[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 11:38:22 +0000 (GMT)
----- Original Message ----
From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, 2 December, 2008 15:28:27
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
>*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."
DM: The article does not expand on this somewhat unclear statement - unclear
because is it positing contradictions between an action and its motive, or
between action and motive A and action and motive B? It would seem the latter
since it speaks of "contradictions between actions" in the plural. But how so?
In what sense of 'contradiction' can, for example, my helping John last week
because I like him _contradict_ my not helping him this week because I no
longer like him (he kept giving me irritating Wikepedia references whenever I
asked a question, and I tired of it [joking]).
> I did attempt to explain that suicide, when interpreted in terms of motives
> or intentions, at least often yields striking paradoxes or contradictions.
DM: If the article _is_ taking about a contradiction between action/motive A
and action/motive B, then even its bare unargued assertion is irrelevant to
your claim that in the case of suicide there may be some kind of contradiction
between an action and its motive, or an action "when interpreted in terms of
motive".
>However, I cautioned that this depends on the interpretation of the suicide's
>motives, hence is perhaps difficult to prove.
DM: But you could nevertheless offer examples where the motive is a given and,
where given such a motive, you then reveal a paradox and contradiction in
something other than the loose sense that we might speak of it being only
'logical' that Obama was elected or other Dr.Spockisms. The great mathematician
- perhaps the greatest of the twentieth century, who set mathematical agenda
for the century at an International Congress in 1900 - David Hilbert once
wrote: "The thought that facts or events might mutually contradict each other
appears to me the very paradigm of thoughtlessness." Actions and motives would
appear to be 'facts or events'. That they might mutually contradict is at the
very least problematic.
>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.
DM: No he didn't; but this use of 'contradiction' - as per 'dialectical
materialism' - is open to severe objections. An excellent essay on this is
'What is Dialectic?' by Karl Popper, published in 'Conjectures and Refutations'
[p.312] (yes, Popper breaks his own injunction against 'What is?' questions in
the title - though with deliberate irony perhaps).
While admitting "a dialectical interpretation of the history of thought may be
sometimes be quite satisfactory, and that it may add some valuable details to
an interpretation in terms of trial and error", Popper criticises the
'dialectic triad' on a number of grounds, for example...
1) Its way of putting things is largely metaphorical and the metaphors mislead
if taken too seriously.
For example: (a) a thesis does not 'produce' its antithesis - it is "only our
critical attitude which produces the antithesis, and where such an attitude is
lacking - which often enough is the case - no antithesis will be produced."
[p.315]
(b) a 'synthesis' does not merely preserve the best parts
of thesis and antithesis because it will, "in every case, embody some
new idea which cannot be reduced to earlier stages of the development." [p.315]
2) It is wrong to think 'contradictions' are not be avoided but admitted as a
part of a dialectic explanation: in truth it is the striving to eliminate
contradictions that propels thought forward, and if contradictory statements
are admitted "_any statement whatever must be admitted_" - hence no 'synthesis'
can logically be produced by admitting contradictions.
3) Its tendency to be used to support or reinforce dogmatic positions.
While most of the essay addresses dialectic as a form of logic or logical
explanation, its arguments can also be applied to 'dialectical materialism' as
a purported explanation of social and historical change - where of course it
lends itself to 'historicism' and a host of other intellectual fancies, which
Popper addressed more fully in his two volume 'The Open Society' and his
extended essay 'The Poverty of Historicism'.
Donal
Snowy Salop
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
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:
