[lit-ideas] Re: "the space of reasons" from Morc Huck Pump

  • From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:25:28 -0400

Doragoy moy Valodsya Mihailovitch obviously intended this for the List


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: "the space of reasons" from Morc Huck Pump
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:43:23 -0230
From: wokshevs@xxxxxx


Some replies to Eric Y (und Herr Doktor Professor Seuss?)----------------->



Quoting Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>:

WO: When I use the expression ["the space of reasons"], I refer to the epistemic justification of a proposition on the basis of reasons. Does that provide something of a background for my question?



In "the space of reasons," the metaphor "space" when applied to the metaphoric term "reasons" suggests a form of discourse where someone's knowledge of a proposition is justified by a list of reasons. Or do I misconstrue?


--------> You misconstrue not. One cannot "know that" something is the case without being able to provide epistemically relevant justification for the knowledge-claim. (Btw, how is "reasons" a metaphoric term? Reasons are always
literal kinds of creatures, I would have thought.)



The proposition, "I do not like thee Doctor Fell / Although why I cannot tell " would therefore (by self-confession) fall outside the "space of reasons."


----------> It's like liking (or not) green eggs and ham. An expression of affinity for or against someone is not a knowledge-claim. So, yes, I would say that the expression falls outside the space of reasons.


In falling outside the space of reasons, the couplet is hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky / With hideous ruin and combustion down / To bottomless perdition, there to dwell / In adamantine chains and penal fire. Or something equally discrediting and uncomfortable for both proposition and proposer. Exile to some nasty anti-Quine universe where all a-posteriori knowledge can be proven true, maybe?

-----> Darn if I know! I can't discern any propositional content in any of the above sentences. (Which reminds me: a student in one of my undergrad classes asked me after class: "Walter, do you talk like that all the time?")


This generated by my notion that in art, the irrational can be held in a superbly rational container,

------------> Although Russian by birth, I have abjured that dimension of my soul long before attaining formal-operational cognitive capacities. After all, how long can one live a contradiction? (I just know I'm going to regret asking
Eric that question!)

Cribbing from Notes From the Top of the Floorboards,

Valodsya Mihailovitch Okshevsky




Eric





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