[lit-ideas] Philosophical Questions

W. O., Russian by disposition, challenges Geary's questions as  
philosophical. I argue they are:
 
 
In a message dated 6/28/2009 1:12:06 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
(1) The obvious one, of course: 
why is there  anything rather than nothing?  
 
--- This is a question of ontology and axiology (as the theory of  value).
The question 'why' is usually _philosophical_. The answer to this question  
is philosophical. Some appeal to 'teleology'. I.e. for a given x (Grice's  
example, a tiger), the existence of x is justified by the _telos_ of the 
tiger,  to tigerise. Geary seems to be wanting a further justification for 
_that_  'telos'.
 
 
(2) What does "is" mean? That 
is, is it possible to define  existence?  I'm thinking no.  
 
 
---
 
In predicate logic, existence is notably _not_ a predicate, so the issue  
has been raised that 'to be' indeed has no connotation or denotation. The 
clue  is in the 'predication' relation. P predicated of S, without use of the  
copula.
 
The various categorisations of 'existence' are interesting per se.  
Strawson, my favourite metaphysician, considers 'spatio-temporal continuant' as 
 a 
definition for 'existence', disallowing things like beauty, value, etc. can  
_exist_. The term is mediaeval and formed out of in- plus sist. 'being' is  
better and less 'pedantic'. 
 
 
(3) Does anything 
have meaning in and of itself, that is, outside the  meaning we ascribe to 
it?  How could we know that?  
 
 
'Meaning' is a trick of a notion, in English. Grice distinguished some  
uses and it usually comes out as a dyadic relationship ('those spots mean  
measles') or a triadic relation ('those spots mean measles to the doctor').  
There are other notions behind 'meaning'. I would think Geary has in mind  
'importance', or 'import'. "meaning" itself is related to 'mind', and an  
anglicism only. 
 
(4)  Doth God exact day labor, light denied? 
That is to say, is  there any moral concept that is not culturally 
contingent?  How can we  know that?  
 
Mackie in Inventing right and wrong argues for the negative. Ditto Philippa 
 Foot. Grice, while not engaged in 'cultural studies' argues for some 
objectivity  of value in terms even of a constructed item.
 
(5)  Is a thought a thing?  Does it have 
existence?   That is to say, is intentionality just another form of 
masturbation?  
 
For phenomenologists or semantic externalists (like Grice in his best  
days), indeed, thought can be de re, not just about mere thought or flatus  
vocis. Indeed, a justification along transcendental lines (i.e. to prove the  
impossibility of otherwise) can be provided that thought _cannot_ be just  
masturbatory. 
 
 
(6) Where do new ideas come from?  Heidegger seems (it seems 
to  me) to suggest they develop out of a misunderstanding of words / 
concepts --  is creativity then a child of ignorance?  
 
Heuristics, or the study of creativity, is a big mystery for philosophers  
of science. Abduction is to me the ticket. The best argumentation seems to 
be  abductive in nature, rather than deductive (where no new ideas are 
generated) or  inductive (where new ideas are generated, but weakly so). But 
the 
example of the  centaur is interesting to me in that imagination seems to be 
overrated. The idea  of a centaur is the old idea of horse and man combined.
 
 
 
 
(7)  Belief in a god 
is shared by something like 90% of the human  race.  Why?  And why is it 
that 
the extremist religious fanatics  are almost always men?  (I say it's fear 
of 
women -- is religion then  but a male bulwark against their own cupidity? 
Surely it is.)  
 
 
Theology figured large in Greek philosophy and I always wondered. Since the 
 Greek tradition was preserved by the monks, one has to suspect something.  
Aristotle, 'theos' and theos as 'gnosis gnoseos' comes to mind (God as the  
thinker of thoughts). In general, vintage Greek philosophy -- Socrates and 
the  Athenian School pre- Aristotle -- does not seem to be God-dominated. 
Religion is  the opium of the people.
 
 
(8)  Was Michael Jackson a real human being or a product of  
Pixar?  I can't decide --  his life was so screwed-up that it had  to be 
fiction, either that or it had to be true.  I'm glad I wasn't  Michael 
Jackson.  He must have gone thru hell many, many times in his  life.  But 
watching him perform was equivalent to what philosophy means  to me.  See 
if 
you can decipher what that means.  Let me  know.  I need to know.
 
The study of specific cultural phenomena can be done philosophically. The  
analogy of philosophy with a Michael Jackson performance is good, although  
perhaps a bit superficial. You _enjoy_ a performance, but do you have to 
_enjoy_  philosophy? Grice said yes, "Philosophy has to be fun"; and convivial 
at heart.  Philosophy is more of a collaborative performance, though -- not 
just _see_  Michael Jackson. I particularly find a one showman performance 
of the  philosophical kind -- I could name a few -- boring. In lectures, I 
tend to want  to provide a question, but this is tricky, since not all 
philosophers 'welcome'  questions. There is a connotation of 'passion' in what 
Geary writes, "Watching  him perform WAS (is no more?) equivalent to what 
philosophy means to me."  Philosophers can be passionate. I would think Grice 
got 
the more passionate when  interacting philosophically with Strawson, but 
there was Oxonian rigueur and  inhibition in that, too. "People would complain 
that our dialogues were so brief  to be unintelligible to a third party" -- 
and this is bad when the third party  is the student of their collaborative 
seminars!
 
Cheers,

JL Speranza
   Buenos Aires, Argentina
 
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