent more time producing some than writing about it". True, Descartes was not really a Parisian french, so let he be forgiven.
In English, or Anglo-Saxon, there is no equivalent for the word of Greek origin, ¨Method¨. Even it was inexistent in Rome, hence the use of ´metodo´ in the Romance language.
Italians speak of ´metodico´, because it´s something (if you´ve seen one) (Italians I mean), you´ll appreciate they lack it. Method is boring.
Searle seaks of regulative and constitutive rules. A method is more like a regulative rule, which are otiose. Methods of fishing, or raising a pup, to use your example.
What of an ACTIVITY that it NOT repeated, and does not SPRING from a ´regulation´ like that: as Collingwood said of conversation: it is formed IN CONVERSANDO. Ditto for method. I would think that while a stretch to the language, if Mrs. B (Beeton) uses steps S1, S2, and S3 to arrive at concoction (for the first and only time), she´s following a method, applying a method. She represents the method. But then the word becomes otiose or vague, since we may just as well describe the steps she undertook.
In matters of life ("Sparrows methods for mating off season"), it´s all so species-specific that it hurts. Geary reflects, ¨Sparrows f·ck the whole year round. The article in _Nature_ proposes ditto for the human race. Not Memphis, I say. We ain´t no sparras in Memphis". 

Cheers,

J. L. Speranza


-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Fri, Oct 30, 2009 1:58 pm
Subject: [lit-ideas] Method in Gadamer, Wittgenstein and Cesar Milan
http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2009/10/method-in-gadamer-wittgensetin-and.html 



I just posted a note on my blog entitled “Method in
Gadamer, Wittgenstein and Cesar Milan.”



I have some preexisting “issues” over what is “method”
and what is not, and I explore those a bit in the above note.



Lawrence



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