[lit-ideas] Geary's Truth
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:52:19 EST
W. O.:
"Shall we count the fallacies, contradictions and self-contradictions
populating
MG's post below?"
--- That was a bit offensive. It offended _me_ on behalf of Geary. So
apologies, Geary, this man, W. O. who's at Memorial, has no idea how hurtful
and
unwelcome his words can be.
Of course your post is not populated by fallacies (unethical word), and
self-contradictions (which would include contradictions). It was a sincere
attempt at a PHILOSOPHIA MEA which we all appreciate.
As I would appreciate a sincere MEMORIAL PHILOSOPHY from W. O. who has been
criticising the creative in us, as proposing constraints -- he called me a
'sophist', and says that I'm the living proof of the limitations of LEARNING!
How rude!) -- that there may be common in MEMORIAL, but which we don't have to
air off in a snobbish way to silence others!
Anyway, some comments on Geary's post -- while I realise he's engaged in
positive criticism with Wager and Yost inter alii.
>I'm talking about beliefs. Beliefs are all
> we have.
Well, and DESIRES. I count my desires more important than my beliefs
ANYTIME.
>We acquire our beliefs through our culture. On a universal scale,
> no one belief has a more morally privileged standing than any other, just
as
> no culture has a more morally privileged standing. What I have just
written
> is not the Truth, it is a belief that there is no such thing as Truth.
You were lucky because you had a coherent (:-)) 'conceptual framework', as I
think Davidson and Quine calls what you mean by culture. After the fall of
Popper there have been many philosophers of the sceptical kind ('rotten
negativists', in L. K. Helm's marinistic parlance) who have realised the
importance
of the paradigm (Kuhn) or the research programme (Lakatos) or the heuristics
(Feyerabend) of beliefs to even survive as individuals.
>We hold to certain
> beliefs because we believe them to be true.
Right. This I call the 'redundancy' theory of belief. Nothing wrong with it.
But it relates to some argument by Cambridge philosopher (he died very
young, possibly cancer), Frances Plumpton Ramsey. By this theory to say,
"She is a bitch"
and
"I believe she is a bitch"
or
"It's a truth she is a bitch"
are all _equivalent_. His point is that the truth-predicate is indeed
_redundant_.
Geary continues:
>You may believe there is Truth
> out there, but until you can prove it incontrovertibly, it's just another
> belief. Those who believe that there is no Truth believe that as a truth,
> but at the same time believe that it could possibly be erroneous and
would
> amend the belief, given incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.
Yes, that's the sceptic creed, and when I was first encountered with it
through Loeb's Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Phyrrohism) I was able to apply
Grice's conversational maxims. At the time, I deviced two operators:
a noumenal operator n
a phenomenal operator ph
So we say,
(She is a bitch)n
(She is a bitch)ph
The first reads, She _is_ a bitch, while the other reads, _For all I care,
she _looks_ like a bitch to me_. I analysed the interaction of the two
operators in terms of Grice's maxims like:
Do not say what you lack adequate evidence for
Do not say that which you believe to be false
and easily concluded that the Sceptic had to remain _silent_ (ataraxia).
Also found an essay by Bar-Hillel saying that if all our language were of the
phenomenalistic guise, it would not count as a language.
Since, I have taken for granted that beliefs are _thought_ by the subject to
be _true_ even if not intersubjectively true.
Moore used to say, "It is raining but I do not believe it" was the epitome
of the silly Cambridge philosopher (which he pretended us to believe he was).
>But I
> can't imagine what kind of evidence could ever be brought forth to prove
> some belief a Truth.
> Mike Geary
> speaking the truth.
Well, perhaps Popper would work for you here. The onus probandi would be in
your enemy (Larry Kramer) or your arch-enemy (W. O.) calling your belief
'self-contradiction', or 'fallacious', or 'contradictory' (with his own
beliefs?)
But his saying, to echo Evans, doesn't make it so.
Sweet dreams!
J. L. Speranza
Philosophical Advising 7/24
and author of "Philosophy, Literature and Ideas: The Life and Times of
Andreas Ramos"
************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
Other related posts:
