[lit-ideas] Re: A thought for the coming year

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2013 11:33:11 -0800 (PST)

The reason we don't usually say ' a box of pizza' is, I suppose, that pizza is 
a countable noun in Italian (tre pizze), and so it has been taken over in other 
languages as a countable noun. Even so, I don't see anything unintelligible 
about the expression, and certainly not an issue that would transcend mere 
grammar usage. We can say 'three vodkas' (countable) in a bar or 'a bottle of 
vodka' (uncountable) in a store, being understood on both occasions. 

O.K.



On Tuesday, December 31, 2013 8:09 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:
 
Well, just as we can intelligibly say 'a bottle of vodka,' without specifying 
the quantity, so it seems to me that we can intelligibly say 'a box of pizza'  
without specifying the quantity. A box of pizza being delivered is not 
necessarily equivalent to what you get when you order 'a pizza' in a 
restaurant. It may be that, ehem, there are 'deeper' philosophical issues at 
stake that escape me at present. 

O.K.



On Tuesday, December 31, 2013 7:57 PM, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> 
wrote:
 



Quoting Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>:

> I tried to send this yesterday but it went only to Dr. O. and not to the list
> at large.  
>  And I am not a Canadian native speaker of English (minimally). Why Walter
> > thinks that Canadian usage, or even native English usage, should have a
> > privileged status (provided that we understand what is meant) is somewhat
> > unclear, and might need to be supported by appropriate argument.
> > Another question that comes to mind with all this talk about Christmass is:
> > shouldn't Walter, being a Russian by birth and language (note that it is
> > pronounced with u in Irish English, i.e. 'rušn') be celebrating the
> Orthodox
> > Xmass, on January 7th ?
> > 
> > O.K.
> 

-------------> As I thought was clear from the questions I appended to my
conceptual analysis of the expression "box of pizza," I do not attribute the
oddity of that expression to a level of language proficiency. I believe there
is a conceptual, and hence a philosophical, issue at play in that expression;
not a simply (empirical) semantic or linguistic one. If I am correct, then the
oddity is not restricted to any particular natural language; rather, all native
speakers of all languages would find the same oddity. If I am correct, there is
some stuff in the universe which cannot be "a box of." 

The idea that some natural language is more capable of philosophical analysis
than other languages is not a view I
 hold. Now if we were to ask Heidegger
.....

Yes, as I have been writing in my posts for the past few days, I continue to
patiently await the arrival of the true/genuine/authentic/real Christmas and
Dsyet Moroz. I have been a good boy all year long, and I now demand suitable
recompense for my virtue. 

My Decalogue of Wishes:

1. An S-80 Volvo (preferably antelope grey with navy blue trim)
2. A Mont Blanc fountain pen (preferably red and blue with gold lacing)
3. A 100 l. bottle of Acqu di Gio by Armani. (Americans amongst us may wish to
be apprised that this is a men's cologne. Be careful how you use it.)
4. An Aberlast Butterfly table tennis racquet. Two would be better.
5. No snow in 2014.
6. A
 Daniel Hechter winter coat (grey).
7. An all expense paid week in Montreal, at l'Hotel de la Montaigne, inc
tickets
to a Habs game.
8. A box of meat (a perfectly in order expression, btw)from Brandt's Foods
(Toronto), including smoked meat, pig's knuckles, wieners, German sausages,
Hungarian salami and a variety of mustards and pickles.
9. An Order of Canada
10. Kant's 10 favorite jokes to tell at the "gaming table." ("Two Humeans enter
a bar ..." [Feel free to complete the joke. Mike?]) He was quite the gregarious
socializer, it seems. (Especially when it came to the baker's daughter. But it
ended sadly.)

Walter O







> 
> 
> On Monday, December 30, 2013 12:14 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>  
> It would be really nice if idealism was true, I'd have a box of pizza in
> front of me instead of just the thought of pizza in my head.      O.K.
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, December 29, 2013 11:24 PM, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>  
> Walter wrote
> 
> Well, when I asked RP to articulate for us his conception of a thought, I
>  was
> not thinking he would simply compile a number of examples of "thought" or
> "thinking. From these examples proffered, we see that the terms, as
> understood
> by RP can refer to:
> 
> 1. an argument
> 2. a belief
> 3. a thought dreamt (this one sort of begs the question, I would think)
> 4. a decision made or report on a decision made
> 5. a phenomenon or word to which "weird" could be attributed
> 6. an activity
> …………………
> 
> But RP must still be firmly ensconced in the lap of family and friends since
> he
> resists the labour of the concept called for by  the philosophical question
>
 I
> posed.
> 
> *It’s not so much that I resist it; it’s that I don’t understand it. I
> really don’t know what ‘the labour of the concept’ means.  
> 
> Walter spells out what I would have to do in order order to adequately answer
> that question. 
> [I would have to provide us ] not with a laundry-list, a bag, of examples of
> "thought"/"thinking" but rather with the criteria [I use] in identifying all
> these examples as examples *of* "thought"/"thinking." [For I] surely must be
> in possession of such criteria, else [I] would not be able to differentiate
> "thought"/"thinking" from anything else in the world (i.e., pizza,
> doggy-bags, birdfeeders, a 40 yr old
 Highland Park) and thus would be unable
> to identify some things and events as "examples."
> 
> *Something has gone slightly wrong. Apparently Walter is providing a list of
> things that aren’t and could not be thoughts, yet how he knows they
> aren’t thoughts isn’t entirely clear. The items in this motley are
> apparently related to each other only insofar as they are not thoughts. How
> this is known a priori is not obvious.
> 
> I don’t think that how a thought differs from a birdfeeder e.g. is an
> empirical problem.
> 
> And yet…
> 
> How did I identify the things on the list in my last post as thoughts or
> thinking? What criteria
 did 
> I use? That is a question for another post.  The stuff above is just
> skirmishing.  I’ll get right on it.

> 
> Robert Paul

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