[lit-ideas] Re: A Connoisseur's Guide to the Noumenon
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 12:40:17 -0400
My last post today!
Isaiah Berlin once told Grice, in a grave tone,
"The fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing."
In Kantian parlance, this transpires: The hedgehog has access to ONE
noumenon; the fox to MANY.
(what-is-known, or thought: noumenon).
In a message dated 9/11/2014 11:28:43 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx writes:
nobody knows what is the "own" noumena?
Palma raises the point about the plural "noumena", versus the singular
"noumenon".
If 'noumenon' translates, roughly, in English, as "what is thought", one
wonders about 'noumena'.
"what-are-thought"
sounds clumsy.
This leads to the consideration about the _content_ of one's psychological
attitudes.
Suppose I think:
"It is raining".
"It is cold".
I thus think, "It is raining and it is cold".
I say, "It is raining".
I say, "It is cold".
Therefore, although I do not say "and", I _say_ (broadly) that it is
raining and that it is cold.
As the Greek Lexicon by Liddell/Scott notes, the verb from which
'noumenon' derives is best translated as 'mean'.
And in considering the singular versus the plural forms of the content of
one's thoughts one may find further enlightment as to what a noumenon is.
Cheers,
Speranza
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