[lit-ideas] Everything Old is New Again
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 02:54:04 -0400 (EDT)
On Popper's novissima metaphysica.
---
In a message dated 3/11/2013 12:45:37 P.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:we can characterise Popper's philosophy as
reworking Kant's
critical philosophy to take into account three crucial developments after Kant:
1) In physics: the Einsteinian revolution in physics - Kant assumed
Newton's physics was not only correct but could never be overthrown (or
falsified). [This mistaken assumption, though understandable, led Kant into
all
sorts of difficulties he might otherwise have avoided.]
2) In logic: the Fregean revolution in logic - Kant assumed that logic as
the Greeks had it was not only correct but could never be revised or
corrected or improved. [This mistaken assumption, though understandable, led
Kant
into all sorts of difficulties he might otherwise have avoided.]
3) In evolution: the Darwinian revolution in evolution - though Kant was
very forward-thinking, Kant could not have foreseen the implications of
Darwinian thought, particularly for the 'argument from design' and cosmology.
[But this revolution also has implications for how we should understand the
role of sensory-experience and of our cognitive apparatus.]
---
There was a cartoon in Palmer's "Grammar" (Penguin).
One caveman to another: Remember when all we had to care for was nouns and
verbs?
It would seem ridiculous (or 'ludicrous' if you must) that our modes of
speech (what Grice, echoing Aristotle, calls, "ta legomena") were made to fit
these revolutions:
-- the Einstein.
-- the Frege
-- the Darwin.
Our language is categorial in nature and Aristotelian to boot. "The S
(substance) is P (predicable)."
If the subject-predicate logic doesn't fit Einstein, that's Einstein's
loss.
Similarly, it would be otiose that instead of saying "There's someBODY
ringing the door" we would have to specify, alla Darwin, with species and
sub-species homo sapiens sapiens.
Finally, Frege's discoveries were mainly in substitutional quantification
-- which Aristotle found otiose.
----
So, our metaphysics (and physics, as embedded in our ordinary talk) is
'stone age' and the idea, by Popper, that he needs a NEW metaphysics reminds me
of Peter Allen's song in "All that jazz"
EVERYTHING OLD is new again.
Cheers,
Speranza
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