Geary wrote:
"Philosophy is the only field of study where there's no definitively wrong
theory."
In a message dated 7/26/2015 8:42:19 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
"One wonders what Geary meant when he wrote "definitively wrong"."
I guess one can ask (or axe, as they say in some vernaculars) Geary 'bout
it.
"Did he mean what he wrote?"
Or more importantly, did he wrote what he meant?
The same thing.
"Hardly the same thing," Geary adds: "One might just as well say that I eat
what I see is the same thing as I see what I eat."
Geary indeed goes on:
"Did he wrote what he meant?"
One could ask Geary. In other cases, one can't -- directly. Example, did
God meant, "thou shalt not kill" when the writers of the Old Testament wrote
that God wrote "Thou shalt not kill"?
Geary goes on:
"For to my way of thinking Philosophy is the only field of study wherein
there is no definitely RIGHT theory."
But isn't that the same as saying that philosophy is the only field of
study wherein there is no definitely wrong theory."
As Ethel Merman used to say, "Right is wrong, and two wrongs make a right."
---
Geary adds:
"It's all just talking -- a language game, if you prefer."
Rather, as Witters would prefer. He was obsessed with the idea of 'games',
even though he couldn't even play cricket! (McEvoy might add: "play cricket
WELL", you might mean: every school boy (and Witters once was) can play
cricket -- albeit bad."
Geary adds:
"But then, of course, there are those sophers, such as moi, who believe
that humaninity is so closely tied to languaging that it's nigh on impossible
to separate them -- like slurred words and drunkards -- like Speranza's
favourite song: they go together like a horse and carriage**, like love and
marriage, that was told by mother, you can't have one without the other."
In fact, you can. The lyricist was being, shall we say, 'corny'? Surely
there is 'marriage by convenience', which is admittedly the carriage without
the horse, if you will. And there's love among native-Americans, before the
incursions of the Brits, where 'marriage ceremonies' were, to use the words
of one explorer, "rare".
In fact, in the Malagasy language, there is no word for 'marriage'. (Geary
might add: "But there is a word for 'divorce'").
Geary adds:
"It's all the same. We and language. Shalom and Pax and Peace and Shantih
and you know..."
Yes. "We and language". Or "Language and We". As Ritchie was mentioning,
"Mark and Spencer", or as I prefer, loving Yorkshire, "Spencer and Mark"*.
Cheers,
Speranza
* Grice says that 'and' is commutative: i.e. 'peaches and cream' is the
same thing as 'cream and peaches'; 'Laurel and Hardy' is the same thing as
"'Hardy and Laurel'. In fact, there is no "x and y" thing which is not
logically equivalent to "y and x".
** The song was made popular by Frank Sinatra, an Italian-American singer
of jazz and stuff.
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