[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 07:28:27 -0800 (PST)
--- On Tue, 12/2/08, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2008, 11:42 AM
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Monday, 1 December, 2008 18:18:02
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
>
> >OK: I don't want to go on about this as
> 'interesting' is a largely subjective category and I
> don't think it is
> possible to convince someone to find something interesting
> by a purely logical argument.
>
> DM: Be that as it may...
>
> >O.K. However, the long list (by no mean exhaustive) of
> philosophers referenced in the article who devoted their
> attention to sucide shows that they considered it an
> important and/or interesting philosophical problem.
>
> DM: But this list does not explain why, or give an argument
> why, it is truly and especially interesting,
> philosophically.We might as well argue for and against
> 'meaning-analysis' in philosophy by drawing up lists
> of those philosophers who found it important and those who
> did not, respectively - but neither list would constitute
> much of an argument. And a list of those who find suicide
> interesting philosophically would surely have to be
> counterbalanced with a list of those who did not. In
> addition, it is doubtful that there is anything
> 'paradoxical' about suicide in any logically or
> analytically interesting way - it is only paradoxical in the
> loose sense, according to the article you referred me to,
> that it raises a moral dilemma. Is it any more paradoxical
> than death itself, even where unwilled, for how can a living
> thing turn into a dead one - or life itself, for how can
> living matter emerge from non-living matter?
*See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contradiction
"By extension, outside of classical logic, one can speak of contradictions
between actions when one presumes that their motives contradict each other."
I did attempt to explain that suicide, when interpreted in terms of motives or
intentions, at least often yields striking paradoxes or contradictions.
However, I cautioned that this depends on the interpretation of the suicide's
motives, hence is perhaps difficult to prove.
The term 'contradiction' is used outside classical logic, Hegel introduced it
into historical analysis and Marx analized capitalism as being inherently
contradictory. Presumably he didn't mean to suggest by this that it doesn't
exist in reality.
O.K.
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
