[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2008 18:14:09 -0330
Just a couple of replies. Please see below. ---------->
Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>
>
> --- On Sat, 6/12/08, wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > From: wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
> > Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life
>
> > No, logically contradictory statements cannot both be true
> > in "real" life or
> > any other kind of life characterized by rationality. Nor
> > can they both be
> > false.
> > It's just another one of them transcendental things.
DM:
> I don't have any objection to this apart from the claim that this is
> something "transcendental". It seems to me it is rather that 'logical space'
> (in Wittgenstein's TLP sense) cannot contain _both_ of certain kinds of
> object - namely, both the 'object' posited by a proposition and its negation.
> 'Empirical space' also obeys the rules of 'logical space' or, at least,
> cannot contradict them - that is, it is empirically impossible (just as it is
> logically impossible) that at the _self-same_ point in space and time 'x'
> there is both a swan and an emu. It appears that Aristotle stated this.
-------> I'm OK with that for now, not having the fortitude at present to
articulate the relations between the logical and the transcendental. The scope
of objects investigated by the latter goes beyond considerations of logical
validity, w/o contradicting logical validity. The T claim that moral judgment
necessarily presupposes understanding one's will to be free doesn't simply make
a logical claim.
DM:
> If there is to be an attack on this long-held orthodoxy it might be best
> coming from modern maths and physics, where some theorists seem to think
> something can be two things at once [e.g. a particle and a wave] and so on.
> Whether such an attack is valid is something that is unclear to me,
> especially as there is an apparent divide between those physicists who accept
> the apparent contradictions between Einstein's theories of big things and his
> theories of tiny, quantum things (accept because both theories are so
> successful within there own domain) and those (like Einstein himself) who
> take the position these apparent contradictions need to be resolved within a
> more general unified field theory.
-----> Lots of things can be two things at once. But they can't be two
contradictory things, clearly. I think the point of the physics' example is
that light possesses certain qualities that are best explained by understanding
it as a wave, and light possesses other qualities that are best explained by
understanding it to be a bunch of particles. There's nothing logically
contradictory in that. Which way you go depends on the research programme
you're submitting for funding, as Lakatos would say.
I know babkis about Einstein's theories but I doubt he would be comfortable with
asserting P and not-P in the same respect.
Walter O
MUN
>
> Donal
> London
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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:
