[lit-ideas] Re: The 'Near-Eastern' influences on the Greek philosophy, sc...

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 17:43:53 +0100 (BST)

 --- Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > 
> --- Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >   What texts of Avicenna's
> > > support
> > > it, I have no idea, but neither am I driven to
> > doubt the existence of the
> > > lost
> > > text; for one doubts on the same sorts of grounds
> > one believes, and where I
> > > have
> > > no grounds for belief, I have none for doubt
> > either. 
> > 
> > This strikes me as sophistry [and fairly Wittgtn.
> > sounding to boot]. I can
> > have grounds for doubting x while lacking grounds
> > for believing x. 
> 
> R.P. did not say that "one doubts on the same grounds
> one believes" but "on the same sort of grounds."
> (presumably of evidence) This banal observation is
> therefore unnecessary.

As we will see, the way OK has snipped the quotation is completely
misleading. But let us assume OK is right that this is RP's contention.

To say "one doubts on the same sorts of grounds one believes" is in fact the
unnecessary banal observation here or simply false (as I pointed out): in the
sense it is true it amounts no more than that evidence for a belief is a
*sort of* ground and so is evidence for a doubt a *sort of* ground and in
fact being both evidence they are the *same sort* of ground i.e. evidential
grounds. This is banality personified. Though OK seems to think that pointing
this out is in fact banal, I think he is mistaken on this.

One might equally the say the grounds for thinking 2+2=4 is the same sort of
ground as the ground for doubting that Bush can perform miracles - by using
"same sort" in this vacuously wide ie. banal sense. Of course, aside from
this banal sense in which it is true, it is false to say the evidence on one
is the same as the evidence on the other.

Pointing out the banality or, alternatively, falsity of what has been (rather
vaguely) said is not itself to make a banal observation and is hardly
unnecessary if people are mistaken to what the truly banal observation is, as
OK seems to be. 

Also note: RP wrote

>>and where I
> > > have
> > > no grounds for belief, I have none for doubt
> > either. 

This sentence does not speak of "sort of grounds"
but simply of "grounds": according to its wording it is not a banality but a
falsehood, for the reason I gave.

Nor I do see OK's  argument for implying that "grounds" here must mean "sorts
of grounds": it is wrong to upbraid me as if I have missed the expression
"sorts of grounds" when in a key  and later part of the sentence the
expression "grounds" is used instead, rendering the claim false rather than
banal. 

Of course, it is professional philosopher's capacities to offer up a cocktail
of the false and the banal as if it were something else that drove people
like Popper and Russell round the bend. This seems to escape OK.

Donal
London 
 


        
        
                
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