[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2008 15:37:42 -0330
I hesitate to barge into this thread as I have not yet read the previous 8
postings by Omar and Donal in dialogue. So if what I have to say has already
been covered or is irrelevant for one reason or another, please just say so and
I'll go to the other side of the pub where they're talking about some Milton
fellow (no last name has ever been given.)
I believe the most interesting interpretation of Kant's idea of maxims being
engulfed in contradiction has it that a non-universalizable maxim commits a
practical contradiction between the subjective maxim itself and its
(attempted)universalized version. An immoral maxim is such that if everybody
acted on it, nobody could act on it and secure the end posited in that maxim.
As well, immoral (non-universalizable) maxims exhibit illegitimate
self-exemption: the agent relies on others not to act as she acts (the
free-rider)in order for her to attain the end specified in her maxim. Examples
with apples readily forthcoming. And finally, no non-universalizable maxim can
be suited for legislation (except in Canada).
As I say, if this doesn't help, just ignore. I hope to be able to get to the
Omar-Donal Correspondence shortly.
Christine Korsgaard has a lovely essay on all this in her *Creating the Kingdom
of Ends*. I forget the title, but if anybody is interested, I'll let you know.
Walter O.
MUN
Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>
>
>
> ----- 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
>
>
>
>
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